Christmas Adam

It is tradition to celebrate DiSalvatore Christmas on Christmas Eve Eve, or as my kids say, Christmas Adam since Adam came before Eve.  However, up until this year we have always gone to the Main St. house for Christmas.  It was sad this year to not go "home" for Christmas.  I guess everyone agreed that the next most sensible would be our house.  Thankfully Karen still hosted, so it was very little work for me.

From year to year we never know if we'll have Jon and Annie on Christmas, but this year we were ALL together which was extra special since we had 3 new babies to celebrate with!

Papa and Sienna

Getting ready for Papa to make the phone call to Santa.

Renna wasn't feeling the best.

C4 got this Airsoft back-pack.  He tried it on and Trevor yelled across the room, "Is that a parachute?"

Rocco was so funny.  He toted his stocking around all evening.  Kept walking around with it slung over his shoulder.  His 'docking'.

Ninny made several JibJab videos with the kids faces.  Hilarious.

It was a lovely evening just being all together, enjoying the kids excitement, and counting our blessings.  And we'll probably remember it was the year that a certain 4 year old girl called 9-1-1 from the house, but at least the kind policeman got a nice bag of Christmas cookies out of it!

Week 52

Monday, Dec. 24th

Christmas Eve (more to come...)

Tuesday, Dec. 25th
Baby's 1st Christmas (more to come...)

Wednesday, Dec. 26th
A 'Still-Sick-Renna' leaks a smile.  Maddy wore those jammies 11 years ago!

Thursday, Dec. 27th
Nathanael's team was invited to play at the XL Center.  We managed despite sick and tired kids.  They lost 1-0 but had tons of fun!

That's him--center ice in the yellow, at the start of the game.

Izaya came with us.  After Nathanael's game, we ran home for dinner.  I stayed home with the sick ones and Daddy took the good ones back for the Whale game.

Friday, Dec. 28th
Maddy really wanted to go skating over break.  It worked out to meet the Orzoleks there and pass off Nathanael for Joshua's birthday sleepover.

Date night.  We snuck out to see Les Miserables.  Phenomenal, despite a few 'low points' in the star-power singing.

Sunday, Dec. 30th

I woke up sick so Daddy took the kids out to play in the new 8 inches of snow that fell through the night.

Mid afternoon I decided to take a bath.  I've been in our beautiful master tub about 4 times since we bought the house.  Two of those times because I was laboring.  I drew a nice hot bath, got in, and I kid you not, less than 2 minutes later C4 burst into my room, "Sorry, Mom!  I'm just grabbing Daddy's shoes.  We have to take Trevor to the E.R.!!"

"What??!!  Is he ok?"

"He hit his head.  He's o.k."

I threw a towel around myself and left wet footprints all the way downstairs to find my husband with a bloody paper towel on Trevor's head.  Apparently Trevor was doing a 'flip' in the living room and caught the corner of the bookshelf.

I took a look at the 1 inch gash and agreed it probably needed a couple stitches or glue.  Madison helped Daddy wiggle shoes on and slipped clothes onto Trevor. (You didn't think he'd be dressed at 3 pm, did you?)

Trevor was completely calm and brave until he heard mention of the hospital.  Then he got teary, "I just don't want to die!"  Poor little dude.  We tried not to laugh, but it was so cute.  "It's gonna be o.k., Trev.  That's why we have doctors- so they can help us."

"I know.  But I just don't want to die."

Daddy, C4, and Trev headed out as I yelled, "Take pictures!"  Obviously he's not our 1st child, and obviously we've seen cuts to the head before.  About 10 minutes later Colombo called.  "Hey, it's not even bleeding anymore.  What do you think about me just stopping at Walgreens and butterflying it myself?"

Uh??  Sure.  I gotta admit, a couple factors played into this decision. First and foremost, Colombo was not interested in sitting in the E.R. for the next 3 hours around all manner of nasty illness.  Secondly, thanks to our bleep-i-dee-bleep ridiculous self-employed insurance, we were looking at a couple hundred dollars out of pocket.  And finally, the thought of Colombo butterflying it kinda sounded entertaining.  This I have to see!

Thirty dollars later, they returned with their MacGyver kit.  It reminded me of the movies when the fugitive on the run gets shot and has to go to the drug store while sweating profusely to get rubbing alcohol, gauze, and tweezers.

Turns out the head lamp C3 got in his stocking came in really handy.  And Google never hurts in situations like these either!

Trevor was a champ!  He NEVER even flinched or whimpered for the 45 minutes or so it took to dig around, clean, shave, and butterfly the area.  In fact, later the kids were like, "Wow.  He cried way more about getting a little snow in his gloves this morning!!"  Truly a brave little guy!

Pop stopped by after visiting someone in Hartford Hospital.  He knelt down by Trevor and said, "I know you guys already prayed, but can I pray with you again?"  Trevor returned, "Actually we didn't pray."

Dad prayed.  I love him for that.

I was so proud of Trevor!  And C3!  He did a great job.  It's going to heal just fine.  And it's under his hair.  And he's a boy.  Scars are simply stories for boys.

Week 51

This week was full, full!  Lots to do when there's only 1 week 'til Christmas.  Too many nights I was up til the wee hours trying to get it all done.  In nearly everything I did my mind would go the families in Sandy Hook.  If I was frustrated at a kid, I would think, "At least he's 'here' to be frustrated at."

If I was wrapping presents, I would get teary for the moms who were mourning instead of wrapping.  So sad.

It was also a week of illness, the beginning of a couple weeks of kids swapping germs, snot, coughs, and the like.

We went to the last 2 hockey games before a nice holiday break away from the rink.

Monday, Dec. 17th
The kids worked on the gingerbread house, a tradition.

Wednesday, Dec. 19th
I worked all day to prepare the food for Christmas Eve dinner.

Thursday, Dec. 20th
We finished the house.  We had saved 2 sides for Nathanael to do (he was sick the first work night), but the dog ate them, so after I bought a second kit, we finished.  Maddy did the front.

Below is Trevor's side.  He was particular about his patterns.

Below is Nathanael's side and Rocco's back, minus a couple gum drops.

Friday, Dec. 21st
We left the house at 7am headed for Maine.  About half way up a couple of kids got sick.  Fun!  After talking to MaryJo and discovering that we could no longer stay with her and bring our germs (understandably) we checked into a hotel.

Colombo took the 3 healthy kids to visit Mimi, Grandpa, and Uncle Mac.  I stayed back with the 3 sick ones.

When they got back to the room, Maddy and I headed out and got a manicure together and then brought pizza back to the room.  I took 3 healthy kids down to the pool.  Maddy put her feet in the hot tub and the boys ended up swimming in their boxers.  We didn't know about the hotel so we didn't have suits.  Luckily, we were the only ones there.

Saturday morning we woke up with high hopes of getting to the family party in Portland as we headed home, but a couple different kids woke up sick.  We didn't want to chance infecting anyone, so we just headed for Connecticut.  It ended up being a 36 hour trip for a great manicure!  Ha!  At least Colombo did get to see 3 relatives in Bangor.

Lunch at Panera.  Our little elf drew quite a bit of attention.






















Since we were coming through Springfield at dusk, we decided to stop in at the Bright Nights light show.

This was one of my favorites.

Sunday, Dec. 23rd
Christmas Eve Eve, otherwise known here as Christmas Adam since Adam came before Eve.  DiSalvatore Christmas at our house.  I'll post later.

Rocco with his finger lodged up his nose.

Milo crying his head off.

Oh boy!  This is not going well...

Silly face!