Better late than never

We had high hopes for Christmas. Our game plan had been to load everyone up on Christmas afternoon and drive down to see my parents. My sisters were both going to be there, as well as my grandmother. We had made both a pumpkin and pecan pie.

However ... 30 minutes before we planned to leave, Turtle threw up EVERYWHERE. We had originally thought it might be from the excitement and too much candy. So, Jeremy loaded the other three kids up and headed down while I stayed home with the littlest (just in case). 1/2 way into the journey ... Monkey threw up (right after commenting that her tummy wasn't feeling so hot). They turned around and came home ... Christmas was off. For the next FIVE days I was cleaning puke and poop. Merry Christmas *not*

Rotating sickies left enough non-sickies to kill all but 2 slices of pie off by Saturday night

This left us with a dilemma. We still had gifts for my family and they still had gifts for us. We needed to reschedule Christmas ... but when?! Schedules for everyone is just INSANE, so getting everyone back together was going to be impossible ... or was it?

Enter technology!!  January 7, my dad had to be up in Kansas City for a follow-up health appointment and my sister miraculously had the day off. My other sister also happened to have a block of time when she could get on FaceTime and we could do Christmas together! Woot!! *before I continue, please note that the smaller photos are taken from my father's camera. They have been left in a very small format and copyrighted since they are NOT taken by me.*

With FaceTime going, we started on the presents. I am not going to show all of them, but a few of them have a story that just need to be shared.

Turtle had a hard time concentrating ... but there was one toy that had her zoned for quite a bit!

Oh - let's not forget where those matching headbands came from ...

You have the Doc McStuffins outfits. Each girl got their own costume and they both came with headbands, ear scopes, and a bandaid. We wouldn't open the costume part, but we let the girls have the accessories. Monkey has since called the outfit her Doctor Who costume because he's the cool doctor.

Bullfrog has only a few interests when it comes to "toys." They are Bayblades, Transformers, Cars/Vehicles, and LEGOs. He LOVES LEGOs. Of course he got a package for Christmas and we joked that it wouldn't take him long to put it together ... it didn't ... only 90 minutes.

All of the children were given new shoes for Christmas ... and every child wore their new shoes to dinner and home. Peanut was given some elastic ties from "Santa" to put on her shoes so she wouldn't have to wear laces. I have to admit ... I REALLY want a pair of Converse shoes now (although I have always loved Converse).

Finally ... we can't have Christmas without smelling the color purple. We got our customary K-State bowl shirts that fit wonderfully and are beautiful. It was such a bittersweet game, but the boys showed fight and came back from a HORRIFIC first half to only lose by 5. Either way, "Santa" gave me a special present in my stocking that I fell in love with. This meal will be fun!

After we finished presents and cleaned up, it was time for us to head to dinner. I was in the middle of a Clean Eating challenge so I knew it was going to be interesting. I spent the day making sure I knew what I could and couldn't eat. I discovered that Golden Corral has a LOT of clean food and I managed to have 2 plates of food, plus a small dessert plate, and kept it under 1000 calories!!

Absolutely no sacrificing on flavor of the food either. My second plate had more carrots, more asparagus, and a few sweet potato fries (more than a few but 3/4 of them were stolen by Turtle).

Have you ever had a time when holidays don't go according to plan? How have you turned it around? Let me know in the comments below ... especially if you have ever used Skype or FaceTime to make a family holiday complete.