We took the first few days of this week trying to pull out of the illness in our home. On Tuesday I took the boys to Urgent Care because Zack's ears were infected and Tyler hadn't improved at all with all of the meds he had been on since being in the ER. They confirmed that Tyler still didn't have pneumonia and all we could do was keep doing what we were doing. Zack got a few prescriptions, and we headed home for more rest. The boys kept their fevers nice and high until Thursday when they finally broke. I have never been more happy to see such sweaty children. I still wasn't getting more than three or four hours of sleep a night with everyone up and down all the time, but we were finally making progress. I wish sleep came as easily for me as it does for these guys.
On Christmas Eve, Tansy woke up wet, so I put her in the bathtub then left her in her room to get dressed while I went downstairs to take care of some things. After a while, I realized she hadn't come down so I went to check on her. She was asleep on the floor wearing only her underwear. I woke her up and got her dressed, but shortly after she came downstairs, she fell asleep again for three hours. I knew something bad was coming.

We got our first real snow on Christmas Eve. The kids were so excited. Ben took them out to play. I even let Tansy go out when she woke up, despite the fact that I was waiting to see what illness she was coming down with.

Sydney loves snowball fights.

Zack just loves being outside.

They decided to build a snowman.

Sydney also added a scarf and hat, but I had other cold, crying children I was taking care of and didn't make it back out to get a shot of the finished product.

Later that afternoon, we had our friends the Fosters over for turkey dinner. The food turned out much better than at Thanksgiving. Tansy started complaining about snot in her throat. It turns out that she has the same repiratory infection all of us had. Everything was draining down her throat, and she threw up from all of the mucus. Lovely. We had a good dinner anyway and played Killer Bunnies afterwards. I gave Tansy a dose of Albuterol before bed hoping it would help with her coughing.

Ben and I had taken care of final preparations the night before, so things were pretty easy to take care of once the kids were asleep. We had gotten a bop bag for Zack, and the instructions said you could put water or sand in the base to weigh it down. I figured water would be easiest, but when I tried it out, it didn't work very well. We decided to try to put more water in it and ended up getting water everywhere when Ben opened it. We were laughing so hard. It was so much fun to set everything up for the kids.

At 1:30, Tansy started coughing hard again. We ended up coming downstairs, as I distracted her from looking anywhere near the tree, and had a Blue's Clues marathon for about three hours (thank you, Netflix). She managed to fall asleep again for a little while. Everyone else slept until nearly 7:00. The bowl is just in case she throws up. My kids can often (unfortunately, no always) throw up in a bowl, which makes clean up so much easier.

Santa did find us despite the creatures stirring.

The properly filled bag was a big hit. . .literally!

And Sydney got a pillow pet from my mom. That's what she asked Santa for.You might have noticed in the last picture that Tansy's shirt has changed. As we were finishing looking at Santa stuff, Tansy threw up on the floor because her bowl was still on the couch. We had to change her shirt and clean the rug before we could start opening presents.

Everyone got what they wanted and then some. We then had snowman shaped pancakes and bacon for breakfast.

We had our seafood fest last night. We enjoyed maple teriyaki salmon, homemade clam chowder, cheddar garlic biscuits (since the french bread I bought a few days earlier already had mold), and steamed broccoli. We were going to have a shrimp ring as we watched movie last night after the kids went to bed, but we were still so stuffed, we had it for lunch today. We fell asleep during the movie anyway as the past few days caught up with us.

It was a really fun family day here yesterday. No one thought about getting dressed. We just played and had fun all day. I love knowing that I will be together with my family forever because of Jesus Christ. What a wonderful way to celebrate his birth.

Death has come to the Abshire house again. On Tuesday I came down with a cold. Nothing bad, just annoying. Sydney had it by Thursday, but they cancelled school because of the ice. She did miss Friday because she was up at 2 a.m. with a low-grade fever and coughing like crazy. By 6 a.m., I decided she was staying home and notified the school. By 10 a.m., she was magically healed and tearing through the house like a crazy woman, and I wondered why I'd kept her home. At that point, she would have gotten to school just in time for the party. I'd already arranged for the neighbor to bring her stuff home, so we just called it an early Christmas break for us.

That evening Zack started with it, and Tyler joined him Friday evening. I'm going to have a new definition of sleeping in after this week. Anything past 3:30 is good. Poor Tyler didn't take his turn for the better as I expected, and when the girls and I got back from a Christmas party (a much-needed break for me at that point), I took him to the ER. His temperature had climbed to 102, his cough was worse, and he was pulling at his left ear. The ear infection was easy enough to diagnose. I was relieved to find out that he didn't have the flu, RSV, or pneumonia. Just and nasty upper respiratory infection. After breathing treatments and fever reducers, he was able to sleep for nine hours.

Not me. Zack's cough started bothering him at 3:30 so I gave him his inhaler and held him until he fell asleep on the couch. We managed to sleep for about 45 minutes before he started coughing again. Tansy came down at about 5:15 and started throwing up. Lovely. Zack and I have joined her, but we all already seem to be doing a little better after our puke party and two hour nap. I'm hoping this means we are getting it all out of our systems before Christmas. Too much to hope?

It's not all misery here. I have uploaded to photos of the kids with Santa. This is the most comfortable Sydney has ever been with him. She asked him for a pillow pet, which my mom already got her. Tansy was good until she actually got up to him. She did ask for a pony puzzle (My Little Pony), which Sydney has already gotten for her.

Zack ran right up with outstetched arms when it was his turn. He didn't ask for anything and wasn't really sure what he was supposed to do. He just patiently waited until he got his toy.

Any guesses where I am standing? Tyler was terrified. It was awesome.

My mom brought us a Gingerbread Village Kit when my parents came for Thanksgiving so we used it as our Family Home Evening activity.

We gave Tyler what we thought was a harmless piece of gingerbread to keep him occupied. That kid had to be scrubbed thoroughly afterward.

Ben has this next week off of work, and we are really looking forward to spending some time together and enjoying our Christmas. Merry Christmas to all of you.

Sydney started basketball this week. She was really excited. I had thought about requesting that she be placed on the team coached by our neighbor, but I thought it might be good for her to get to know other kids and work with other adults. She is the only girl on her team, but she has had a great time at her first two practices. Tansy is chomping at the bit to start playing too, but hers doesn't start until next month

We also got to go to the temple yesterday. We went with some friends and took turns taking care of the kids. It is a three hour drive so we got the kids up, fed them, dressed them, and put them in the car. After we had both had a chance to go in the temple, we went to get something to eat then drove home. We got home just in time to get ready for bed. We are still really tired today, but it was worth it.

Friday was the ward Christmas party. I'm not sure where Ben put the camera so I can't load the pictures on to the computer right now. I'll post about that later. To hold you over until then, here is funny picture of a sleep Zack and Tyler's amazing bed head.

Our internet was not working last Sunday so we are doing two weeks worth of updates today.

My parents came for the week of Thanksgiving. The kids were so surprised Sunday morning. It was a lot of fun.

On Monday, Sydney's asthma was so bad, I didn't feel comfortable sening her to school. She was fine with that since it meant that she got to hang out with Grandma. In the morning, Ben and Dad went on the Oscar 1 tour with a friend of ours. It covers Whiteman's history as a missile base. Mom and I took the kids to WalMart to get a few things we needed (and couple that we just wanted). We all met at the BX and grabbed some lunch. In the afternoon, we dropped the kids off at a friend's house and Ben took us on a B-2 tour. We even got to sit in the pilot and copilot chairs in the cockpit. It was so very awesome.

On Tuesday, we almost cancelled our plans to go to Independence because Sydney's asthma was so bad. I had actually told my Dad as he headed to the shower that we weren't going. However, by the time he was dressed, I had changed my mind. I figured that I would have better luck keeping Sydney quiet if she was strapped in to a car seat and sat her in a stroller all day than I would keeping her home.

Since we were getting a bit of a late start, we first went to Pizza Street for lunch. We love to stop there for the buffet whenever we go to Independence. I love their Baked Potato Pizza and Taco Pizza. And I tried Macaroni and Cheese Pizza. It was weird. I don't think it was bad. Just weird.

We stopped at the Independence Visitors' Center after that. We watched a couple of presentations and let the kids spend some time in the play room while we took turns looking at the bronze sculpture exhibit. Some of the sculptures we just amazing.

We then drove the walking tour while Dad pointed out the former sites of various significant church history locations.

Then I realized that I had remembered the bottles, but not the formula for Tyler. The handy-dandy GPS led us to the nearest grocery store, then we were on our way to Liberty. We did the tour of the jail and headed home. Everything else was a little too far away to do with the kids.

Wednesday we took it easy and started cooking for Thanksgiving. Ben and I had planned to go on a date that evening, but when we came home at 2:30, we decided to head to Independence instead. We did a little Christmas shopping, saw Harry Potter, and ate at Red Lobster (the real reason for going all the way to Independence). The kids were in bed by the time we got home. It was really nice.

Since we were gone longer than planned, I hadn't made the pumpkin pies. First thing Thursday morning, I was making dessert, which felt weird. At least they turned out, which is more than I can say for the rest of the meal. We had a good time anyway. Tyler enjoyed his roll.

Mom and Ben cleaned up so I could have a break after the cooking marathon.

The kids were trying to pose for a Thanksgiving picture when Ben decided to join them.

Friday morning, my parents had to leave. Zack was so sad. After they drove away, Zack just stared out the window saying, "Ma-maw? Ma-maw?" We made ourselves feel a little better by setting up the Christmas tree.

On Thursday, I decided to start making the dough for the Christmas cookies. I was also watching my friends' little girl. When they came to pick her up, I spent a few minutes at the door talking to them. When I came back, this is what I found.

You can't really see just how white they are in this picture. I'm still cleaning up flour. Stinkers!

On Friday, we had some friends over and decided to have their kids sleep at our house so we could actually do something fun. We stayed up playing the Wii until midnight. I was exhausted the next day, but it was nice to do something fun without having to take care of the kids too.

Yesterday we took the kids to see Snake Lady and Spider Man. Snake Lady is a woman from Sedalia that has a bunch of snakes that she keeps in her home. Spider Man is actually our neighbor who has nine tarantulas. They each gave presentations then let the kids handle them. Tansy loved the snakes.

I am laughing maniacally to conceal my anxiety.