A Low Key Christmas

When your Christmas grocery list includes Pedialyte and 409 you know it's not the Christmas you hoped for.
Christmas Eve morning Mina and I were struck with the stomach flu. Later that afternoon Brett and Marie were. Yeesh. It was a gross day.

However, the night before Christmas we prayed that we would all get better for the next day, and though we weren't 100% we were still blessed with some good health on Christmas Day.

Marie asked Santa for two things:
1. Christmas M&M's
2. Enough dolls to have a doll party.

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I think it turned out pretty good.

Mom and Dad got a new toy also. Something fun to take the kids hiking in.

Watch out Mt. Fuji! We're coming for you!
This is a song we always sing to Mina. It goes, "Wilhelmina, little Mina, Wilhelmina, little Mina..."

It was a super low key day. Everyone was feeling good, but just tired. Mina especially. She threw up like a trillion times and at one point we took her to the Urgent Care Center for dehydration. Just a terrible time. But it made us so thankful to have two healthy girls Christmas day. We are so blessed.

Mina is growing like an adorable weed. She is SO CLOSE to walking! I was saying she will be walking on Christmas day... but she wants a little more time. That's ok Mina. Today I packed away 1 bumbo, 1 bouncer, 1 swing, 1 playmat, and put up 1 babygate. She was up the stairs twice before we noticed she was gone. Scary. My sweetie is growing up, but that is alright because I am reminded of the saying, "it kills us to watch them grow up, but if they didn't grow up it would kill us."   Speaking of which, it's 12:06 am and my girl just woke up and nothing soothes except mom. It's a blessing and a curse.

Christmas dinner has seen better days. The salad was the only festive thing, and I'm glad we had some frozen shrimp, because the reheated Popeye's just wasn't cuttin' it.

After Skyping with family for a few hours Marie felt good enough for some sledding with Dad.  Later, the girls chilled out with a few minutes of Thomas the Train.

It turned out to be a lovely, low key Christmas here in Japan.
Miss you all very much!