the blog post of Christmas past

Well, sorry this is so late. Seems a little extraneous at this point. I'm guessing there are a couple of you who have yet to even take down your tree though, so I'm probably doing ok in your book. (And the only reason my tree is down already is because it's 2 feet tall. I wrapped some saran wrap over it, ornaments and all, and carried it to the basement. Do I regret not having a big beautiful tree? Not for one single second.)

But speaking of Christmas past, let's revisit, shall we? Just to see how far we've come...

2007

 2008 

2009

 2010

2011

And our completely unsuccessful attempt to get a cute picture in 2012 (pretty sure Dawson could not possibly be smiling any bigger):

And outtake #6 of who-knows-how-many. This was even with bribery! I guess candy doesn't tempt a 9 month old like it does a 3 year old. Shoulda offered him chocolate milk. Oh well. Such is life. 

We had Christmas with the Colyer side the Sunday before. All smiles and poses here!! Where were your brothers??

Channing was already pretty sick at this point. Bennett had had a high fever the two days prior and Dawson was hit with a fever this day. (yeah, yeah, we're going to tackle the pacifier beast soon...and the potty-training beast....)

 Mr. Mellow Yellow and Mr. Go-Getter with their Pop:

 Rallied up some energy just long enough for presents:

 

You think this guy's tough? You should meet his grandma. 

And that's enough partying for one day. Sleeping with his new pet dinosaur, named Rudy. (Don't ask, 'cause I have no idea. He named the llama we pass every day on the way to preschool, Carcy).

My parents got into town the next day and Bennett and my dad wasted no time putting together the new Playmobil pirate ship that comes with fifty bazillion pieces: 

And our second Christmas with my side of the family on Christmas day (and yes, if you're keeping track, that would be the third day in a row our boys are in these pajamas):

So that one will definitely go down in the books as our sickest Christmas ever. I had all three boys into the doctor the day after Christmas. The big boys were doing fine fighting it off on their own but poor little Channing was pretty bad. He had RSV and the beginnings of pneumonia. We went from the doctor, to the hospital for chest x-rays and back to the doctor that day. Thank goodness my parents didn't have any other agenda and were there to help me the whole way through. It made a stressful situation much easier (although very unfortunately for my mom, she got it too). Channing went on two antibiotics and a nebulizer treatment for 5 days (the first I've ever used one of those). I figured out it was probably the first time I'd filled a prescription in at least four years. I'm so very thankful to have a healthy household again! It seems like the whole country had that nasty junk at the same time.