Merry Christmas

Well, here it is! Our Christmas Cards are finally on their way to friends and family. Apparently forty cards was not enough! I do this every single year and always think I am ordering too many.

This morning we should be in Dallas, actually we would be leaving Dallas right now because I have a Christmas Eve rehearsal at 1:30pm today and a meeting afterwards so we knew we had to get back early. But Friday as we were getting ready to leave, the throwing up and diarrhea continued by one of the kids so we decided traveling would NOT be in our best interest or our family's! It would NOT be good to go around our nieces and nephews or our pregnant sister-in-law. As a result, our family Christmas with my Dad and brother's family and Jeremy's family were all canceled. At first I was really bummed. This is the first Christmas in my entire life where I will not see my Dad. And I won't lie, I was really looking forward to being at Jeremy's Mom's house and her "taking over" with the kids and allowing me to play my new scrabble game with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. I wanted to make trips to Starbucks and sneak in a visit with Kelly Ann. I wanted to watch the Dallas game in Dallas and I wanted to watch the game WITH my Dad (It's been a long time since we've had a game together). Disappointed? Yes.

Despite my disappointment, I still had Sunday night to look forward to. Sunday night is dinner and presents at my friend Lori's house! Her Mom is in town and making Chicken Enchiladas and the kids are excited to give their gifts to Ashtyn and Andersen and I am excited to give my gifts to Drew and Lori. But, last night Josiah threw up again. Everyone else is fine, except Jeremy and I are still not very hungry but Josiah seems to be taking this hard. Soooooooooo since Lori has all of her family in, including nieces and nephews, we are not going to put another family at risk, especially at Christmas. If you know me, you know I get irritated when parents don't keep their kids home when they have been sick with stomach flu. And if you know that about me, you also know I have a FEAR of the stomach flu and these last fews days my FEAR has only gotten worse! :) Josiah's very first pediatrician always said, "48 HOURS OF NO VOMITING, THEN YOU CAN LEAVE THE HOUSE." So, I follow that rule! This way, I will never be blamed for someone else's stomach tragedy! And I speak from a FRESH experience, IT IS TRAGEDY!

All of our plans have been changed but a few remain the same. This morning we were not supposed to be at church so I guess the fact that the kids are missing out on a huge Christmas party at church where the kids get to come dressed in pajamas is not too bad because we were not supposed to be there anyway. (I am trying to convince myself that we are not missing out.) Tonight not being able to go to our friend's house will be sad but I can bake more cookies and Jeremy can go play flag football with our pastor and some guys from church. Actually, I am jealous that it's not a coed flag football game! I know Jeremy will have fun doing that and he deserves to get out of this house after taking care of all of us and doing all that baking for me! Although, some of my friends may remember a pretty big accident Jeremy had playing football a few years ago! Well, Let me explain. When your husband or boyfriend says they are playing flag football, THEY ARE LYING! They are really playing full contact! It's man's way of re-living his Friday nights in a small town, bright lighted football stadium in Texas, pretending to be the star wide receiver, jumping high into the air to catch passes only Terrell Owens could catch! It's all fun and games until some fast, skinny guy with muscles goes for one of those catches and runs into a huge linebacker WITH HUGE muscles, falls to the ground moaning because he can't breathe and his pregnant wife stands on the sidelines watching her husband not move while she envisions care flight coming to take him away! He breaks ribs, he struggles to get out of bed and he gets advice from his wife's OBGYN on how to take care of his injury because his wife's OBGYN has been hurt in flag football before too! So, I told him he better not get crazy out there tonight and come home hurt! I may have to drive up there and watch out the window!

Tomorrow is our Christmas Eve service and I am so excited about it! I think it is going to be awesome and my Mom will be here! Christmas Day we are having homemade gumbo and the recipe comes from a south Louisiana gal so I KNOW it's good! Hopefully I can make it good! I am about to head to the store and look for some rew, otherwise I'll be making my own. I realize that this blog post is not about the joys of Christmas or anything spiritually meaty but my insides are empty (literally) and I think when I threw up twenty times, I threw up most of my brain too because I can't think straight. I did get an early Christmas present from Jeremy and I can't wait to dig into it. I have been wanting this for MONTHS! It's Beth Moore's 90 Days with Jesus and the very first day talks about Mary and the birth of Christ. What a perfect time to start! I am really looking forward to falling more and more, desperately in love with Jesus. So I pray that these last couple of days of Christmas, I can sit at His feet and express how much I love Him. How often do we do that? How often do we sit and tell Him how much we love Him?! I think it's a Christmas tradition worth starting or maybe more like a daily one.

Merry Christmas my friends! I love you all.