Ah, Christmas.  Sickness almost took us all out.  By some miracle (or maybe just a lot of praying) my sweet 5 year old niece and Charlie both recovered in time for our big family party.  Dali had the flu and Charlie had strep.  Ask me how it felt to have to take Charlie to the pediatric urgent care on Christmas Eve after her fever still hadn’t come down – two days earlier her peds office told us to “watch and wait” – it never dawned on me that it could be strep.  She never mentioned her throat hurting or anything!  Thank goodness strep is treatable.  We got her on antibiotics ASAP.  She still wasn’t feeling her peppy self on Christmas morning, which was really hard to watch.  Under normal circumstances, she would have been the first to race into the living room to see what Santa had left.  Poor bug.  We postponed our family party till the Monday after Christmas so my niece had an extra day to recover, and I was so happy to get the call that they were in fact on their way to our house.  No doubt about it, travelling with little ones is hard enough without adding sickness to the mix.  My older brother’s family set up camp in Ella’s room (my sister-in-law said they were like refugees) and we had 48 wonderful hours together.  We gorged ourselves on chips, dip, sweets and my brother’s William Sonoma pumpkin butter bars.  Hopefully I haven’t done too much damage to the old body (when I’m finally seeing some encouraging results!) – best to live in denial about that one. Santa was generous this year.  I was pleased as punch that my surprise gift to Vann (actually, not mine at all – I was just the organizer), a chrome Kitchenaid mixer, came together like it did.  Both sets of parents and Vann’s sister contributed to it and it was so fun seeing him open it.  We had agreed “no big gifts this year” (HELLO we are sleeping under the big gift) – but I had to work it out so that he could get what he really wanted.  Last year, Vann surprised me with a beautiful Louis Vuitton “Palermo” bag.  Imagine my face when he presented that big brown box to me – it was the middle of the night and I was nursing Ella and in the heat of a newborn fog – well, let’s just say that it brought a smile to my face when smiles were hard to come by.  This year, after his birthday got overshadowed by our move, I knew I had to bring it this Christmas.  He deserved all that and more. As for me, I received some Lululemon socks, a ton of books I’d been wanting (including a camera book and Jay-Z’s “Decoded”), a Starbucks card, Katy Perry’s new CD, and some cash to buy some fun new things. And of course, I took very few pics.  I finally figured out what “available light” means – here are a few of the house (didn’t realize a whole strand of lights were out on the tree until I took this pic!): And some of the kiddos: Not great ones, but of course the only ones I took of their matching dresses: REALLY tough getting everyone to look at the camera at the same time!  My excruciatingly adorable nephew, Owen, my precocious niece, Dali, Charlie, Mimi (my Mom), and Baby Ella: Pillow Pets! All in all, a wonderful Christmas.  I’m sad it’s over.  But I guess it wouldn’t be as special if we had decorations up year round.  It makes Fall and Winter brand new again.