Oh my!

We've been so busy around here so I haven't had a chance to update the blog. Sorry! Our Christmas was completely wonderful! All four of us were spoiled beyond belief! The kids got a million new things and are having a blast with them all! Among the favorites are: Fisher Price SmartCycle, Jasmine outfit, Buzz lightyear laser gun, new trains, new clothes for the dolls, Elmo garage and a huge stuffed pony. They are having a blast every day playing with new toys and we are still struggling to find places for everything! Here are some pictures of our holidays.

We've been enjoying time with family while Colin's been off of work. Brett, Luna and Tavid are all in town for a couple of more days so it's been fun hanging out with them. We also got to hang out with Joel and Kelly for a couple of days which was fun too.

My laptop died this weekend...the laptop itself is perfect, but the screen is shot. I may use it hooked up to our monitor as a desktop and get rid of our desktop, but I really needed to get a new laptop. I did a lot of looking and today ended up at Circuit City buying a new laptop! I'm typing on it now and it runs beautifully so far. It has Vista on it, so that will take a little getting used to, but so far I think it's going to be easy to get used to.

Let's see...what else? Colin has this whole week off yet, so we'll be getting some family time in. Tomorrow we're headed to the mall for some returns and sales. Then at night we'll go to a New Year's party. The rest of the week is up in the air, but will probably included the Aquatic Center at some point. It's fun having him home!

Happy New Year everyone!

What fun!

We had such a fun night with the kids. It was so fun to watch them go crazy this morning when they saw their piles of presents that Santa had left...wrapped in Princess paper for Abigail and Mickey Mouse for Henry. We let them each open one this morning since they were dying waiting! They did a great job waiting until 5:00 when Grandpa and Grandma came over. They were so hilarious while they opened gifts...saying thank-you tons, getting so excited over each one and then tearing into the next. We got them a lot of little things, so they had a lot to open and loved it. After gifts we let them play while the adults had Lou Malnati's pizza that our friend Mike had sent us. He does that every year, so it's become a tradition to have that on Christmas Eve...yummy! Now the kids have been bathed, are wearing their new jammies and are watching the Grinch for like the hudredth time this holiday season! Fun night! Here are a few pictures for you.

On another note...we've had three friends have baby boys in the past week or so!

Our friends, the VZs welcomed baby Brody on Dec. 13...their first boy - yeah!

Our friends, the VDs welcomed baby Jacob on Dec. 23...their third child!

Our friends, the Ls, welcomed baby Jack today, Dec. 24...their third son - yay!

Congrats to you all!

Sending warm Christmas greetings and love to you and your families!

Ahh...much better!

Man, that was tough...really tough. I don't remember that last time I was that sick. My back still hurts from throwing up so much. Though not quite 100%, we are feeling better here at the Mulder house. Thanks for the prayers, comments, emails and well wishes!

We have been busy, busy with Christmas parties already. Last night was the party with my mom's side of the family and today my dad's side. The extended family parties are fun since we get to see cousins, aunts and uncles that we don't see a ton. We had a fun time!

Tomorrow (Christmas Eve) is for our family, my family, the Mulder Four. We began this tradition a few years ago and I really like it. We usually have my parents and Colin's parents over (though just my parents this year) and have pizza and let the kids open their gifts. We don't get them a ton because they don't need it and because they get a ton of gifts already! It's fun to have the Christmas Eve time together though. It does mean that Santa comes tonight though. That's how it was for me growing up and I don't think we ever questioned it, so hopefully Abigail and Henry won't either. :) Here are a couple of pics of the cookies, milk and note for Santa.

Christmas day is packed from morning until night. We'll be at the Mulders bright and early. We'll have breakfast there and then head to my parents' house in the early afternoon where there will be more presents and a Prime Rib dinner (YUMM!!). It will be a busy day, but the kids are used to being at those houses so they should be okay.

Merry Christmas!

Just stopping in

Just a quick post. We've been hit by some strand of the flu and it isn't fun! Henry threw up on Saturday night, Abigail was unable to move and really sick on Tuesday, Henry threw up Wednesday night and Thursday morning and I've been incredibly nauseous since yesterday. Not fun at all! It's NOT a good time of the year for this! I'm busy. I'm stressed. I'm exhausted. And I want to puke.
ETA: I typed this last night to publish it today. Well, I was up all night voilently ill and feel like death this morning. Abigail was up last night and threw up once again as well. PLEASE pray for us!

So...you get no more of an entry that this. My guess is that there won't be much of an entry for a few days. Please pray for us to get better!

I'll leave you with our Christmas card...for those of you who didn't get one. :) No...this was not staged AT ALL.

13 Days...

Wow - I haven't had a real blog post since December 1st! That probably tells you how busy we've been! I just feel like every day flies by with me not accomplishing hardly anything that I had hoped to that day. And stress...oh, lots of stress right now. I mean Christmas is 13 days away! That's so soon! I have pretty much been done shopping (besides a couple little things) for awhile, but I have really nothing wrapped! I hate that because I love the look of presents overflowing under the tree. Hopefully I'll get a few wrapped tonight.

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When Henry went to DeVos a few weeks ago they recommended an "Oral Motor Movement" test/exam to see if they could get to the bottom of his drooling issue. It's been absolutely terrible again. It's not unusual for him to go through 4-5 shirts a day. He had his evaluation with Katie, his speech therapist from this Summer, this past Monday. She concluded that his lips and cheeks have poor muscle tone at this point, hence the drooling. We also discussed his nutrition (and lack of good nutrition) and she really stressed to us that we have to offer him bites of food that he doesn't like (any meat or veggie mostly) and they reward him by giving him something he does like. Oh yeah, that went over great the other night...or not. We'll see how it goes. He will be seeing Katie 30 minutes a week for the next 12 weeks or so to work on muscle tone and nutrition. My little guy is in "school" 3 times a week now!

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My foot is doing fairly well. I still have pain, but I can handle it. Work was really rough last Friday, but a little better on Saturday. Last night was okay again...I definitely feel small improvements each shift and that's all I can ask for right now.

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Abigail and I have the annual Northouse (my mom's side) ornament exchange tomorrow night. This started about 15 years ago with cookies. We spent the first couple of years getting together on a Saturday and baking together all day. The it evolved to bringing cookies and trading. Then it was strictly an ornament exchage and now it's still called that, but we bring ornaments or other Christmas decor. It's fun to do each year and fun to have Abigail joining the tradition. There are 15 girls, including the little ones, so it's great to get together each year.

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The rest of the days until Christmas are crazy busy. In the next 13 days I work 5 of them (which isn't too bad), but have two Christmas parties with Abigail's classes, have to get all the gifts together for Hanks' speech teachers (5 of them), Abigail's teachers (1 teacher, 1 aide), wrap a bazillion gifts, bake, etc., etc. But I know you all are in the same boat!

Have a great rest of the week. Hopefully we'll see Santa soon and I'll have some pics to show!

Colin has brainwashed them...

My memorable conversation of the day...

ME: Abigail, what do you think we should get daddy for Christmas?
ABBY: Hmm...I don't know
ME: Well, let's think of what daddy likes.
ABBY: I KNOW! Protein Powder!

Seriously...

Chicago

When we were trying to decide when to go to Chicago it all depended on my foot. If I was having surgery, then I would have 2 weeks off, then Friday and Saturday would make sense since I wouldn't have to ask any time off work. If I wasn't having surgery we would go Saturday and Sunday so I'd only have to take one night off work. Thank goodness I had surgery. It took us 6.5 hours to get home from Oak Brook, driving at a max of 40 mph the whole way home. But...enough about that - we had a great time!

We left right after school on Friday and got downtown Chicago at a reasonable hour. We went directly to American Girl Place. It was so much better than last year when it was crazy, crazy busy and wall-to-wall people. We came earlier in the holiday season and on a Friday night this year and we will for sure do that again. Abigail had her heart set on a crib for her dolls so we looked at that immediately. She also looked at the Trundle Bed, but ultimately decided on the crib to get. My mom got her the crib, bedding and canopy. It really is cute and both babies fit in their perfectly.

After American Girl we went for dinner at Grand Lux. We had to wait awhile to get seated and awhile for food, but Abigail really did well. We had met up with Joel and Kelly and it was great to hang out with them for a bit.

After dinner we drove to our hotel in Oak Brook. We were put in a smoking room (Ewww!) and did end up getting another room and moved everything and were settled well after midnight central time. Abigail was hyper as can be and so excited to set up her crib (which Grandma had promised earlier in the night), but we needed a screw driver. We got one from the front desk and got everything set up and all was well in Abigail's world. She probably didn't fall asleep until almost 1:00 in Chicago (2:00 am Michigan time!!) and kicked me all night.

In the morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to Oak Brook Center to shop. We didn't do a ton because Abigail really wasn't into it (can you blame her?). By about 12:30 it was starting to snow, so within the hour we got ready to go. We left and from the minute we left until the minute we got home it was terrible driving. We saw so many cars in ditches and accidents, but my mom's a great snow driver, so that put us at ease!

We had so much fun! It's really fun to do these kind of things with "the girls." Abigail is at such a fun age where she enjoys and appreciates so much!

My mom asked her what her favorite part of the trip was. Her answer? "When I said 'Hurray! The man brought a screwdriver!'"

Oh...I got 3 of my photobooks and all my Christmas cards from Shutterfly today! Wow, can you believe that??

I hope you all stay warm!