How the Toddler Stole Christmas

Who -- ME?

Wow.  I feel like a slouch.  I haven't blogged since before Christmas, I've got all of vacation to catch up on, and all I really want to do is curl up and take a nap!  Womp womp.  However, the show must go on, and since the masses (i.e. Ethan) are hounding me to update the blog, I guess it's my duty to do so.  Hahaha.

 

The title says it all, folks.  This Christmas was entirely sidetracked, derailed, and overtaken by a little dumplin' named Isaac.  True Story.  Here is how it all went down...

Christmas Eve was actually a lovely little Sunday, where we enjoyed sacrament meeting only and then enjoyed the afternoon with friends who we invited over to participate in some gingerbread decorating and some Gumbo partaking.  It was a lot of fun!  It may be a huge pain to make all the gingerbread from scratch, roll it out, and then cut the perfect houses by hand, but I only do it once a year, and the ritual of it is kind of enjoyable -- as crazy as that may seem.  And since decorating said houses are always crowd pleaser, it's a win-win kind of situation.

Unfortunately, Isaac took the cake this break for the WORST SLEEPER EVER.  Like for real.  I had to go in and lay down with him for half the night before, and as a result, once our company left and the kids were finally able to tear into their new ornaments for the year, I was so wiped out that I fell asleep on the couch while we were watching "Chill with Bob Ross" on Netflix.  By the time I woke up, it was already pushing into the evening, we still needed to do our traditional Christmas Pageant narration, and Isaac really needed to get to bed at a decent hour.  I was still so groggy and out of it that I'm pretty sure it was the most rushed and non-special rendering of a pageant ever, and as a result, I have no pictures, and I don't even remember who played which parts.  

This Year's Ornaments...

 Isaac got Spiderman.

 Alex got Captain Underpants.

 Jane got a Num Nom refashioned by moi into an ornament.

 Sophie got a Statue of Liberty -- to make up for the fact that we didn't get to see it when we were in NYC this summer.  Haha.

 Grace got Eleven from Stranger Things (which was technically a bobble-head doll thing-y, but a glue gun, jump ring, and twine rendered it ornamental).

 

And Ethan got Sawyer from the television show LOST, which he has been binge-watching 'round the clock for the last month since it will be leaving Netflix on January 4th.  (This was ALSO a vinyl figure that I worked some magic on.)
 

To top things off, even though Isaac went to bed on time, the little stinker woke up around 10 o'clock -- right when Santa was about to come down the chimney -- and prolonged OUR bedtime until close to midnight when we were finally able to get him back to bed.  It was all very short-lived, however, when Isaac started freaking out about an hour later and Scott went in to settle him down.  He went back to sleep fairly quickly after that, but THEN, that little rat was up again at 4:30 and it was my turn to go lay down with him and try to get him to settle down, which after about an hour, he did.  Suffice it to say, that when Ethan and the others woke up and came in around 6:30 -- waking Isaac up, too -- I was in NO frame of mind to celebrate the excitement of Christmas morning with the kids.  Like none.  I was a straight zombie.  To the point where I hardly took any pictures, I mostly sat staring on the couch, and only when the kids grabbed my attention by posing for me without any prodding did I remember to do anything.  Hahaha.  I'd like to say that my mid-morning nap on the couch helped to revive me and I was able to spend the rest of the day excitedly documenting our Christmas, but that was not the case.  I was too tired to do anything other than happily observe that everyone's gifts were a hit.

 

The Stocking Stuffer Secret Santas...

 Ethan's stocking was filled by Alex...

 Grace's stocking was filled by Ethan...

 Sophie's was filled by "Isaac"...

 Jane's was filled by Sophie...

 Alex's was filled by Jane...

 And Isaac's stocking was filled by Grace.

You would think that by this point in time Isaac would be ready to catch up on some sleep and really knock it out of the park with a solid night here on Christmas Day, but you would think wrong.  He woke up freaking out around the 2 AM mark and this time Scott took one for the team and stayed with him for a couple of hours before he was able to come back to bed.  So when Alex and Isaac were both awake for the morning around 7:30, you're just going to have to not judge us for shooing them downstairs to watch TV while we tried to get a little more sleep.  

Really, though, you probably should judge us, because it was not a good call.  When I finally came downstairs an hour later, Isaac wandered into the kitchen, made eye contact with me while looking panicked, and in that instant I knew he was about to throw up.  Which he did.  And my immediate assumption was that he had eaten something he was allergic to.  Which he had.  But I didn't know this for sure until I found the half-eaten, miniature peanut butter cup on the family room floor.  Let the record show that Alex and Jane are not exactly the most reliable baby-sitters.  Hahahahahaha.  After dosing Isaac with some Benadryl, we set up camp on the couch with some Minions and a bucket.  Long story short: he started sneezing like crazy, threw up a second time, his eyes were watery, and he broke out in full-body hives.  Once his face turned red and blotchy and he was scratching all over and super uncomfortable, I decided it was probably best to give the doctor a call.  Even though he wasn't having any trouble breathing, the doctor said to use the EpiPen and get him to children's hospital.  When a call to the allergist yielded the same advice, I quickly followed through and then spent the next 4 hours at the hospital with Dumplin' Buns while waiting under observation.  They gave him a steroid which also helped, and after getting the all-clear we finally got to come home later that afternoon.  It was quite the Boxing Day, let me tell ya!  Hahaha.  

 In the waiting room with this Cool Little Bro.

 Watching some more Minions.  I'm pretty sure we've seen this movie 5,000 times over the last 2 weeks.

 Still itchy.  And yes -- we already knew he was allergic to nuts.  :(

All's well that ends well, and he was safe and sound even if he DID dominate our Christmas vacation.  We sure do love that little stinker, even though he is one high maintenance little Pup.  ;)

Stay tuned for the REST of our vacation recap.  {Spoiler alert -- there aren't a lot of pictures and it mostly involves playing lots of games and hanging with the cousins.}