Christmas 2017

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! 

I'm not sure whether it was the fact that Sarah started the Tamiflu within 12 hours of having a fever or because she had the flu shot in the fall, but by Friday morning her fever had broken and she was starting to feel much better.  By Saturday morning she felt fine.  It was as if she had merely had a cold instead of the flu!

Dan's sister and uncle arrived on Saturday afternoon and the Christmas festivities began!  We went to Mass Saturday evening and then came home to a dinner of pot roast that had been in the crockpot all day and a delicious apple pie made by my uncle (who is an excellent baker!).

 I spent a lot of the day Sunday preparing for our little Christmas Eve party.  We attended a Lovefeast and Candlelight service at the church my parents and brother go to.  My friend Jennifer and her family went as well.  Afterwards, everyone came back to our house for appetizers.  (Appetizers are my favorite food group!) We had a great time and as usual, I did not take pictures.  I always forget to take pictures when I'm at a party.  But trust me, there was a lot of food and we had fun!

When they left, we cleaned up and then put out the presents and went to bed.

I always wrap the kids presents in a different paper so I know whose is whose without having to put name tags on them.

If you look closely you can see the Grinch behind the tree.  Okay - so maybe he's not the Grinch but an elf!  :)

 We were going to mass at 11:00 so in order to unwrap the gifts and have time for breakfast, I had to drag the kids out of bed at 8:00.  They would have slept until 10:00 or later if I would have let them!

After Mass, we  came home and had Christmas lunch at my parent's house where there was tons more delicious food and we unwrapped more gifts.

But before we unwrapped gifts, we took our annual Tesh family Christmas picture.  This was the 20th year that we've taken it.  I have a photo album with all of the pictures in it.  It is so much fun to see how we've all grown and changed over the years.  We always do it on the couch and whoever is celebrating with us isjj included in the photo.  

Merry Christmas everyone!

The longest and shortest week ever.

I'm sitting here asking myself two questions.  How can it already be Friday?  and Is it only Friday?

This has been the absolute longest week and the absolute fastest week.  How can that even be possible??

I guess because I've done a lot AND I've still got a lot left to do!  But, isn't that the way this time of year?

And to top it off?  My sweet Sarah woke up yesterday with a low-grade fever.  I was monitoring it all day and was planning on reassessing right before our doctor's office starts their drop-in hours (this is a huge plus for this practice Y'all!) but even before that, Sarah said, "I need to go to the doctor."

And, as I feared it was the flu.  I'm hoping that we got the Tamiflu in her soon enough that it will really show a good benefit.  And yes, we all got the flu shot.  I guess with everything going around her school (flu and stomach virus) she was bound to get something.

On a positive note, I've wrapped every single gift for every person on my list except the one item that hasn't come yet.  And of course, it's one of the things I bought for Peter that I think he will be most excited about. 

Also on a positive note, I've done all the planning and shopping for our Christmas Eve party!  Now today I need to spend it getting Peter's hair cut, cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning.  Because Dan's sister and uncle are coming to spend Christmas with us and this place is a mess. 

And before I forget.  Now that everyone on our list has received their Christmas card from us, I would like to show you some of the highlights from our fall photo shoot.

 I hope you guys have a great weekend and a very Merry Christmas!!!

The last pageant.

Monday night was the school Christmas pageant.  Sarah has been excited for this for weeks.  As an 8th grader, she had a lot of different roles. Her class was doing a handbell number that they had been practicing for weeks and weeks and she said was going to be very good.

Also, the 8th graders handle all the backstage duties, narrator duties, and serve as nativity scene members.  Sarah was going to be an angel in the nativity and also had a speaking part as one of the narrators.

At the end of last week, Sarah would come home with reports of how many were missing from her class and the other classes due to the stomach bug.  It was taking down kids left and right.

On Monday, she came home from school dejected because quite a few members of her class were out and they were going to have to cut the handbell number from the program and they had to make some last minute changes to who was doing what behind the scenes and in the nativity.

She kept saying how the show was going to be horrible.  I kept reminding her that the audience doesn't know what the show was supposed to be and to just get out there and do the best they could do.

Y'all!  This show was so good!  We have a new music teacher this year and she and the kids have spent a lot of time on this program.  All the kids sang so well!  There was even a confetti cannon at the end as Jesus popped out of a birthday cake while the K-1 graders were singing Happy Birthday.

I told the music teacher at the end of the show that this was our 7th pageant at school and this was by far the best one.  And I really meant it.  It wasn't perfect - these little school productions never are - but it was just so, so good.   It really put me into the Christmas spirit.

Here are a few pictures I took with my phone. 

 Narrating like a boss!

Littles dressed up like shepherds make me smile.

They acted out all the parts of the Christmas story in little scenes while another grade sang a song in the background and of course, it ended with the nativity scene.

It's not Christmas without a birthday cake for Jesus! (My angel is behind the cake.)

Jesus popped out of the cake and handing out gifts (like hope, love, joy, peace, etc.) to all the kids.  I know it sounds a little cheesy but it was really cute! And those kindergarteners weren't expecting the confetti cannon and they had a blast playing in the confetti at the end of the show.

Sarah got to present the music teacher with flowers at the end of the show.

 

 

 

 That's our last Christmas pageant and it was a great one!  It's a little bittersweet knowing there won't be more (until perhaps grandkids come along) but it was great going out on a high note.