The Pukie Strep Holidays of 2010

Normal Christmas festivities were canceled this year when Luke started running a fever on December 23 - we took him in that morning and again on Christmas Eve for confirmation that the quarantine must begin. 4 parties in 48 hours is the normal way we roll on the Lord's Birthday - and I was absolutely SO HAPPY to stay home. It was the first Christmas we have celebrated home alone as a family ever in the history Gene and Jackie Love (13 years if you count the first Christmas Gene and I spent together... ask me another time about how he met the family at Uncle Mike's Christmas).

Ellie was sad on Christmas Eve and asked me to dress up for a fancy dinner. As every party animal knows, you only have to apply red lipstick and fancy earrings to look like you've made an effort, so on they went. Notice I left my comfy-I'm-home-in-my-own-living-room-celebrating-Christmas white socks on.

The poor baby is not having any fanciness.

I did dance around long enough to get this precious picture:

Look at them one year ago:
And now:

And then - melt...
And here's one from 2008 just for fun:I thought they were humongous and all grown up here. I also just realized I have far fewer pictures of them together from 2008 because we were buzzing around to all four parties in 48 hours. Hummm.

Back to 2010 - One more highlight from Christmas Eve was Santa calling. Our friend Mark Rhoades knows Santa REALLY well. He pulled some strings and had Santa call us even though he was sick, too!They were freaking out. Santa said "Thank you for coming to visit me at Bass Pro!" and told them exactly what they asked for, and that he would do his best to bring those things. He was so genuinely fabulous that Ross woke up the next morning and said, "Where's my scooter?"

Santa came!


Here are some Christmas morning pics - total bliss:
Here are tired Mommy & Daddy who had been up with Cranky Baby all night long:
I still like this version better than Cranky Daddy & Cranky Mommy dragging tired baby all over Springfield to the four parties. Are you noticing a theme here? I am so sorry, I don't mean to offend anyone. It was just really, really, really nice to stay home in our jammies on Christmas morning.


Spoiled rotten children!

We played our Wii for about 48 hours and then Ellie went down. She threw up for more than a day, and we all (even the doctor) thought she had the same thing Luke had earlier. We hunkered down and again celebrated the chance to be home together as a family. Here is how we spent New Year's Eve:

Just kidding. I just realized I haven't uploaded those pictures yet. Forgive me, today is the first day since December 23 someone has not had a fever in my house. Stay tuned!

Lunar Eclipse

Here we are at one in the morning waiting for the moon to turn red...


We had hot cocoa, binoculars, blankets, and plenty of complaining. We took turns coming out, checking out the eclipse outside, coming in, watching videos about what was going on, complaining about how cold it was, wondering why it was all happening so slow...

Moral of the story: MOM SHOULD DO MORE RESEARCH before waking babies up in the middle of the night to witness celestial events.

Here is what it looked like before we all fell asleep:

We did get to see the eclipse part before we crashed, but I didn't get a great picture of it.

I woke up at 2:45 and this is what it had evolved into:

I should have woken the kids back up. I didn't because it was so far away you could barely see it, and it was more orange than red. We get to see cool colored moons all the time around here, so I didn't think it was that big of a deal. And, it was 2:45 in the morning.

They angrily ran into my bed at 6:00 am and bombarded me with accusations about why I didn't wake them back up.

Luke found our hot chocolate this morning while we watched the whole thing on television.


This was the best part of the whole event. I will be cleaning carpet all day if you'd like to come over and keep me company!

Santa Baby

Yesterday we took the kids to Bass Pro to see Santa.

Julie and I were exhausted when we got out of the parking lot.

Ross brought Santa a sweet tea, as usual. This year he dropped his sweet tea all over the floor and the nice elves raaaaaaaan to Starbucks and got Santa a new tea before Ross totally came apart.

This was also the day I decided to switch Luke from two naps a day to one nap. I thought Santa would be exciting enough to stay awake for when you are 14 months old and sleepy. I was right, except I wasn't fighting him for his Binky. I could not get it out no matter how hard I tried. He delights in being stronger than me. He was just chomping down on that thing and giggling! I made several sneaky attempts and finally gave up, grateful that he was being so good during nap time.

Addison and her Bunny

All of the cousins

Ross asking for his caster scooter, water gun,
and roller back pack with wheels that light up.

Good luck finding that water gun in December, Santa ;)
If you want to help me invent a rolling back pack with wheels that light up,
we could get rich together.

Addison asking for her "America Doll"

Ellie asking for her iPod and Dairy Queen Blizzard Maker.
I need a raise.

Baby Luke and that Binky I couldn't get out!

Look at sweet Addison writing HO HO HO on her paper.
Smarty Pants 3 year old!

Ellie's list

This slide reminded me of the slide on "A Christmas Story"

Here goes Luke.
He thinks he's seven.

Ellie was so good, she did this over and over with him.

After Santa, we decided to take the kids to Hemmingway's.

That took some real bravery.

Julie kept telling everyone she was just the nanny.
People believed her.

Hemmingway's has unlimited food & beverages
which were worth the risk.

After two diaper changes,
about 16 trips to the buffet,
12 of those being for "chocolate smooth" - little chocolate mousse things in cute little plastic cups lots of screams of "NEMO, I KNOW HIM!",
and about 2 pounds of buffet on the floor,
we made it!

The kids did so great. We joked that our key to restaurant success must be the
sleep-deprived-zombie babies.

2010 Flashback - Luke's Birthday

(I was a little busy filling big brains with important science knowledge, little brains with important reading, writing, math knowledge, and cleaning up after little Toot this semester, so I have been somewhat of a BLOG SLACKER. My goal over the break is to update you on what I've missed since school started.)

Topic Number One - Luke turned ONE!

We had a small party at the house for close friends & family.


Sweet Addison with Elle's truffles.

I have to say, I would have never pulled this party off without the help of my good friend, Anne Marie. She and I had been training each Saturday morning for the Turkey Trot, and I was freaking out the morning of the party because I wasn't ready! She went to the grocery store with me, helped me pick out cute little decorations from the Farmer's Market and this cute little shop in Galloway Village called "Inspirational Home". She came back to the house with me and totally got busy while I scrubbed toilets. She tied ribbon on candles, and decorated these Mason jars with hay from our front porch to put the silverware in. I am still mad I did not take a picture of those jars because they were freakin' cute! Here are the flowers, but they are a close second to the cleverness of the jars:

The kids painted pumpkins outside in the back yard.

Here's the pumpkin cake for the littlest pumpkin


Close up of the cake

He blew out his candle! Have you ever seen a baby do that?
I thought he was going to burn his finger off, I was so nervous.
It was worth it to watch him blow that candle out!



He is starting to tear into it...


Feeding some to Mimi

Sugar Coma!

After the baby fell asleep we hung out by the bonfire.

After you have three babies, you realize the first birthday party isn't about the baby!
It's about celebrating you made it through the first year!
All of the sleepless nights!

We recognize this milestone with a new appreciation after getting through a healthy year with a healthy baby. When Ross turned one, all we could do was fall on our faces with gratitude that he made it. We ALL had a long recovery period of catching up on sleep after that birthday, followed by more surgery and trips to the hospital. When Ellie turned one, it was a whirlwind and we had no idea how lucky we were. At this celebration, all of that thankfulness, hope, and knowledge of what we could have lost were all bundled up together. I felt so calm and overwhelmed with love. Happy Birthday, Sweet Luke!

I got a new camera!

So, you don't have to hear me complain any longer when I'm trying to take a picture and my cheap old camera -----pauuuuuuses----- ; says -------- proooooocesssssing ------ ; and blurrs your face! WOO!

Before I figured out how to work the new flash, this horrible bright red light came on. It's probably some red eye reduction gadget, but I got some hilarious shots of Luke trying his best to smile in that bright light!

Sorry, Lukey!

He is trying so hard to smile and be good, bless his heart! I am so excited because my camera started acting funky around mid-September, so I am going to be a picture taking maniac this Christmas.