Count-down to Christmas

On Monday morning, I had the strange experience of sleeping in. However, when I finally woke up, it was to the sound of two sobbing little girls being sent to their room. It must be the first time they've ever gone together, because it's usually that one girl is mean to the other or something like that. I kept my ears open, and pretty soon Kevin came in to talk to them. It didn't take long to get the message across: "You may NOT open presents before Christmas!" Cue the continued sobbing.
I can just imagine what they were thinking. "Oh wow, a beautiful Christmas tree, and look at those packages under the tree just for me!" They each opened one before Kevin caught them, so the damage was minimal. I'm sure if we hadn't found them, though, they would have opened every gift. Opening presents is so fun!

Since we're at home with my parents this year, we've been doing a lot of my favorite Christmas traditions. Sunday was the church choir program. My parents both sang in it, and my dad wrote and then read the narration. Sunday evening was the ward choir Christmas party at the Pack's house, with fantastic food and decorations, and my favorite part, caroling around the piano! Unfortunately, this Sunday marked one month since I've lost my voice, and while I can finally talk again, I don't have the range or endurance enough to sing. So after several songs, Brother Helm asked me to play the piano. I was happy to!
I don't really consider myself a singer, but having NO voice has made me realize just how much I enjoy singing to my girls, and especially how much I miss singing Christmas carols! Once I get my singing voice back, I may have to spend a few weeks playing Christmas music around the house to make up for this last month.

Penny, her tree, and her ornaments

We decorated our tree. Penny, Kevin, and my dad went to buy a tree at the lot. They asked for a narrow one and found one-- though it had just been unwrapped and continued to grow and grow until it was a little more than narrow. It's perfect, though. The girls did the initial decorating, which meant that there was a dense row of Penny ornaments on one side of the tree about 3 feet off the floor. A couple feet down were about 5 gold ball ornaments all hung in a clump-- Naomi's contributions.

Naomi and her golden ornaments

Last night was Christmas eve. One of our traditions has been to drive around town and look at the luminarias and Christmas lights. There was a house with a fantastic display, where the lights were coordinated with a radio station playing Christmas music. (When the station played Elvis's "Blue Christmas," only the blue lights came on and twinkled in time. It was awesome.) When we drove by on Christmas Eve, the family was out in front, mom and dad dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus. Santa came over to our car and talked to our girls about what they wanted for Christmas, gave them a candy cane, and generally made their night.
A few streets away, as we were finishing up our light watching, Penny announced, "Actually, Dad, I think you're wrong." We were pretty confused until she continued, "Santa Claus IS real."
And that, in a nutshell, was our run-up to Christmas.

Reentering the land of the living

I've had a really rough time with this flu. I'm sure everything was exacerbated and prolonged by my being pregnant, and it was tough. I lost 10 pounds from not being able to keep down anything (anything!) but apple juice and chicken broth for 7 days. I'd just lay in bed feeling horrible. Sometimes I'd prop my head up on two pillows to watch a movie or something. But I couldn't last more than about 30 minutes before I'd have to turn it off and go back down to one pillow. I was just exhausted.
I did visit the doctor. They gave me some Zofran to control the nausea, and then I felt much better. I was still weak and couldn't eat anything, but I didn't feel awful the whole time.
After 7 days, I started holding down some food, and eventually I decided to reenter the land of the living. I accompanied my family to a restaurant for lunch. I didn't eat, but just spent time with them. That afternoon, my legs were sore from the walk to and from the parking lot. Ridiculous!
I've been grateful for a lot of things during this time, though.

Do these girls love their daddy? It's hard to tell!

-I'm glad this happened on our home leave. This isn't my ideal way to spend a vacation, but Kevin was able to take care of the kids for me. If he wanted to go out on a bike ride or something, his parents were available to watch the kids and play with them. I'm not sure what I would have done if I'd been this sick while Kevin was at work.
-I'm glad I didn't have a newborn. Enough said.
-The girls have had a GREAT time with their dad and their grandparents. Naomi especially had been super clingy to me. But since I've been so sick and boring, she has branched out and come to love her dad a lot more.
-I've learned to trust Kevin more. I usually like to do things myself, like buying food, dressing the girls, driving, packing our apartment, and taking care of the girls on the airplane. But being unable to do any of these things-- and having no voice-- have made me trust Kevin. And you know what? He does a really good job on all these! He chooses different food than I would at the grocery store. But we still eat, and it's good food. I've been really happy letting Kevin take charge of things.
It's been a slow recovery. I still don't have my voice back (this makes 3 weeks + 2 days). It's slowly coming back, but it's been a croak now for about a week. Yesterday I felt like it was finally starting to improve, so I'll just have to be more patient. Honestly, what I miss the most is being able to sing. I LOVE December, finding Christmas carols on the radio, and singing along. So my family might have to just deal with me, once I have my voice back, singing carols all through January.
I'm slowly getting strength back so I'm not completely exhausted all the time. We walked to the beach and back today, and the only exhausting part was the stairs at the end. I'm finally feeling like I'll probably get over this. I'm hoping Kevin and I can go snorkeling on Thursday. We'll see...