Christmas and New Years

Christmas morning, I had the kiddos attempt one more picture before they opened their presents. The cone was not cooperating, and Harry wan't feeling it though.

The unwrapping was a frenzy and filled with lots of excitement and even some paper eating (Dragon and Harry kept us on our toes). Everyone was sooo happy with the gifts and spent the day playing with their new toys!

Livi playing her circuit beats

Loving her new skirt from Nonny and Grandad

So excited about her legos from Nana

Harry was pooped after the dust settled

everyone enjoying one of Harry's presents

snoozing in his new swing

The week between Christmas and New Years Oscar was off from work and had some great time with the kids. Unfortuantely though Harry got sick. He had a cold over Christmas and a few days after had a really high fever, was very fussy, and just wanted to be held. After one day of that, we brought him into the clinic and they found out he had a really bad ear infection and had perforated his eardrum. We started some antibiotics and I started pumping since he was also refusing to nurse. (That was hard not knowing if he'd start again, but thankfully he did once he started feeling better, and probably once his ear stopped hurting) He started acting more like himself a few days after the antibiotics were started, but he still wasn't completely back to normal. We ended up bottle feeding him for about a week and just keeping an eye on him over the New Years holiday weekend...

For New Years Eve, we had one of Oscar's buddies over to help with the festivities. First up baking and decorating cupcakes.

 Then we had some sparklers.

The boys stayed up until midnight, but the rest of us went to bed around 9pm as usual. We were up bright and early though to toast the New York New Year with coffee and hot chocolate. The boys slept in but we did another toast when they woke up to the New York countdown from the internet.

Harry enjoying a bottle with dada on New Years morning

Happy New Year!

Hanging out in the neighbors yard when we went to feed the bunny. The kids jumped on the trampoline and climbed the tree while Harry explored the dirt.

Our Livi enjoying the neighbors trees (their yard is much nicer than ours!)

Harry was feeling much better on New Years Day.

Oscar's friend True was getting ready to leave post and one of the few friends around for the holiday. While the movers packed his house up, he came and stayed with us for a few days in a row. One day we stopped at the Embassy on the way to the pool for a doctor appt for Harry. Both of them didn't bother to grab their shoes and had to wait on the bench outside. They didn't seem to mind...

First dip in the pool - too mesmerized to look at the camera

While doing better, Harry still wasn't completely himself and had a low grade fever again. We decided to bring him into the clinic one more time just to see what they thought. While it ended up fine, someone mentioned the possibility of malaria and our heads started spinning. Nairobi is not a malaria zone due to altitude, but you just never know... So we raced out to a local clinic for a blood draw :( and then our Doctor's office to wait for the results. His labs showed elevated white blood cells which showed he was fighting something but he did NOT have malaria (thank god!). We took a wait and see approach and thankfully within 24 hours he was truly back to himself. Most likely he had a viral bug on top of his bacterial bug and he thankfully was able to fend them both off. Alls well that ends well but a few stressful moments over the otherwise mellow and happy holidays!

Poor pumpkin snoozing after his blood draw (bandage on his left hand)