linking up my weekly phone pics with jeannett again! i’m thepleatedpoppy on instagram if you want to follow.

so thankful for a long break from school and some extra playdates for my boy.  and so thankful he has sweet friends!

we did our little family christmas early before we headed to orange county to be with sean’s family.  this was our first time doing christmas gifts at home and i am so glad we did, because the rest of our week turned out less than stellar…

the pic above was sean’s wrap job on silas’ new skate board.  i was just thankful i didn’t have to wrap another present!

i also got a huge order from hawthorne threads just before we left.  i really wanted to bring it all with me to pet in the car (you think i’m kidding?), but decided that wasn’t a good choice.  i accidentally bought a few yards of flannel, thinking it was quilter’s cotton, so i did bring that with in hopes to make myself some new jammie bottoms.

but.

remember last week when our family all had the flu, except for si?  well, he got it on our way down south.  poor guy was such a trooper and had a great attitude.

thankfully, the next day (christmas eve) he felt better and we took him to the vans skate park in orange.

we pretended he was six so he could go in and ride with sean.

he was so fun to watch!  they ended up staying for a few hours.  the girls and i watched for a bit, then went window shopping for a couple hours.  we were totally late to the church service, but it was so worth it because after that, the fun basically ended.

lily ended up getting the flu again, this time on christmas morning (and all day), so she and i spent the day in captivity in our room, snuggling and watching movies and napping.

then silas got it (again!) on the day of our annual family olympics, so he and i both missed out on all the fun again.

then the girls went to a slumber party with their cousins and gracie came home early feeling sick.  so we decided to head home a day early and silas had to miss his special cousin time seeing the space shuttle in l.a.  and our family missed out on visiting close friends.

our normally 4 hour drive home took well over 6 with all our potty stops (things are still not running properly!), but we are finally home.  home has never been a more welcome sight!

during all of these sick bugs, my kids have had great attitudes, even laughing right after throwing up, or giggling on the potty.  they have been troopers.  i tried for the first couple days to have a good attitude and count this extra time with them as a blessing, and see this little bit of sickness as nothing compared to major illnesses.  but my patience has worn thin and my rose colored glasses are off.  i am super bummed we basically missed christmas.  we missed traditions and celebrating.  we missed bonding with our loved ones.  we missed our friends.

and unfortunately, we also left our family with the flu big and have been knocking them out, one by one.

i am so thankful that we still have another week off of school to try to redeem last week!