It's The Little Things...: I'll be home for Christmas...1

Soooooo Friday, Dec 14th couldn't get here fast enough. We decided to do the intimidating "drive thru the night" option in hopes the kids would sleep and we could make it to NC faster. We knew we would have eager Grandparents and Aunt/Uncles to take kid duty for us to catch up on sleep so we decided to try it. Of course two days before we leave I had to take Jenna to the doctor where she had a bad ear infection. Antibiotics and insane amounts of kids medicines (benedryl, all natural cough syrup, Tylenol, ibuprofen, you name it) in hand, we packed up the van and waited until after my late evening feeding with Easton and hit the road! Leading up to this point Jenna had been getting up every 30 minutes or so at night - for about 10 days. The state of our family is another blog post in itself - exhausted isn't the word. So I was PRAYING all day Friday that she would sleep in the car or else we were going to be kicking ourselves for trying such a silly idea.

As soon as we got in the car, Caden and Easton went right back to sleep (bless you boys!) and Jenna? Wide.Awake. She probably dozed on and off, 20-30 minutes at a time for a total of 2 hours the ENTIRE TRIP. Most of the time she was just sitting there looking around, some of the time she was fussy, some of the time I had to be rubbing her foot for her to stop whining (????) and so on.... Ryan did great and stayed awake, I napped about 2 hours total on and off and we made it in record time - 8.5 hours! And that was with a wrong turn (ahem Ryan...) maybe he wasn't that awake?!? :) It was a hard night to be awake and have hours of thinking time...Friday the 14th is the day the shootings at Sandy Hook took place and I just couldn't shake the thoughts I had running through my mind and how much my heart hurt for those parents and siblings. Amazing how much more patience I had in the cramped, long, ride down just having things in perspective...I put on facebook how thankful I was to have all of my babies in the car, safe, with me....even if it was going to be a long trip.

Anyway, we rolled up to my parents house about 6:00 am and it was like pulling up to the Griswolds. haha, I kid. But my parents were up out of bed, showered and dressed, every light in the house and outside the house was on, Christmas tree lit, ready for our arrival. They came running out to grab a child as we were throwing them out of the van! haha. Oh, and in case you were wondering, my super boys slept the ENTIRE WAY. Yes, my 6 week old at that point slept the entire way - no mobile feeding necessary!

I love my parents...they took the kids, we threw in the mandatory bags, then me and Ryan crashed upstairs until lunch. The kids were ECSTATIC and had the best time running and playing with Gigi, Papa T and later Aunt Robin.

By the end of week one, the germs must have multiplied in the van ride down from Ohio. Jenna had her ear infection, Caden began snotting and ended up with an ear infection, my sweet newborn had the worst sounding old man cough and after begging my old Pediatrician to take a listen, was diagnosed with a mild case of RSV. He handled it as best as you could hope for....no, he couldn't lie flat to sleep so he either took naps in the bouncy seat, or one of us held him (= NO SLEEP!) and just sounded pitiful when he was trying to nurse. And lets not leave out Ryan...of COURSE he had to pick up a sinus infection. All in all, during our 3 weeks home for Christmas, we had 6 Urgent Care/Pediatrician visits. And no, I never caught any of it - moms dont have the time (or pleasure) to lie on the couch and be sick, right?

These two are trouble together...just let that be documented.

Maybe getting up that early was TOO early for Papa T? :)

Again...Papa T get up too early?

And now Aunt Robin has hit her wall...haha. Easton LOVED his snuggle time with extra arms.

I wasn't kidding about the amount of medicine we had in hand...

Having so much fun with Aunt Robin and Papa T

Playing with their Little People Nativity Set my mom got them last year. They LoVED it! And I love that they will have something to be "hands on" with each year when Christmas decorations come out.

Jenna started putting the figurines on the box as they were pictured. Funny girl!

I just love this boy! So thankful he was with us this year!

Of course we had to make Rice Krispies again - and true to form, the twins attacked, devoured, conquered and won.

TICKLE FIGHT with Uncle Brad

We got Easton's stocking picture like I have of the twins. One day I'm going to do a comparison post...it was so fun reliving the twins' first Christmas thru "remake" photos!

Most importantly this Christmas (kidding), we began teaching Jenna correct Volleyball form. I'd say she is already a little natural.

Bend your knees a little bit and go right on towards that college scholarship. Good girl.

Brave or dumb, I'm not quite sure, we took the twins to see Santa. Just like everyone out there with toddlers, it's really more for mom and her scrapbook or blog than it is for the kids. All in all, they did great - Caden was of course timid at first and did not want to sit in Santa's lap. Soooo I just plopped him on the side of the chair. He looked at me like I was crazy for allowing him to do such a thing and just sat there dumbfounded. Ok by me! It kept him still and looking at the camera!

And please, come on Santa....I know you sit there 36 hours a day with snotty, crying kids sitting on your lap, but you are the adult...you need to be looking at the camera at ALL times. Leave it to our Santa to be looking away when all THREE kids were actually looking. :) ahh good times.