The Kolb Family Adventures: Christmas cookies and holiday.....

FLU! Yep, the holiday flu hit our house along with all the homes of the extended Kolb family. Grace woke up not feeling well late Friday night and threw up all over our bathroom. She was sick for the rest of the night and spent all day Saturday in bed. Ella decided to one up her big sister and really show her how it's done by throwing up all over Jason and I's bed Saturday night. Her bout was very short lived and felt 100% by the time she woke up Sunday morning. Apparently Lily doesn't think she could top Ella's performance so she is remaining healthy which is the silver lining in this storm cloud that passed! Once again, I thank God for my husband who deals so much better with this type of thing than I do. I handled the comforting and the periphery cleaning while Jason took on the big jobs. He obviously knew if I got involved in that, I would have only made the mess worse! We make quite a team.
Prior to the flu outbreak, we were able to celebrate Christmas in grand style! We arrived in STJ at lunch time on Tuesday and basically spent the day relaxing and playing. The girls enjoyed the warmish temperatures with some sledding, animal hut building and snowball throwing.

Work before play came on Wednesday with meal preparations beginning in the morning. It takes time to put a feast together and that is exactly what Mom and Dad did for us. Prime rib that rivals any I have ever had the pleasure of inhaling, shrimp scampi that put Red Lobster's to shame and totally succulent twice baked potatoes were the stars of the show with various salads, vegetables and treats playing secondary parts in this culinary play of Broadway proportions!

Our own personal Top Chefs!

Joshy and his little elves!

Santa made his presence (pun intended) known while Jason, Sheila and I took the kids on a tour of STJ's finest Christmas light displays. Gift opening commenced upon our arrival home and I do believe everyone somehow received pretty much everything on their lists, even though Mom and Dad cut down this year! If you notice in the picture above, the presents stacked up were taller than Josh so I have a sneaking suspicion maybe they didn't cut down much! Highlights for my girls were probably Ella's fabulous red dress (thanks Uncle Joshy), Grace's camera which is nicer than her mommy's (thanks Grandma and Papa) and Lily just loved everything and gave hugs randomly.

Ella with a big smile even though she has no idea what Shrinky Dinks are! We did some on Saturday though and she proclaimed them to be "Awesome!".

Grace just can't believe she got a camera. I can't even count how many times I heard that in the past several days. Notice Lily in the background hugging Papa just because she was so happy for Grace.

THE red dress!

I'm seeing this picture retaken about 10 years from now for Prom!

Lily is absent from this picture as she was busy having a total meltdown because "I don't want to wear pink tights, I want to wear black tights!".

Christmas morning, after many rousing games of Wii bowling, we hit the road to make it back to Sioux Falls in time for Christmas Mass. After Mass, the entire Kolb crew converged upon Nicole's house for another feast. Seriously, the amount of food I have consumed in the past week is absolutely obscene. Turkey, ham, hashbrown casserole and Cliff's corn were on the menu and we made short work of it. After a terrific slide show put together by our niece Liz, Santa made a surprise appearance. Good old Ella wouldn't be fooled though. She knew this couldn't be the real Santa because his belly wasn't nearly big enough! All three girls were completely and fell fast asleep on our way home from Nicole's.

Byron, the master turkey carver!

Lily knew better than to question Santa's true identity. She wanted that "candy land" (candy cane and the box of chocolates!

Most of the grandkids with our skinny Santa.

Byron, Angela and John with front row seats for the slide show.

A Christmas piledriver to Joe from Johno with love!

Lexi and her Santa

As of right now, I believe all gifts have been unpackaged and found a home. Just today alone, they have played with Lily's cash register and learning city, Grace's Pixos, Ella's jewelry designing kit, their mp3 players and the Cherry Blossom Market and are currently outside working on their snowman. It appears they may have enough to keep them busy through the rest of this week!