Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends!

We had an interesting, long, but fun (at times) weekend celebrating with family.  Friday night we had an extended Bareman party that was soon forgotten by us as Mitch started with the stomach flu (probably passed on from the other 3 of us that had it the weekend before) early Saturday morning around 1am.  By 5am he was so dehydrated and ill that we called his parents to our house and Dad Bareman rushed us to Zeeland ER where Mitch received 2.5 liters of IV fluid, pain meds for body cramping, and zofran for nausea.  After 6 hours in ER, he was finally discharged and was starting to feel more "normal".  I've never seen Mitch so sick, or anyone that sick personally...it was scary at times! 

To avoid having the rest of us go through round 2 of this illness, the kids and I went to Kalamazoo Saturday night as we had our Christmas with the Mejeurs all day Sunday.  Mitch was feeling like he could take care of himself for 24 hours (and sleep the majority of the time), so we tried to enjoy Christmas with the Mejeurs.  We had a great party, but it wasn't the same without Mitch!  A highlight was having newborn cousin Chloe there, and we also kept to our traditions on how to open gifts youngest to oldest and sing Christmas carols with the kids leading with Nana's help.

Christmas Eve brought some last minute shopping, opening stockings at our house, and also giving the kids our traditional new Christmas book ("The Crippled Lamb" this year) and a gift for them to share (game "Sequence" for kids).  Later in the afternoon we headed to the Baremans to celebrate with Mitch's family.  We enjoyed a special 12 days of Christmas devotional, in which we all participated in and played a role, had dinner together, and opened gifts.  It was great to have Mitch with us and feeling mostly better!  Christmas Eve night we also made sure to watch "A Christmas Story" movie together, just Mitch and me! :)

Christmas Day was pretty laid back.  We had a wonderful time celebrating Jesus' birth at church with a great service, and then we went home to open gifts with just our little family, share a brunch of french toast and sausage together, and just relax the rest of the day. The kids opened 3 gifts from us to represent the 3 gifts Jesus was given: an "educational" gift, a "need" gift, and a "want" gift.  Throughout the whole weekend they received a lot of great gifts that are keeping them busy the rest of this week!  It's fun to see their personalities and interests develop as they get older, and start giving them gifts that really get them excited! :) 

Christmas at the Mejeurs:

 Stockings on Christmas Eve:

 Christmas Eve night:

 Christmas Day:

If you want to see more pictures from Christmas, here is a link to my Facebook album.