**A little side note about this post. I started this post back in February. Due to the fact that Blogger was giving me problems and having technical issues, I am just getting around to posting it. There were more pictures that I was going to add, but because I have attempted about 10 times to upload photos (seriously) with no such luck; I am giving up and posting as is. The photos that DID upload look a little funny and distorted but, at this point, I am not even going to try to fix them, because honestly, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" So, here is our Christmas post from Christmas 2013. Enjoy! :-)**
Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Christmas! I love everything about it. This Christmas was a little different (and not in a good way) than Christmas' in the past, but we'll get to that in a minute. Before our Christmas Day disaster, we had a lot of fun leading up to Christmas! We did all of our usual traditions: baked cookies, made a gingerbread train (Jackson preferred that over a house this year...big shock there. ;-)), watched Polar Express, Rudolph, Charlie Brown Christmas, Home Alone and any other Christmas movie that you can think of a MILLION times over, made salt dough ornaments (a new tradition that I started this year and I hope to keep up! They turned out adorable and I can't wait to put them on our tree next year!), had fun with our Elf on the Shelf "Woody" and all of his shenanigans, attended our Christmas Eve service at church and of course, most importantly, read & talked many times about the reason that we celebrate Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ. Jackson is at an age where he really understands why we are celebrating and is VERY into all things "God and Jesus", as he calls it. He enjoyed acting out the birth of Jesus with his Nativity Scene by "Little People" (thank you Aunt Michaela and Uncle Matthew!) and according to his teacher, even let his Pre-K class know that Christmas is "Baby Jesus' birthday!". His teacher told me "He is so excited. He just really loves Christmas!" Wonder where in the world he gets that from?! ;-) Here are a few pictures of our fun leading up to Christmas...
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| Photos for the Christmas Card |
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| The last year with it just being Jackon & Walker. Next year we will have little Jude in the mix! :-) |
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| Family photo! I am about 5 months pregnant with Jude here. :-) |
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| Our Elf "Woody" made Jackson a special breakfast and decorated our dining room on his return from the North Pole! |
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| He even brought Jackson some goodies from the North Pole! |
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| A note from Santa! |
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| It turned out great, but this thing was a little devil! We finally gave up on the icing and used a hot glue gun to hold it together! It's not like we're really gonna eat the thing! ;-) |
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| Jackson loved his red Christmas tree from Mimi! |
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| One morning Woody showed up with a new stocking on our fireplace for baby Jude!! Jackson was SO excited to have a stocking for his baby brother! |
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| Hard at work making salt dough ornaments! |
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| Christmas with the cousins at Granny & Papa Dykes' house! |
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| Sorting out all of the green, red and brown M&M's for our annual reindeer cookies for Santa! |
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| Yumm! |
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| Checking out the train.....his favorite part of the Christmas tree! |
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| Celebrating cousin Matthew's birthday on Christmas Eve! |
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| Christmas morning! |
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| Bempa made this lamp from scratch for Jackson's bedroom! |
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| Christmas with the McCullough's :-) (6 months pregnant with Jude) |
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His favorite Christmas gift this year!
Although the pictures from Christmas 2013 look like tons of fun, I can assure you, it was NOT! Everything was fun up until Christmas morning and then, it happened. We have to start the story with Christmas Eve night. We all went over to my sister & bother-in-law's house for Christmas with my Mom's side of the family. We always get together with them on Christmas Eve and it's always a great time. This year was no different, we had a great time and enjoyed great food. We got home, read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and all settled in for the night. At about 12:00 a.m., Adam started not feeling well. He spent the rest of the night hugging the toilet and feeling like he was going to die. After about 7 hours of throwing up, he seemed to feel a little better and we thought maybe he had a touch of a stomach bug and the worst part was over. Then my Dad called (my parents always come over on Christmas morning for breakfast) and asked if any of us were feeling ill and I told him about Adam. He said that both my Mom and brother were sick as well. At this point, we weren't sure what to think and we felt fine, so my Dad came over by himself for Christmas breakfast. During breakfast we got a call from my sister telling us that She, her 8 year old and 2 year old were all sick as well. We definitely suspected food poisoning, but both my Dad and I were still feeling fine and thinking that we'd dodged the bullet. All was good, we ate breakfast, Dad went home, we took naps and began to get ready to make the trip down to Folkston (about 2 hours away). As we began to pack, Adam still wasn't feeling the best, but much better. But, now I was not feeling so well. I struggled through packing and brought a plastic bag in the car for us, just in case. We got about 12 miles down the road and.......it hit me! And when I say in hit me, I mean it HIT ME! Let's just say the plastic bag wasn't enough....not nearly enough! Adam pulled over and I hung out of the car for about 10 minutes. When I finally finished revisiting my breakfast, we headed to my grandparents house (right down the road from where we pulled over) and I took a shower and changed. We then headed on to Folkston with me lying straight back in the passenger seat. As soon as we got there, we crawled straight into the guest bed at my in-laws and didn't get out for the next 2 days. In the end, about 8 members of our family that ate the same food on Christmas Eve got sick sometime within the next 12 hours. We obviously had a bout of food poisoning and it was AWFUL! Thankfully, our little picky Jackson wouldn't eat any of the food at my sister's that night, so he steered clear of it. But for Adam and I, it was a very sick Christmas. Here's to hoping that Christmas 2014 is MUCH better!! ;-)
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