'tis the season...

My parents fighting over the volume on our way to Seattle to see my sister. :) Haha

I made Aiden's 3rd Birthday cake, but I don't have the pictures of it yet! I used blue food dye, and Casey thought it would be funny to color my cereal the morning we left for Seattle. Silly boy!!It kinda freaked me out...but I ate it despite myself. Haha

Karyn's baby boy, Chandler, lookin' cute. :)

Emma lookin' cute! :)

My mom's pretty German tree. Complete with every ornament my sister and I have ever made. :)

Daddy and pukey Emma :(

Josh reading to Aiden ^ and my sister reading to Shaylee!

Merry Christmas, Emma!!

Poor sick girl.

Casey reading to Emma, Jade, and Asher.

Delicious peanut butter balls covered in real white chocolate...I had to make these once I felt better. C'mon, what's Christmas without being healthy enough to enjoy the treats!? ;)

It's the most wonderful time...of the year! Or is it? Well, it would have been more so if my baby girl and I weren't so unbelievably sick through it all. Our three week vacation started out well. Casey and I drove down to Kennewick to spend some time with my parents, which was a lot of fun! After a few days we all loaded up in my parent's SUV and took a road trip to Seattle to stay with my sister and her family for a couple nights. My sister put on the Christmas pageant for church and it was really good! She did a great job writing the scrips and organizing everything. She is very talented! We also celebrated her son, Aiden's, 3rd birthday. After our stay, we drove back to Kennewick. The next day Casey and I drove out to Basin City, where our best friends Karyn and Jason live. Their house is in the middle of a huge field which Jason's family owns and farms. We were looking out the window and spotted a good sized snow covered hill...and immediately we were brainstorming things we could use to sled down it! A couple neon-colored inflatable water tubes later...we were stumbling through the snow covered field toward our destination. It was a lot further than it looked! It was also a little more difficult when we realized the deep tractor tracks that were beautifully camouflaged by the snow. Well, we tested the hill out and made our way back to the house. It was already getting dark, and I was petrified by the idea of coyotes scattered about the fields...Karyn was freaking me out!! Haha. But we made it back without getting eaten. The next day we all drove-brilliant idea to drive this time-out to the hill and had a blast sledding! That evening we headed into town and helped Karyn's family put together goody plates to hand out to friends and neighbors, then we all drove around handing them out. The next evening we were all on our way out the door for a night on the town when poor little Chandler got sick all over the place. We didn't know if it was just a one time thing, so after bathing him we jumped in the truck and started to drive down the road. Well, he got sick again. Poor guy! We went back to the house and he was sick for the rest of the night! The next day we all went into town and hung out but Emma wasn't showing any symptoms, so we were in the clear! Right? Wrong. We stayed with my parents again Wednesday night until Christmas morning. My sister and her family also stayed for Christmas Eve! On Christmas Eve we were all getting ready to walk out the door (sounding familiar?) for our traditional Christmas light looking, when Emma got sick all over the place!! She threw up all night as well. I felt so bad for her because she hasn't ever been sick. That evening my throat was starting to feel incredibly sore. (Recognize any foreshadowing here?) We had a fun evening nonetheless, complete with our family tradition of sauerkraut and bratwurst. Mmm, mm!! In the morning we headed off to Moses Lake to spend some time with Casey's family. By that time my voice was shot. I never got what Emma had...but my cold was horrible! It was the first time I had been sick in OVER a year. Yeah. THE worst cold I have ever had, and this is including the many, many colds I caught when I was tutoring at an elementary school a couple years ago. This cold was wretched. Cough, sore throat, ear aches in both ears, swollen glands, high fever, sinus pressure, and just plain misery. It lasted the rest of our vacation. :( Oh what fun. Emma also had a cold, and we took her to the walk in for it and got her some medicine. After Christmas Eve, she wasn't throwing up anymore or anything. And none of us got what she had, so that was good! So anyways, Wednesday rolled around, which was the day we had planned on leaving. In the afternoon we finally packed up and took off. By the time we got home my eye was swollen shut and nasty! Which I feared was pink eye, but it turns out it was just my body reacting to the illness I had. It seriously hurt, though! That night I was feeling even more terrible than before and I was burning up! Casey took me into the Emergency room to see what was going on. I was running a fever of 103, and just all kinds of sick. The doc drugged me up and sent me home with some super potent antibiotics, which really helped! The next evening, however, I was puking. Who knows why? The doctor tested me for all kinds of things and said I did not have influenza. It may have been a migraine. Let's just say I'm glad that passed. And the biggest miracle of it all...Casey did not ever get sick! My mom got the cold, but my dad didn't. My dad was joking that it was a "female disease". HAAA Dad. Casey and I spent a relaxing, enjoyable evening at home for New Year's Eve. We were both glad to be home after such a long, and kinda high pace vacation! But we really did have a great time being able to see family. And needless to say, I actually lost weight during the holidays...so I don't even have to do the "working extra hard after the holidays" thing! Haha. Not that it was a pleasant way to go about it. I totally would not recommend that tactic. But the week I was sick I didn't have the energy to exercise. So I went an entire week without!! I hate that feeling. I started back up today with my routine. Feels great to be back on schedule! Before we left, I had almost finished the second half of "Insanity". I took my "fit test" and to my immense satisfaction, I learned that I have improved SO MUCH! I have also lost inches and gained muscle. Yay! But now I am actually going to start from the beginning of the program again. And of course, I will be starting my triathlon training once more. Can't wait!
We have gotten a new Sunday School class to teach this year. I taught the first class yesterday and it went well. I look forward to teaching them! Two of the kids are Autistic at different levels, so it will be a learning experience for Casey and I both.
Well, about the "New Year's Resolutions" that we all are making right about now. I looked at my last year's resolutions, and I had some pretty good ones! I also did not tackle them as I had intended, so this year I am simply going to "renew" my old ones. Is that legit? I hope so. The lame thing about setting a "resolution" is that by summertime most of us don't even remember the meaning of the word. Oh well, it's good to recognize what we need to work on!!
Today Emma is 13 months old. She has been chatting our ears off more and more every day! A few of my favorite words that she says are: "ahh-choo!" which she thinks is hilarious, "whas that?", "pwetty!!" and "up!" when she wants up. When we ask her what a doggy says she says "woo woo!" She says "WOWW!!" and "hi" and "bye" to everyone she sees. She still only says "please" in sign, but "thank you" with words. Haha.I try to write down all of her new words in my journal...that way I don't have to write them ALL on here, because I could imagine it would get kinda old for my readers after a while. Haha! The funniest thing is when she hears the song "G6", or any song with good bass, because she dances like crazy and yells "YAAAAYY!!" every time. Yes, we've created that monster. :)
Tomorrow Casey begins his second quarter at CWU. Last quarter he got a 4.0 in each of his classes, even his hard ones! I am so glad that he is doing so well. And I am proud of him, because he works so hard. I'm excited to see what this next quarter has in store for us. I am more excited to see what this new year has in store!!