Wednesday, January 14, 2015

The Advent/Christmas Disaster!

_MG_9710.jpgWe had a crazy, fun time decorating cookies, and then the next morning I think I caught a 4 hour flu or something like that. I was scheduled to take Rebecca to see The Mockingjay that evening, so I loaded myself up on what is considered to be an outrageous amount of Vitamin C (17,0000 mg or so) and fell asleep in front of the fireplace for about 3 hours. Then it was off to the movie. I survived and the movie was awesome. The next day I was fine. It was pretty strange, but then my children started dropping like flies getting high fevers and little coughs. Their fevers slowed them down, but didn't totally knock them down. We ended up having a two day movie marathon. They recovered quickly,  and then frantically had a ton of schoolwork to finish or miss seeing The Hobbit. (We set goals and give rewards as motivators when the kids are in a slump with school. It works fabulously.) Anyways, they made it to the movie and all was well.
_MG_9705.jpgWe didn't end up getting the Christmas tree up until December 23. The crazy in our home kept us from getting things done. The arrival of the the cute snowmen ornaments from Mimi and Papa were big motivators though, so eventually we got the tree up. Early Sunday morning, December 21, while I was still asleep, I heard a child yell, "Mom, mom!" I walked out of my bedroom only to see David downstairs laying on the couch. He said, " I just threw up." No! Apparently, he had already thrown up just before my Lutheran Stud left for church at 5am. I went downstairs and asked if he needed anything: water, puke bucket, blanket, etc. He said, "No, I just wanted to tell you." I stayed with him, encouraged him to drink some water, but nothing stayed down. We all stayed home from church that morning and had a pretty mellow day. He never threw up again that day after 8am. It was a random illness and no other children seemed to be affected.
_MG_9728.jpgMaking raviolis with our dear friends, on Christmas eve, has become a new tradition, and this year we invited all of our foster children's siblings to join us.
_MG_9727.jpgEven though we have a Kitchenaid mixer it's always fun to mix the dough by hand.
_MG_9731.jpgAll of the kids really got into helping with the whole process, and Gina was VERY patient with them. I just stayed out of the way while they made my dinner.
_MG_9743.jpgThe magic comes with this awesome attachment that makes it so much easier and faster.
_MG_9747.jpgOnce the dough is flattened out we needed to add the filling, which in this case was ricotta.
_MG_9774.jpgOnce the ricotta was added the raviolis were cut and sealed.
IMG_0783We made so much ravioli that it became  an all day process. We ate it for dinner and then I froze a ton of it for later. This isn't even half of all the ravioli we made. Most of this is in my freezer right now, so come on over!
_MG_9757.jpgSome kids would rather play games than make ravioli. Battleship has become a favorite game with the boys.
_MG_9803.jpgSo, after an early dinner we frantically all got dressed for church and headed out the door. As we were approaching the church I heard this weird sound. Then, all of the sudden Anna was screaming. When I asked what is wrong all I heard was, "Rachel just puked on Anna." What? No! This can't be happening. We already missed church Sunday. We arrived at church and I ended up leaving five of my children there because they wanted to stay. I came home, Rachel showered, and went to bed, and I cleaned out my van. Silly me, I thought all was well once everyone else came home and went to bed. They all felt fine. In the middle of the night the kids began puking one by one again. 3 went down along with Rachel who was already down. At that point I realized that we wouldn't make it to church for Christmas day, so all the hope I had was gone.
_MG_9810.jpgChristmas morning arrived and most of my children slept all morning. Anna was the only one who came downstairs and was super excited that it was Christmas. These kids were the only ones that felt welll enough to pose for me.
_MG_9813.jpgWhile they were excited to get new gifts they were not quite as enthusiastic as they normally are on Christmas day, so it was a pretty mellow, low key day for us. We didn't even have the ham I was going to cook since there would be no one to eat it.
_MG_9816.jpgNeedless to say we've all been sick this winter except for Anna and one foster child. This will go down as the worst Advent/Christmas season ever!

2 comments:

Laura Melius said...

Oh, no! I feel your pain. We had three Christmases in a row when at least one child said, "I puked." Hope the new year is better! :)

Adriane said...

Oh dear! Here's hoping next year is better. (Your ravioli still looks awesome, btw.)