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So, Aubrey started preschool at the beginning of the month. I can hardly believe she is old enough. She is attending the same preschool that Jacob went to, and on her first day, she went right into her class without even looking back. No tears, hardly even a wave back to mom and dad. However, the last couple of times, she's been a little whiny about it, so I'm hoping she'll get more used to it over the next few weeks. Even though my daughter is really such a joy to be around, I absolutely love having only 1 child with me in the mornings a couple of times a week. What to do with myself, you ask? Can you say, "Costco, here I come!!"

Aubrey in front of her cubby

At the end of preschool her first day

My two little ones

BBBAAAADDDDD Week!

So, as the title infers, this has been a BAD week. My two little ones have been hit hard with a bad flu. It's been a combination of vomiting, high fevers, and diarrhea for the last week and it's still going strong. Evan even broke out in a weird rash that covers his whole body and Aubrey broke out in it today too. So I've been holding sick, crying babies for a week, doing endless loads of laundry and all kinds of clean up this week... yuck!!

I escaped this morning to do brunch with a girlfriend to take a "breather" from our house, which we've aptly nicknamed "the den of death" due to all the illnesses floating around there. And it was nice, however when I returned the babysitter let me know that Aubrey had thrown up again. So, we're back to square one.

And Jacob came home early today from school with a fever and Dallin had one this morning too. So I am the only healthy one in this group of sickies. How many days do you think it will be before I start too? I'm guessing 2... max!

On a much lighter note, since I use my blog as my journal, I wanted to write about Jacob's piano lessons. Jacob has been taking piano lessons for just a few months now and it's hard to really tell what they are learning at this stage, if anything. But last week, I heard him play his first duet with his teacher and it sounded really good. I wish I would have caught it on tape... seriously so cute!

Christmas Day At Last

The kids woke up about 7 a.m. and came upstairs. The first thing they did, of course, is come upstairs to see if Santa came. We set a broom out every year to see if Santa comes. If it's knocked over in the morning, that means he came. If it's still standing, then that's bad news. Fortunately, it was knocked over.

Then we had to take one more picture of them in their cute pajamas, while prolonging their agony. They were dying to see what was in the living room.

We try to keep Christmas pretty low key in our home so that we focus on the true meaning of christmas. My kids know that Santa really only brings 1 big gift, and they also only really get 1 gift from mom and dad, plus PJs on christmas eve and an ornament. It doesn't sound like a lot, but by the time you add in all of the gifts from the cousins on both sides of the family, gifts from grandparents, and the ones from local friends, neighbors and teachers, it already seems like too much. This way, they don't have "too many" presents and actually enjoy opening all of their presents. Before we started doing Christmas this way, my kids didn't even want to open ALL of their presents. We practically had to force them, so this seems to be working for us for now. Below are pictures of some of the favorite presents this year:

Jacob got his first official pair of skis and broke them in the day after Christmas!

Aubrey got her first dollhouse!

And I think everyone's favorite toy (especially Evan's favorite) was this toy Elmo. It is amazing. It moves its arms and mouth when it talks, it stands up and sits down, dances, sings, tells jokes, tells stories, it laughs when you tickle it, and more. It's pretty cool and Evan almost died of excitement when he saw it.

Like I mentioned above, the rest of Christmas Day, we played with toys, went sledding outside with the neighbors, ate great food and relaxed. The rest of our Christmas vacation was spent doing pretty much the same, with a few occasional outings with local friends to restaurants and movies. It was pretty relaxing, which I thoroughly enjoyed!