New Year's Eve

I felt a little bit miserable this morning. I've been sick this week and sleeping in makes going to bed at a reasonable time difficult, so when it was time to get up this morning, I didn't want to. But I did get up and today that was reason to be proud of myself! Silly, but it was!

Tonight the girls are playing games with their Dad. I watched some Netflix. Kate and Alice are determined to stay up until midnight. We'll see who makes it! I love my crazy family. It's been a long week, but it ends with smiles.

We cleaned up a bit, though you couldn't tell now. We went out with the girls to the zoo. It was fun. I hadn't been since August - just after we moved. It's silly, now that we live 15 minutes away we've hardly gone. It was 3 degrees Celsius, so it was a great day to go. We walked around for two hours and everyone smiled almost the whole time!

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home, and Pizza Pino's our new favourite Ajax pizza place and it's been a quiet night at home.

It's been a busy year with so many changes, and I feel like I barely blogged at all. I finally stopped doing catch up from 2015 this fall. It might take me a while to catch up 2016... Each year does get better and better and busier and busier. I love my sweet Ken and our three beautiful, crazy girls. I am so thankful for my life. I'm not sure what curve balls 2017 will bring, but I'm so thankful for the family I have to face it with!

14

Originally this was going to be the first anniversary that we wouldn't spend together. We were going to ditch Ken for new years too. But then Fiona shared. This is day two of me being in bed most of the day, and although I do feel a little better today than I did yesterday I still feel like garbage. We didn't do anything together. Ken didn't go to work, he's stayed home to take care of the minions the past two days. Tomorrow there's supposed to be a snow storm, so I won't be going to Connecticut at all. It is all just sad.

I'm trying to be grateful, but tonight I just feel kind of sad, sick and sorry for myself. I am grateful for Ken, for our marriage, for what a wonderful husband and father he is. He is my everything.

McCartney Christmas

On Sunday (yesterday, Christmas) I wasn't even sure that I was going to go - Fiona's fever got to 40.2 Celsius last night, but she didn't have any other scary symptoms, and her fever came down with tylenol, so it was a wait and see. She was lots better today, but still not better.

Lisa was hosting, and people were to arrive after 2. It was potluck, and somewhat casual, and we were originally planning to get there on time, but then the girls took a long time showering and there was no hot water left, and Fiona fell asleep. And then we just slowed down to an almost stand still.

Then getting there, goodness, gas station trip, bathroom trips, it was ridiculous. I think we finally made it at 5:30. Fiona really seemed fine which was good, and Alice and Fiona played hard with Rachael, once Fiona realized it was safe to leave my lap.

We visited and we did have a nice time even though I felt badly the whole time. Ken was really relaxed though, sort of. Sick kids messes things up.

This year was one of the years that I should have taken more pictures. But I did take a few!

Christmas

I wasn't planning to wrap presents until the wee hours of the morning on Christmas Eve, but then I didn't make a different plan... I was woken up by a feverish barfing Fiona not long before I was done. Thankfully it seemed like a one off and she settled quickly and I was able to finish up.

But the poor thing was not well the next day. I wasn't sure what to do. We only had an hour of church, so I decided to give Fiona some advil and off we went, but not before the girls opened their stockings and one or two of their presents.

Church was so very special. It was only an hour long and we sang almost the whole time. It was a lovely service and I was so glad that we all went. Fiona sat in my arms almost the whole time, but she seemed okay. When we got home I took a Christmas dress picture - or at least I tried to. Fiona is not into having her picture taken at the moment which is very frustrating!

Thankfully I was able to take lots of pictures of presents being opened and Fiona wasn't upset about that.

The girls loved their presents. Alice's biggest excitement was for her makeup. She LOVES makeup and was so excited about it. The rest of the day was spent applying more and more and more makeup to everyone who would let her!

Kate's favourite was maybe the Playmobil? I'm not sure. Anyway she spent hours putting it all together and asked for minimal help. I was really proud of her. We took lots of pictures of the Playmobil, but I didn't get one with her cute face.

Ken cooked up a storm all afternoon and eventually Andrew, Rayna, Mom and Dad all came. The girls had a few more presents to open - more make up, some jewellery, cases to keep it all in, and a tablet from Mom and Dad. (Mom and Dad gave us money and I kind of forgot about getting them something to give the girls, so we made the tablet from them - it worked out I think!)

Fiona was fading pretty good, so we gave her some more advil and had Christmas dinner.

We had a really lovely Christmas. Everyone was really happy all day. Poor little Fiona's fever spiked just before bed, but even she was able to get through most of the day with the help of medicine. We really had such a lovely Christmas. I love Christmas!