Christmas With the Keiths

We celebrated Christmas with the Keiths a bit late this year, not until the 3rd week of January.  We were excited to get together to visit, exchange gifts, and also celebrate Chris' birthday, but we missed Aunt Erin!

Unfortunately, poor Hannah had a horrible weekend.  The day that we left town, a terrible storm had just come in.  It was 14 degrees out, the wind was horrendous, and blowing the snow around so much that it almost looked like smoke.  It was horrible to drive in, and the whole way out of Illinois and through Indiana there were wrecks all over the highway and dozens and dozens of abandoned cars on the side of the highway.  Actually it was a bit spooky.

I had just taken Hannah to the dr that morning with a terrible diaper rash that had just popped up that morning.  Unfortunately it accompanied the end of 2 weeks of constipation, so multiple times that day while we drove, Hannah would suddenly turn to me and start screaming as she tried to go to the bathroom.  Then her and I would get out in the below freezing temperatures, and run into some cold McDonalds or truck stop bathroom where she screamed while I tried to clean her up.  Not a fun trip.  Not at all.

The next night she started crying around 10:00 and didn't stop until about 2:30 am when Chris put her in the car and drove her around until she fell asleep.  This was the second time that night that we had to drive her around.  I had forgotten just how stressful it is to have a baby crying for 4+ hours with almost no breaks in between, and nothing would console her other than a trip in the car.  But eventually she went to sleep and we all slept hard that night.  (Well, in between waking up and being fed, which happened about 4 more times after 2:30.  Sigh.)

She and I slept in, and around 10 or so we emerged and opened presents.

It was great!  I love Christmas and was excited that we were able to get together for presents, even if it was a bit late.  I wasn't able to get as many pictures as I did at Mom's house, since for the most part we were the only people opening gifts, and I was opening mine, some of Hannah's and helping Jayce wrestle his toys from the boxes.  But I was still happy to get a few of the action.