Christmas Time All Over

Merry Christmas everyone!  Our Christmas was celebrated in stages again this year.   Here are a few pictures from our get together with Michael's side of the family a week or so ago.

I love this picture of Rachel...she looks so grown up!

And Jackson loves Katie Puppy - he chases her and plays with her as much as he can.  

Rachel and Chloe in stripes.

Rachel was the only one of the three cousins that would cooperate for getting a picture in front of the tree... we did try though!

Her new bike!  Jackson likes it too...

This past weekend we made a quick trip up to Charlotte to visit with my side of the family.  We saw everyone but just for a little while!

Trying on their new hats with Nana!

Having lots of fun with Ted too!

The grandkids separating the presents on Sunday.  I hardly have any pictures from this day - Rachel wasn't feeling good and Jackson was trying to nap (unsuccessfully)... I wish I had taken more pictures though!!!

 

Rachel was still not feeling good the morning of Christmas Eve and I thought she was only getting worse - but she laid down to rest (never napped) and got up feeling much better.  Thank goodness!  We tried something new and went to Papadeaux for dinner on Christmas Eve... Expensive but delicious!!!  Rachel got to wear one of her new dresses.  Can you tell she likes to pose?

They were both dancing.

Now in their Christmas pajamas...before bed on Christmas Eve.

Both kids slept until 8:00 this morning.  I would have slept later myself if I had known they would sleep that late!  Oh well... At least we got a better reaction from Rachel this year than in the years past.  All she really wanted was a robe and earmuffs...and she got them!

He loves Mickey!

And she got a new watch to help her learn to tell time.

Jackson trying on his new coat.

We had a great Christmas.  We stayed here and relaxed all day.  Michael's parents came over this afternoon and spent the evening here with us.  No rushing around and packing up or anything - just hanging out, playing, resting and enjoying a fire.  Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well!

Hello There, Santa!

We made our annual trip to visit Santa at his house tonight.  Both kids were excited to see him, then both kids got nervous, but both ended up sitting on his lap and doing good.  

(That's a very short version of the evening!!) 

Jackson tensed up when I went to set him on Santa's lap, but calmed down quickly.  No tears at all.

Rachel still loves that mailbox!

Rachel and Ms. Claus.

Stitches...

Last Sunday night, we had an accident in our house.  We had just gotten home from dinner and it was almost time for the kids to go to bed.  Jackson was standing in front of the panty door looking the sleigh bell we had hanging on the door.

Michael was playing with Rachel in the living room and I was in the kitchen.  Jackson started asking for Michael to get him too, so Michael ran over, picked Jackson up and started to run back...we instantly realized that Jackson had his finger stuck in the bell.  (In the picture below, you can see the larger hole and then the smaller slot...he had his finger down in the smaller slot.)

My first thought was oh my gosh, that's going to hurt... Then as I'm getting his finger out of it, I see all of the blood...it cut his finger really bad.  I instantly grab paper towels and keep pressure on it while Michael runs around and grabs our stuff.  Our wonderful next door neighbor, Sherry, came over and graciously stayed at the house with Rachel so that she didn't have to come with us.   We headed to the closest Children's Healthcare Urgent Care Center.  Jackson had calmed down by this point - up until we got into triage and they have to take off the towels and it starts gushing again. They finally got it wrapped and taped up and sent us back out into the waiting room.  We soon found out that this was one of their busiest days ever - we were there for 4 hours!  Thank goodness Jackson was in pretty good spirits most of the time...this was him when we finally got called back. 

They gave him some medicine to make him loopy and boy did it...he was giggling like crazy - it was so cute (in a sad kind of way...).  

 After the numbing shots, the doctor got to work on stitching him up.  He had to have 11 total - 6 on the inside and 5 on the outside of his finger.  And his finger is so little!  

The first night and day were rough but since then, he's been doing great.  We are now to the point where we can leave it uncovered at night and he's doing good with that as well so far.  He is running around and playing just like normal - using his left hand more, but still.  He has adapted fine.  We have one more week until the stitches can come out.  

We took some very close up pictures tonight of his boo-boo.  If you don't like looking at that sort of thing, then proceed with caution or skip it...just a warning that it is a close-up.  

This is the outside of his finger, it was a much cleaner cut.  

And this is the inside - it was messier and harder to stitch.  

We are very thankful that it didn't do more damage than it did. 

Costa Rica - Part 5

I think this will be my last post about Costa Rica.  This has several different days/events in it.  

Here are a few random pictures...

Rachel and Jackson on the balcony of Barbara, Dawson, Nannette & Rowland's condo.

  

The ocean view from their balcony as well...

Here is Rachel with that same horse that came by each day.

Hanging out on the balcony...

   

Bright eyes!

One of the days Grandmama and Grandaddy took Rachel and Jackson out to a butterfly farm and to lunch.  They got to see butterflies, frogs, monkeys and snakes. Rachel had three frogs jump on her head! 

Here is Jackson with a green frog on his arm.

Holding the turtle...

Holding a butterfly a little too tightly.  They kept telling Jackson to let go of the butterfly and he wouldn't do it.  The man had to actually pry his fingers apart and there was part of the butterfly left on his finger...sad.

This was a female monkey and she did not like other females.  Rachel had her hand on (or close to) the fence and the monkey reached out and swatted at her - you can see Rachel's face and hand just jerked back.  Crazy!!

Some of you may be wondering where the snake pictures are.  They got to see and hold a python.  And if you know me very well at all, you know that I am deathly afraid of large snakes - aka pythons.  I can't even hear about them, much less see them.  There were a few pictures taken of the kids with the snake but I've had Michael go through and label them for me so I don't have to look at them - I just can't.  And because I can't look at them, I can't put them on my blog - I look at it all the time!  So, I will attach two of the snake pictures to the email going out with this, but that's all I can do.  Sorry!!

Now, onto better subjects... *smile*

One of the days, Michael, Jeffrey, Nannette, Barbara and Dawson went on zip line excursion.  They were gone most of the day.  Michael and Jeffrey rode horses up a mountain for an hour to get to the top (the others rode in a van)...then 25 zip lines, 2 repels, lots of waterfalls, clear water pools, etc.  Here are a few pictures they got from that day...They said it was awesome!

One night we went to a nice restaurant on the beach.  We got there just as the sun was going down and  took these pictures in front of the water. 

The last night we took our official family pictures...We barely made it before we lost our good lighting.

I wish Jackson had cooperated a little better for these...

Afterwards we headed back to the restaurant with the margaritas and guacamole!  

On our van ride back to the airport on Saturday, we stopped just past a bridge on the main road.  Half of us got out and walked back down the road and over the bridge and looked below... This river was full of crocodiles!  It was crazy!  And people just stop their cars, get out and go look at them!  (Just like we did.)  There were men selling crocodile souvenirs and everything...some said that people will throw down chickens to the crocodiles - that's why they are all congregated in this one area.  It was crazy.

Looking over the bridge...

And here is one last sunset picture to end my Costa Rica series.  We really did have a great time - thanks to all that made that possible!!