Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Thanksgiving with the Fam

Cousins Claire, Savannah, Lydia and Ruby watch a movie on the balcony. Can you tell Ruby is not feeling great?
Close enough?
Caiden (8 months) and Haley (six months) get to know each other.
Gram and Haley
We just said goodbye to my family on Sunday, after a wonderful extended weekend of time together. Our new home was able to house 12 people somewhat comfortably (I hope--am I wrong sisters?) and each family unit had its own space--however cramped. We had the girls in our bedroom with us, Haley in the playpen in our closet (yes, our closet. We're not terrible parents, are we?) one sister's family in the girls' room, and another sister's family in the guest room. That left the entire downstairs free for late-night chats or gaming to go on without disturbing sleepers.

That being said, there wasn't a lot of sleeping going on, which is how it is when my family gets together. By the end of our time, we usually walk around like zombies. Ruby had picked up a cold at Haley's well-check last week (despite sanitizing our hands several times while we were in there) and has been passing it to the rest of us since then.

Right now, I am resting in bed while the girls nap. I am determined to get better before Casey leaves to visit his brother in a few days. We're always a little sad when he leaves, and I don't want to make it any more of a bummer by being under the weather. We try to do fun things while he's gone so the girls and I can have something to look forward to, but there's a limit to what we'll be doing if we're still as sick as we are right now. It's also imperative that Casey NOT get this cold. Would we ever be forgiven for bringing sickness into a family with three under three?

How thankful I am for my excellent guests who left the house in such great order. On Sunday afternoon, when I began to lose steam and realized I was actually getting this cold, the house was in better shape than it usually is by Monday night (after I've attempted to catch up from the weekend). This has contributed to my ability this week to take it easy, yet keep up on clutter, laundry and dishes. It really helps to not start out behind!

This Thanksgiving went really well, and I look forward to Christmas when we won't be missing any siblings. Perhaps we can plan a few activities so that our time together includes more personal relationship-building opportunities. With a group so large (15 adults, 8 children so far), it's pretty easy to get to the end of our time and discover that we haven't had a good one-on-one conversation with anyone. Even this past weekend, my sister and I had to make a date to talk that last night--starting after midnight! Does anyone else run into this kind of problem during the holidays, or is it a big family thing? I'd love to hear ideas on how others deal with this sort of situation. Our family is only growing larger by the year, and our lost-in-the-mob-ness will surely only get worse if we don't implement a good plan!

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