Christmas

The day after Avery’s accident she was running around like a lunatic – she was swan diving onto her stuffed giraffe chair and running around with her eyes closed… I was a nervous wreck all day, I was so worried she would get hurt again L

Steven’s friend, Mitch, came over that evening – Mitch has been away at basic training for the last few months and was home for Christmas Exodus. I expected us to have a fun evening but Avery had different plans, she did NOT want to go to bed. I assume she was in pain even though I had given her Tylenol before bed, she was screaming bloody murder. Avery ended up in bed with me, although I hadn’t expected to go to bed so early so I was still fully clothed, contacts in, un-showered, hungry, and not tired at all. I snuggled Avery for 40 minutes before she was asleep enough for me to sneak away and at least take out my contacts. It was a rough night for sure.

I was exhausted all Christmas Eve because of the poor sleep I got the night before. We spent Christmas Eve with Steven’s grandparents and parents. It was a lot of fun watching Avery open her gifts. Her first gift was a small stuffed Minnie Mouse that was almost identical to the Minnie Mouse she already had, she was so happy when she realized she had two of them now. Avery’s favorite gift was a tie between a Minnie Mouse jacket (which she refuses to take off) and a Minnie Mouse air plane / scoot along toy.

After dinner and presents we went to my parents’ house to spend the night – thankfully the rest of the family were still at the Prochaska’s house for their Christmas Eve stuff so we were able to get Avery in bed without distractions. Everyone got home shortly after Avery was in bed and they stayed in the living room for quite some time. I was so tired I just wanted everyone to go to bed so that I could go to bed too (since my bed that evening was the couch). By the time everyone cleared out I only got two hours of sleep before Avery woke up screaming, I don’t know what she did but her stitches were bleeding. I cleaned her up, applied some ointment, and tried to get her back to bed but it just wasn’t happening. After a few hours she ended up sharing the couch with me and falling asleep.

Massage train

Avery and I woke up the next morning to my mom and Steven downstairs talking. The rest of the family oddly woke up at the exact same time and all came downstairs. Steven and Uncle Mike volunteered to go get everyone Starbucks while Mom and I made breakfast. Making breakfast for 11 people took longer than expected so we opened gifts while the food cooked. I was nominated as Santa this year – basically I was in charge of handing out the gifts. We usually open gifts one at a time but with so many people this year it was a free-for-all.

So many Minnies

Making dinner

Shortly after eating breakfast we began prepping for Christmas dinner – in addition to Mom, Dad, Quinn, Ashley, Steven, Avery, myself, Uncle Mike, Aunt Kim, Sarah and Nick we also had the neighbors: John and Arlene, and a few Prochaskas: Scott, Jan, and Sean. Christmas dinner was a big event and so much fun!

Holidays with family is more stressful but much more special. I can’t believe this was our first Christmas home since 2010.

On Friday we were able to get Avery’s stitches taken out. After work we met my mom at the ER since Avery only wanted my mom when they put the stitches in. Avery did pretty good getting them taken out, they had to hold her down but it was really quick. We met the rest of the family for dinner after the ER, it was the Donaldson’s going away dinner. Avery was mad at us for the ER visit so she was being pain in the butt. On the drive home she ripped off her scab and started bleeding all over the place again, I was glad to be done with that day.

Getting her stitches out

Bleeding all over the place

We went to Mike and Yvette’s house for breakfast on Saturday morning. After eating Yvette offered to watch Avery while Steven and I returned a gift – I asked for a little drawstring bracelet from Kohls and Steven confused it with a really expensive bracelet haha. I returned the expensive bracelet and got two cheaper ones that I liked. Steven also returned two pairs of sweats that he bought me for Christmas, he really wanted our family to wear red sweats for Christmas because you wear red on Fridays for the troops, it seemed appropriate. Steven and Avery managed to find red sweats but they only had shades of pink in the women’s section and no red men’s in my size – we tried, it’s the thought that counts. 

Avery Quinn - 23 months