Enjoying the family

I haven't been online much the past few days as we've been enjoying time as a family :) I have a few pictures to share but otherwise we just had a nice time all visiting and spending time together.

Yesterday Brianna woke up thirsty, downed some milk then threw up. She threw up again in the tub and then again after drinking a little juice later on. She looked pale and laid on the toddler mattress in the family room and fell asleep during nap time but when she got up from nap she was up and at 'em and seemed just fine. It wasn't until I went to put her in bed that night that I found that she'd kept a milk cup in her bed all night. We're pretty sure she must have drank the spoiled milk first thing in the morning and that's what made her sick.

In the afternoon we went and played outside and measured out the playground area that we want to do something on the ground in. There are beautiful shade trees on that side of the house but that means there's also very little grass and there are a lot of roots. With all the kids wanting to be mobile out there we'd like to do something like mulch or something similar to make it more fun for them to play out there. Our neighbor's son also came over for a bit and played with Kristopher. They buried little keychain toys in the "give away" box and dug around to get them again, they played on the fort and they acted like boys with sticks :) They played really well together and it's one of the first times that they've played together for any length of time.

Today we got the porch/playroom cleaned up and also got the dining room cleaned up post-Thanksgiving. We then moved the dining room table out to the playroom and put up our Christmas tree in the dining room where it will show through the front window and not be accessible to the babies. We were able to get a new Christmas tree this year! For the past 7 years we've had the same $20 tree that we bought the first year when we got married, and it has worked fine for us until last year. There was still nothing wrong with our tree, but with 10' ceilings, our little almost 6' tall tree looked a little like Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree last year. We just couldn't replace it last year while preparing for the adoption and we figured we'd try to get one after Christmas maybe. That didn't happen either since we started packing soon after Christmas!

Well, I tried to go early and found a tree for less than $100 that is pre-lit and just in 3 pieces that have to be put together and 'fluffed'. With four little ones... that's my kind of tree! I was really pleased to be able to get a new tree this year and I hope we'll use it for another 7... or more... years. Now I just have to talk Mike into getting the decorations and skirt, etc. out of the attic so we can decorate it and get things looking like it's time for the holidays here!