<h3>MIA</h3>

Sorry for the long absence! I knew I wouldn't blog much through the holidays, but circumstances made the time much longer.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! We certainly enjoyed our time with family this Christmas season. We had a fun mix of family, food and flu! Nate started off the month of December with some type of bug that lasted almost three weeks. He sees over 700 students a week as a teacher, so sickness is often inevitable with that much exposure! By mid December, Gunnar and I caught the bug just in time for Nate to leave town for five days. Our friends were moving back to Michigan from Las Vegas, so Nate flew out there to help drive the moving truck back home. By the way, "Welcome home, Josh, Nicole, and Alexis!" We are so happy to have some of our best friends back in Michigan!

Julius' immune system held out until Christmas day and then surrendered to the nastiness! Layla lasted the longest, making it until this past Saturday evening before getting sick. I'm sure two weeks of getting to bed too late and eating holiday food finally caught up with her!

So needless to say, these past few weeks have been filled with sleepless nights, coughing, crying, fevers, runny noses, tissues everywhere, medicine and supplements all over the counters, and just plain pitifulness ( I don't think that is really a word). Gunnar was the only one with high fevers. I ended up running him to the ER on Saturday evening when his fever spiked again. All my family members were freaking me out over the weekend worrying that he was still sick. Turns out everything was fine. Clear lungs, clear ears and no RSV. Sunday morning I figured out why he was still running a fever. His two top teeth started coming through! Poor kid! Nothing like being sick and cutting two teeth!

Nate and I are better. Julius and Gunnar are now trying to rid themselves of the leftover congestion and Layla is just getting started.

Despite our lack of perfect health, we enjoyed a pretty full schedule over Christmas, Starting Christmas Eve, we had four days straight of parties and then a funeral. Nate's parents, brother and sister-in-law came to stay with us. The kids absolutely love having family in town. Grandparents, uncles and aunts are always worn out when they leave our house! The kids keep them on their toes the whole time they are here! After Nate's family left town, we headed over to my family's to spend time with my aunt, uncle and cousins who were visiting from Florida. Layla and Julius had so much fun with their cousins. I practically didn't see Layla for the three days we were there. They can't wait to see them again!

We returned home to put away Christmas decorations, clean up the house a bit and tackle Mt. Washmore. While doing the laundry I decided to clear out the kids wardrobes of clothes that no longer fit. I have a huge pile now that needs to be put in bins in the basement. I just did all this back in late September, but my kids grow like weeds. Just last week Layla put on a sweatsuit that she had worn several times in December. The arms and legs were all of a sudden ridiculously short on her. I noticed that many of her clothes and pajamas were the same way, so we headed to the consignment shop to grab some bigger clothes. This morning Nate decided to measure her again and he discovered that she grew over 1/2 an inch just since early December! No wonder why she needed bigger clothes!

Nate was sad to head back to work this morning, as were the kids. They love having their daddy home. The holidays were somewhat of a whirlwind and we are looking forward to a slower month this January. And a healthier month, too!