The One With the Removal

We spent the weekend at home. Lying low and taking care of a prety sick Paxton.

Sadly the "Fun Family Saturday" we had planned to do with the kids right before Preslie's surgery was a no go.

We hadn't said anything to the kids though so luckily they didn't know they missed out on anything.

Monday morning we got up way too early.

We had planned on having our amazing babysitter watch Parker and Pax while we were at the surgery, but with Pax being so sick, and not wanting to expose her we cancelled and my Mom watched the kids instead.

We dropped them off about 7:15 and drove to the doctor's office.

Preslie actually seemed kind of excited to go to "her surgery".

I think the fact that this one was planned made it easier for us to talk it up to her beforehand and made the whole process just a little less horrifying for her.

In the car ride on the way over this conversation happened:
Preslie: Is my angel going to be there?

Me (assuming she was talking about angels): Of course there will be angels there to protect you.

Preslie: No my AUNT Angel. Will my Aunt Angel be there?

This made my day, and I'm sure it made Angel's too.

She was pretty concerned that after that last surgery Preslie would hate her.

Turns out she has become Preslie's security blanket.

And Preslie was pretty disappointed Aunt Angel couldn't come. This time the surgery was happening in a surgery center instead of the hospital where Angel works.

Preslie: Dr. Van is my best friend!

That's what she told all the nurses and staff at the surgery center. It was pretty cute. She absolutely ADORES that doctor, which is awesome considering how scared she typically is of doctors anymore.

We sat outside in the waiting room for about 5 minutes, then they took us back to the pre-op room and got her all fixed up. They let her decorate her anesthesia mask which she thought was pretty fantastic. And then they took her away.

EARLY.

The surgery was scheduled for 8:45 and they came and grabbed her at 8:15.

It was probably best that I wasn't sitting there counting down the minutes. Instead right after we visited with the nurse, the anesthesiologist, and "Dr. Van", they came right out and took Preslie back.

I thought for sure she would have a melt down when the took her.

WRONG AGAIN!

She did awesome, and I was so proud. She went right to the nurse, and said "Dr. Van is my best friend. He's going to cut the bug out!" And the nurse fell in love with Miss Preslie . . . as most of them do.
The surgery ended up talking a little over an hour. They came out and got us right after Preslie came out since they heard how much she screamed and yelled waking up from anesthesia after her first surgery. Once again though Preslie was amazing. I was prepared for a screaming little girl again, but instead I got to hold her for about 20 minutes and then we slowly prodded her awake. She was a champ and just perfect.

Dr. Van came to talk to us. He told us the "tumor" they removed was about the size of a dime - much bigger than I had thought. We have a post-op appointment with him next Tuesday. We should know what pathology of the tumor looks like by then - though I am pretty sure it will be benign. Preslie had taken her little Lalaloopsy bear back to surgery with her, Dr. Van put a little steri-strip on the bear's chin just like where Preslie's was. He is a quiet man, but we just love him and love that he goes the extra mile to make Preslie feel comfortable and cared for.

We are hoping this is IT in the Marshall house for awhile, but we are so grateful to have our little girl happy, healthy, and to have this little family on the mend!

The Lalaloopsy set my Sister got me an awesome deal on. It is adorable. We gave it to Preslie in the waiting room and she LOVED it and has not stopped playing with it since. The little bear even went back to surgery with her and got a steri-stip in the exact same spot her stitches are in.

Preslie practicing using her mask.

Day after the surgery, it is bleeding a bit today, but looks so much better without her "button".



The One With the Dinner Gift

The other day at work Parker and Preslie were playing house.

I love when they play nicely together, it is my favorite.

Parker came racing into my office and says to me, "Preslie made me dinner, so I gave her a gift!"

 

He was so super excited and proud of himself.

Which was awesome.

I also thought how awesome it would be if every time I made dinner I got a gift. . . . . 

The One With the Bad Juju

Here in the Marshall house we have some bad juju.

Or so I am really starting to think.

I am pretty sure people are going to start thinking I either completely make up, or either extremely exaggerate, all of the ridiculous happenings at our house.

 

Remember how Preslie's emergency surgery totaled three surgeries in three months? INSANE! But not over.

Pax was sick with an ear infection that they started to treat on the Friday before Preslie's surgery, so it would have been the 14th of December. From Wednesday the 12th through the 15th we didn't really get any sleep. Paxton is not a happy camper when he is sick.

Most people aren't, of course.

But it makes it especially sad when this little munchkin is typically the life of the party.

 

Then the following week we didn't get awesome amounts of sleep.

Wednesday we saw the doctor for Preslie's neck and Friday we were in the hospital for surgery. She also had antibiotics and pain killers we had to give to her every 4 hours on the dot which meant setting an alarm clock to go off multiple times in a night to go downstairs get the prescription out of the fridge and try to wake her up to get her to swallow it. The next few days didn't consist of much sleep with that either.

And then it was Christmas.

And then it was Paxton's Party.

And then it was that insane trip to Portland that really did more to stress out our mental faculties than lessen them at all. Snow storms and seeing a million car accidents will do that to you.

 

Since we have been back from Portland it has been an endless parade of more doctor visits.

Post-op for Preslie's first surgery.

Paxton's oral therapist returned from maternity leave and wanted to see him.

Paxton's one year check up.

Etc Etc.

 

Friday January 11th Paxton went into see both his therapist and the pediatrician for his one year shots. When I have doctor appointments for the kids on days I work it requires me going in pretty early to try and get everything accomplished beforehand. So where I typically don't get into the office until 9-930, instead I am trying to get there at 8. Which with three kids can be a bit difficult. So that Friday was a bit hectic.

 

Then add in that Eric had developed a small rash on his chest. It looked like a bunch of infected hairs. He showed them first to me on Sunday, and then they just started getting bigger and hurting more. Eric has seen this all before. He tells me he has shingles.

He then tells me that there is nothing they can do for it and decides he won't go into the doctor.

By Friday though he had had enough and set up an appointment anyways.

 

Daddy took Preslie with him, and Parker came with Mommy and Pax to the other appointments.

Where the oral therapist told us she is still worried about Paxton's extremely low weight, and even more worried that he isn't talking at all yet. Pediatrician, in true form, isn't worried "just yet" but maybe next appointment.

And sure enough . . . . Eric has shingles.

The doc put him on some medication he said would help but needless to say he was pretty uncomfortable most of the weekend. It didn't help much that the Concealed Weapons Course we had already planned and paid for on Friday went from a quick 2 hour meeting to a 4 and 1/2 hour long course where we sat on cold hard cafeteria benches.

 

Beginning of this week comes and everyone gets sick with a cold. Nothing too terrible, just runny noses at first, but by Friday Paxton is full on freaking out, not wanting to sleep just miserable. When I realized that the brother of a boy we had come over and played with Parker had Croup I thought possibly Paxton might have it too. So Saturday morning we set up an after-hours appointment with the pediatrician.

 

Paxton didnt' sleep longer than a combined total of 2 hours Friday night to Saturday morning. Eric and I ended up watching most of the first season of The Walking Dead and I watched enough of Downton Abby to become thoroughly addicted. By six on Saturday morning I was fed up with even continuing to sit in bed. It's funny that it seems like nights are the worst. . .  no matter what, they are just terrible. Lack of sleep feels so much worse at night then it does during the day. I think it probably has something to do with the knowledge that right now you are SUPPOSED to be sleeping. Most normal people are sleeping at 4 o'clock in the morning. Eric and I tried to do a tag team effort, have Eric sleep while I was up with pax and then vice versa, but it didnt' work out at all. Paxton freaked out way to many times for either of us to be able to sleep.

 

I called the doctor at 9:30, just having gotten out of the shower, they asked me to be at their office downtown (30 minutes away) at 10:15, when I asked if there was anything later they said sure at 10:30. Bring on freak out mode. Try to get ready, cleaned up, Paxton cleaned up, and in the car with medicine in 30 minutes was a bit insane. And then of course we had an inversion so I couldn't see farther than a hundred or so feet in front of me and traffic, for whatever reason, was terrible.

 

But we got there.

Checked in.

And then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

 

There were two people in the lobby when we showed up.

I wasn't so concerned when they went in before us.

But when a little boy who came in 30 minutes after we did went in before us I was a little concerned.

I still think they forgot to check us in the entire way, but the front desk just said the doctor we were seeing was "behind".

 

At 11:15 (45 minutes after our appointment) we finally got to go back into an exam room.

I think I would have preferred to stay in the waiting room.

In the exam room it was just me and Pax.

Eric had to stay at home with Parker and Preslie.
So Pax and I were alone.

And I was frustrated that things were taking so long.

And our obviously very sick son was non-stop crying.

And I hadn't had any sleep in over 36 hours.

 

And that's when I started to get really down.

The night before we had gotten Preslie's surgery form for her second surgery in the mail.

I read through it, mostly just looking for how much money they wanted before the surgery, but then stopped on the part that said "Excision of tumor from submandibular region".

Tumor.

It's such a dirty word.

Nevermind that most often the tumors they remove are benign, it's still a terrible thought.

And here I was sitting alone in a small room with a screaming child for now an hour past when my appointment was supposed to be. No one there for support. Just Paxton crying. And very much alone.

 

I count myself as a pretty positive person.

I look on the bright side of almost every situation, and when I can't I use massive amounts of sarcasm to downplay it just a bit.

But I think the events of the past couple of months had just started to pile up.

It's like Eric and I are running and we keep saying thinks like "once we get to that tree we can stop running" only we get to that tree and we can't stop, so we say "once we get to that rock we can stop" only we can't stop once we get there either.

 

Once we get through Eric's surgery we will be good.

Once we get through Paxton's surgery we will be good.

Once we get through Paxton's ear infection we will be good.

Once we get through Preslie's emergency surgery we will be good.

Once we get to Portland on these icy roads we will be good.

Once we get hom from Portland on these icy road we will be good.

Once we get through this week full of doctor's appointments we will be good.

Once we get Paxton's weight up we will be good.

Once we get Paxton talking we will be good.

Once we get through Eric's shingles we will be good.

Once we get through Preslie's second surgery we will be good.

 

It's like we keep opening doors just to find another door behind it.

Too many analogies?

Probably.

And in reality, I should be better at recognizing that right now, this minute is GOOD. I can't always look ahead to the future with the idea that then it will be good, I have to enjoy getting there. But sometimes it is hard to remember that.

 

But that is what I was feeling in that room.

All by myself.

With no one to talk to.

 

And then at 11:45 - a full hour and fifteen minutes after the scheduled appointment, the doctor finally came in. She verified that Paxton indeed had another ear infection and said that with how closely the ear infections happened that we might think about putting tubes in his ears (Ya for more surgeries, right?). She then said that she thought it was a good chance he had croup, but that there wasn't anything she could do about it. She also said that she thought he must be sick with something viral.

I think she noticed that I was pretty upset and in talking with me it came out that Eric had shingles. When she found out that his shingles started about two weeks before she said we should check Pax. Sure enough on his bum cheeks right by his diaper are two little red bumps.

I'm not convinced at this point they are Chicken pox. He gets little bumps on his bum like infected hairs quite frequently. I'm sure diapers don't help.

 

But she said that Eric having shingles could easily pass chicken pox to our kids.

And the incubation period for chicken pox is two weeks. Which we are smack dab at two weeks.

Only Parker and Preslie have already had the chicken pox vaccine so they are safe.

Paxton . . . . well they don't give the vaccine until 15 months old.

So no vaccine yet.

Possibility that he has chicken pox: HIGH

 

The doc told us there was nothing she could do even if he does have chicken pox. She said to keep watching and see if he gets more bumps and then to let our normal pediatrician (her associate) know.

She also said that we needed to keep Paxton as far away from Preslie as possible given her surgery on Monday.

 

Once we get through this second ear infection we will be fine.

Once we get through the weekend we will be fine.

Once we get through Preslie's second surgery on Monday we will be fine.

 

I just hope there stops being doors behind doors soon.

 

In the meantime I have an amazing husband to lean on. He let me complain. And he helped out.

I also have an awesome family that looks to help.

And I even have a group of pretty spectacular friends that have all decided when they are coming over to help my insanity.

 

It's hard for me to accept help from others.

I like giving it just fine.

But somehow I feel weak when others give to me.

I should get over it, I know, but that's just me.

 

I am now back to my positive upbeat and "can-do" self. Don't worry. The poor picked on me attitude didn't stay for very long. Right now, at the very least I can be super grateful for the fact that we have such amazing health insurance.

The One With the Tooth Fairy

If you have seen all of Parker's cute pictures with his adorable smile and missing tooth and thought "WHAT?" Parker lost his first tooth on December 4th  . . . and I am just getting around to telling everyone about it. Yes things have been that nuts around this house.

I love his cute gap-toothed smile but it sure scares me that he is getting big enough to lose teeth!!! What will be next? Marriage???

The One With all the Snow

Every few years we get a REALLY bad winter in Idaho.

It's been awhile.

I never got a snowday in my entire school career.

The kids in our district have already had two.

I've always said that if it is going to be so cold, then there might as well just be snow. So in reality I kind of love all the snow. I love that the kids want to go out every day and play in it, and I love all the pretty icicles and snow that is everywhere.

 

I hate stupid Idaho drivers (who are mostly transplant Californians) that don't know how to drive in the snow. Either they go WAY too slow, which let's face it is just as dangerous, or they drive way too fast. There have been too many accidents. That part I don't love.

 

But how could you not love all of this?

 

 

 

There is at least a two inch layer of ice on everything . . . .  trees, bushes, cars, houses, christmas lights, extension cords. but boy is it pretty!

 

All the ice on the extension cords and all over the roof and Christmas lights themselves makes it far too dangerous for Eric to crawl up on the roof and pull them down. We only just recently realized that the timer was still on so they were turning on just like they were supposed to at 6 o'clock every night and turning off at 7 every morning. WHOOPS!

 

The kids have sure loved playing in the snow, especially at the office. There is so much cement for them to run around on. Grandpa Carpender even came the first time it snowed a lot and plowed the whole driveway at the office so the kids got to spend about 20 minutes each on the tractor helping him plow. Boy did they love it!

 

 

 

 

 

The One With Portland In January

Portland has that damp air. It makes clothes stick to you in the summer . . . . and in the winter it makes it 10 times colder than what it actually is. That's what it was like for us when we went to Portland in January.

It snowed pretty much every day we were there. The roads were terrible. We went to Ikea (of course) the first day we were there and picked up pants for Eric and I the second. Next to visiting family those were the big things we wanted to accomplish while we were up there. With Eric's family we opened Christmas presents an we went to the Portland Aquarium.

 

Sadly the weather didn't cooperate much better on our way home. An ice storm was going to come through Portland starting Thursday and ending Saturday. We had two options. 1: Leave early Thursday morning and beat the storm, or 2: Leave Sunday after the strom was over.

 

The idea of driving all day Sunday and getting home late just to get up and go back to work the next day wasn't so appealing. So we ended up shortening our trip and heading out about 8 in the morning on Thursday. It was sad because we had several outings still planned, including meeting up with some of our Portland friends - we are just excited to get to see them all when we go back up in March! :)

The One With the Snowy Trip to Portland

In November of 2010 we drove to Utah for Thanksgiving. We got stuck on I-5 for HOURS in a blizzard and they ended up shutting the entire freeway down and we slept in Burley. That has stood the test of two years as being the most ridiculous and dangerous trip we have ever taken . . . . until our New Years trip to Portland this year.

Eric had a tooth that needed to get worked on, and we love visiting family for the holidays. So we left on Sunday, December 30th to drive up to Portland with plans to stay and drive home on the following Saturday to have a day to rest before getting back into the daily grind.

Remember that Utah trip I told you about? Ya, this one far surpassed it.

We left our house in Nampa about 9 o'clock in the morning, hoping to hit the Blue Mountains around noon when the sun would be high and the snow hopefully would have melted off a little bit. There was solid fog from Nampa past Ontario, and minimal fog in Baker City. We drove the hour from Baker City and into La Grande which is the city just before you go over the Blues . . . and there we were routed off the freeway. We drove through town trying to get onto every freeway entrance possible and every single one was blocked off. A road worker told us there had been a bad accident on the Blues and that the road was closed, and probably wouldn't be open for 6 hours. That would have put us going over the Blues at 7 at night, which was definitely not a good idea.

After talking to some locals and discussing options with Eric's Dad who has a complete roadmap of the Northwest memorized, we decided that it would be best to drive the hour back to Baker City and then get on a state highway that would take us through Prineville, John Day, and then up and around Mount Hood into the backside of Portland. Going up over another huge mountain didn't seem like an awesome idea, but we were told the roads on the state highway were well maintained and that we shouldn't have any trouble with our heavy cleated snow tires and studs.

For the record, this is apparently what the Oregon Department of Transportation deems a well maintained state highway. That is a sheet of solid ice on the road.




It was extremely slow going. I don't think we ever went over 45 mph and most of the time we had to stay at about 30. Every few hours we'd say something like "really it's not that much farther, John Day has to be just around the corner" and then we'd see a sign that showed we had only traveled a few miles and John Day was still several hours away. We'd say things like "once we break into a city the roads will have de-icer on them" . ..  only there are no cities on this route, just small little towns with weird names where Main Street consists of a post office and a church and everyone drives around on snowmobiles. I felt like for sure we were going to end up on an episode of "I Shouldn't Be Alive". We finally made it to Prineville which is a city of about 20,000 people (which felt like New York City compared to the cities we had been passing through all day) that is still about two hours (in normal weather) from Portland at about 7 o'clock at night.

Call me a wuss, but I was done. The kids were tired and sick of being in the car. We had seen way too many accidents and cars off the road to count. The last thing I wanted to do was try and drive up over Mount Hood in the pitch black at 11 o'clock at night. So we got a room and stayed in Prineville. We were up early the next morning to make the trip up over the mountain. And we finally made it to Portland at about 11am the Monday morning. Talk about a long trip.

I don't want to sound insensitive. I am so glad we made it safe and not the least bit upset that the freeway over the Blues was closed. The accident that happened on the Blues was terrible. A tour bus hit a patch of ice and fell two hundred feet down the mountain, killing 9 people and sending 30+ more to hospitals in 4 states. The bus was so far down the side of the mountain that they literally had to bring in Life Flight to careene down and latch onto people to take to the hospital. It's no wonder that road was closed, and my thoughts and prayers continue to be with those that were affected.

The One With Paxton's First Birthday

I cannot believe that this smiley little boy . . . . 

 

 
. . . . is now a One year old!!!

In reality it makes sense.
I look back over everything that has happened this year and I am surprised that it has only been twelve months. We have packed quite a bit into a year I'd say.

This little smiley man is just what we needed in our house. A loving, happy, sweet little man that is just a light to us!

Paxton's actual birthday being on Christmas Eve puts a little bit of constraint on what we can actually do for a party on his birthday. For the real day we slept in and then went out to lunch at Red Robin. Sadly there aren't many options for restaurants open on Christmas Eve, but Pax likes their fries, so I don't think it bothered him too much.

We decided to do Paxton's birthday on December 29th which just so happened to also be Daddy's 29th birthday! We went with a hobo theme.

There seemed to be a lot of confusion on why we chose that.
I can honestly say I said it as a joke to Eric and then we just kind of ran with it. Everyone is broke after the holidays. Everyone has eaten way too much unhealthy food. Everyone is tired of playing games and seeing each other and basically everyone is just plain tired.
I'm sure when Paxton gets a bit older we will be more concerned about making this a special day and forcing everyone to smack a smile on their face.

So bum party it was.
The invitations were easy. We gave everyone a piece of cardboard with some crazy homeless person sign and a date and time on it. Decorations in the house were easy too. Christmas had left us with a plethora of boxes that we cut up and wrote on. Eric gets most of the credit on the signs, and he came up with some pretty awesome ones. For dinner we did chilli mac, spaghetti o's or hot dogs. The plan had been to let everyone roast their own hot dogs over a trash can fire, but the snow storm that hit the day before made that impossible.

Dessert was lofthouse cookies (which Paxton loves . . . me loving them was just an added bonus), donuts, and muddie buddies. We were trying to really grasp the bum menu when we planned this, so don't think we are just cheap-o's.

Pax got a lot of clothes and a pillow car from us. Many toys from everyone else - he will never need more toys again after Christmas and his birthday.



 

 

It was a requirement that everyone who came to the party had to dress like a bum and bring their own cardboard sign. Ther was a prize to the best dressed and the best sign . . . . it was a can of pork and beans. But here are some of the pictures we snagged of everyone in their hobo finest.

 

 

Paxton's huge monster pile of presents. . . . that he showed no interest in opening.

 

 

No one in our family loves cake. I can at it. My grandma makes some pretty spectacular cakes. We love the huge Costco cake too. But with those as the only exceptions, we don't love cake. Plus we were leaving early the next morning for Portland so the last thing I wanted was a huge cake we had to finish eating, and I didn't much love the idea of buying that big expensive Costco cake and wasting it. So Eric and Paxton both blew out candles on donuts for their birthday.

Pax loves donuts!

 

 

 

This is the pillow car I was talking about. When we bought it I don't think either Eric or myself knew that he was going to love it as much as he does. And we REALLY didnt' think that the other two kids would love it as much as they do. Basically we have been told we have to get Parker and Preslie their own for their birthdays. That should be easy for Preslie since her birthday is only a few weeks away.

 

They run around the house pushing each other on this car four hours!

 

Happy birthday to my adorable little Pax-man!

Mommy and Daddy love you more than words could ever describe!

The one with Christmas 2012 Style

I almost couldn't believe it was Christmas! You know what else I couldn't believe!?!? That I actually made it to Christmas and we still had most of the presents left to open. I am terrible at Christmas. I get WAY too excited to see my kiddos happy and always end up breaking and letting them open everything a week or so early. This year, I actually made it . . . . it probably helped that we had an emergency surgery and a birthday party to plan.

For the first time in our marriage though, we MADE IT! And I don't think we will have a problem making it from now on. I LOVED seeing my kiddos so excited to come down Christmas morning. It was a super late night getting everything ready for Santa to come, and then a super early morning getting up early enough to make it to my parents, but it's Christmas . . . and that's what the fun is all about!

 

The living room after everything was set up. We actually had to wait this year until the kids were asleep to do anything. They are finally getting old enough to understand the concept of Santa Claus and were excited for him to come.

All of Preslie's loot. She got a ton of Minnie stuff! A huge minnie the same size as she is, a Minnie pillow pet, a regular sized Minnie to replace the one she has had since Disneyland that is disgustingly dirty (though she still won't let me get rid of it) a big Lalaloopsy doll, a Minnie's Bowtique shopping cart, blocks, and a Minnie suitcase. There was other stuff too, I just can't really remember it.

Parker was really wanting a razor scooter . . . so he got one. But sadly this is the first year in forever that Idaho has decided to get DUMPED ON with snow! He hasn't even really been able to ride it yet . . . sad day. He also got the full workup of Ninja Turtles - all the turtles, all the bad guys, all the gadgets . . . all the mess! I'm not sure if Parker or Eric was more excited for this. He also got a Wii that he has to share with his sister. The kids each got their own suitcases too . . . it would have been more exciting if the bags were packed with clothes and we were like "And now we are going to Disneyland!" But I didn't think about that until afterwards  . . . . so maybe that's a good idea for next year.

Paxton . . . . that little one year old is hard to shop for. He mostly got clothes, and a couple of new toys. We try to spend the same amount on each of the kids, but I'll be hoens, we fell a little short with Pax. I don't think he'll ever notice. Eric and I are literally swimming in toys! And they get all over the house, and to be put away in the closet and fit they have to be put away just right (which may actually be a symptom of my obsessive need for a clean house). We had also just taken three garbage bags full of toys to DI, the last thing we wanted to do was spend more money on more toys that would be hauled away within a few months. So he got clothes. And some fun toys. And candy. And a suitcase. Luckily he is one so he cared more about eating the wrapping paper than he did about what was in the paper.

Our main present to us was a new 60" TV. We rarely ever go to movies, we always rent a movie on Vudu or from Redbox, and we have been trying to watch more movies as a family so we figured we may as well have a TV big enough to watch together and big enough to make fun. Eric was wanting the 80" Sharp. I convinced him it would overpower the room. Then he was pretty stuck on the 70" Sharp, but when he went in to Costco randomly a week before Black Friday and they had this incredible deal on a 60" he gave up the idea. I think it's better anyways. Our current room is too small for a bigger TV. 

Pax was the only one we didn't have to wake up for Christmas morning.

I debated whether or not to put this picture on here, but decided the kids looked too darned cute not to. Just ignore my crazy just woke up hair and look at them.

Parker was pretty excited that he could tell Santa had come. Santa drank all of the milk Parker left but tapped out halfway into the fourth cookie he gave him.

Apparently a scooter would have been a good plan for Pax too.

Preslie was pretty stoked about her totally Minnie christmas!

We always go over to my parent's house (when we are in town) to open up presents there. For as long as I can remember we have to take turns in order of who is youngest, only opening one present at a time and continuing until everyone has opened all their presents. When I was little, this wasn't so hard. My brother, my other brother, me, my sister, mom and then dad. It took forever since we were pretty spoiled, but we had fun. Now it is just insanity!!! My sister has three kids of her own (currently pregnant with her 4th) and she was fostering two little girls at th time, a 3 year old, and a 15month old. Plus now you have our three kids. This is what Christmas morning looked like there! Needless to say it took us about 5 hours to get through everyone's presents and get everything cleaned up. I got a ton of cute pictures of this event BUT we aren't allowed to put pictures of the foster girls up on the internet so I can't share. :)

We had an awesome Christmas! It is getting so fun to experience these holidays now that our little ones are getting old enough to have fun with them! While on the one hand I can't wait until next Christmas, I also don't want them growing up so fast . . . so Christmas can wait a little while!