Wow. We made it through Christmas!

Well, still no teeth in sight. It turns out that Jillian was getting sick, and is still trying to get rid of her phelgmy nose, and now she has a cough. Poor kid sounds like a puppy when she’s trying to breathe through her mouth :P . Not fun at all. Her sleep schedule is completely messed up from her illness keeping her up and visiting relatives at all hours of the day(and night). I keep telling myself that when she gets better, things will go back to normal! It’s 3am as I write this….please let things go back to normal!

Well, she’s made a lot of progress over the last week:
-pulling herself up to a standing position, then squatting, and back up again
-crawling to anything that she fancies. I love that when I call her to ‘come to Mummy’, she can scamper pretty fast!
-grabbing glasses and tipping the contents over. So far, it’s been a Sheridan’s, a glass of wine, and 1 Pepsi.
-‘playing’ with her piano and maracas
-swatting, crying, and whipping her head back and forth while I try to wipe her nose clean
And tonight she’s figured out how to escape from her BebePod/Bumbo seat. Just twist and flip, and BOOM! She’s outta there! Thank goodness I still have her exersaucer as a backup.

Wow.

So onto Christmas! Michael’s school had a Christmas play, which I was pretty impressed by! There are 41 students, and over 110 of their family members showed up to watch them perform. It’s a great little community.

We enjoyed Christmas Eve with my mom, brothers, aunt, uncle and my cousin Krystin. She managed to spend a few days with us in the country, which she enjoyed. I know that Jillian enjoyed another short person to play with! I was happy that Krystin was old enough to do basic tasks herself, like eating, picking out her own clothes, etc. It helps that she’s 7! Also, she was super- well behaved, so that makes a huge difference.

We opened presents Christmas morning, and no word of a lie, there were presents bigger than Jillian! And she’s almost 2’5”! We even ran out of room in the car to get back to our place, so we made a return trip on Friday. I was super-excited about 1 present though. She got a Cabbage Patch Doll, and I never had one as a little girl, and was too shy to ask for one at the time. Mom gave me the weirdest look, because I was actually jumping up and down. ;)

We headed to Michael’s Dad’s place for Christmas afternoon/evening, and got several more gifts. I even managed to surprise Michael with letting him party it up while I took Jillian and Krystin home with me, seeing as the 3 of us were tired and he wasn’t. I also told him that this would not be a regular occurrence! It was *insane* though, considering that there were over 25 people in the house, and 11 of them children! The next day when I went to pick Michael up, I almost didn’t think that it was the same house because it was so quiet!

Then off for another family dinner on Boxing Day, this one being the official ‘turkey fest’, including Tanya’s desserts! We’re still trying to convince her to start a bakery, or at least do catering. I swear, most of us just wait and see what she’s created this time! If you’re in the Ottawa area and want fantastic desserts, let me know, and I’ll pass on your order! We also had a sleepover with my cousin and niece. Right now our place is big enough for the 3 of us, but add two 7-year olds, and it feels cramped! They had a lot of fun hanging out and playing with toys. I also realized that Krystin likes to be the boss!

The 27th had Michael running around, dropping people off and picking people up. Shawn came over for a nice dinner, and killer Monopoly to boot...well, we *had* to let Shawn win...hee hee!

The 28th, we got our new car!!! Our old one kicked it, so we needed to get another one. We got a station wagon, but no wood paneling! I'm just thrilled that it's got lots of trunk space and it's nice and SAFE. If you had asked me 8 years ago what kind of car I wanted, I would have said, FAST. Jillian's going to think that I was always cautious and not cool, huh? Oh well. We also returned Mark's car, which he was super-nice to let us use while we were car-less for about 10 days or so. Jillian was so happy to get out of her carseat when we got home, as she was in it for most of the day.

(this is getting long, isn't it?)

Anyway, the 29th brought the first lazy day since Michael started his holidays.

I might not be able to get another note out till after the first, so I hope that everyone has a great New Years. I think (well, know) that we're going to stay in and ring it in quietly.

See you next year! HAHAHA...