Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Let's talk about Christmas Eve for a post, shall we? I know I'm almost a month behind, but what can I say. Life is crazy lately.

We started out the day like any other day. I did my major cleaning of the house all while baking a cake. The rest of the family did their various activities.

We started getting ready to go to my Grandma's around 4. But before we left I wanted to give the kids their Christmas Eve PJ's. I was excited this year because Eric really helped me out. I really wanted to get themed jammies, Eric pretty much said, "Forget that, get them something they'll like." For once in my life I listened to him. Turns out it was a good thing.

The last thing I wanted to do before we left was get a picture of the kids in their Christmas shirts. Well, Ailey was mad cause I wouldn't let her put on her 'Punzel' jammies and therefore she would cooperate for a picture, so I had to jump in the picture. Guess it's a good thing I wore red. Sadly Tanis looks a bit out of place, but I couldn't find a cool shirt for him in red. The lettering is red, that's good enough, right?

... I don't know what's up with those two yahoo's on the right...

After we took pictures we headed out to Grandma's. Well, the weather in our little valley was deceitful. We had clear skies, maybe a small flurry of two or snow, but it was mostly clear. We get out of our valley and I was blown away by how bad it was. It was a very anxious ride, Eric was nervous driving and I was just praying he wouldn't be mad at me all night and that we'd be safe. We made it to Grandma's safely, but it took like 1 1/2 hours compared to the hour it would've taken otherwise.
We had a nice time at Grandma's. We mostly visited with my own family members, but saw a few cousins that we chatted with as well. I spent a good part of the night sitting with Grandma and helping her with her gifts. Her eyes aren't great so she need a little bit of helping deciphering who gave her what. We had a nice visit and she kept telling me how much she appreciates everything I've done for her and all the cute stuff she has in her house. When people ask who made something, she likes to reply, "My Shilo."
While I was helping Grandma, my kids decided to terrorize their newest uncle, Mark. Thankfully Mark has kids of his own, so he knows how they act - but still my kids can be terrors. Wow. And hey, they aren't all to blame. Mark helped egg them on. I promise.

We decided to head home before it got too late and the drive home was a bit better, still a little anxiety there, but it was better.

We get home and I start feeling really sick to my stomach. I tried to tell myself I had just eaten too much or something and I'd be fine in the morning. Well it just got worse and worse. While we were waiting for Santa, I could tell something wasn't right, but I prayed I'd be fine after sleeping it off.

I never really got to sleep. I was up all night vomiting or having diarrhea. (Sorry, TMI) It was literally I'd do one thing just to go back to bed and be up a half hour later doing the other. I really didn't sleep. Then the kids came up at 3:30, thinking that was the perfect time to open gifts. I quickly sent them right back to bed and tried to go to bed myself...