December of 2017 was one of the hardest months I can remember. We know that it is always hard to bring a new child into our family, and we were expecting the challenges that go along with that, but we didn’t have any idea how crazy the month was going to get. Just a few days after we got home with Evie, Matthias knocked a table bench over on his foot and broke a toe. The way it landed, it ripped the nail out and split the toe open, so the ER doctors couldn’t even figure out how to put it all back together so that it would heal correctly. They sent him down to the orthopedic doctor who stitched the toe up and took care of the nail bed. Then a few days later, they put a cast on because of the break. Then Greg had to make an emergency trip out of the state with the three oldest kids. He is working on a post right now that explains more about that. Almost as soon as he got back to Ohio, Matthias got a severe ear infection that ruptured the ear drum. Because of all that, our holiday was more chaotic than we had hoped, and we are really struggling to get our feet back under us. I know we are going to find a new rhythm of life, but I had hoped that we would be closer to it by now. Evie continues to do really well with us, but the days are hard. All 6 girls have nasty colds now and poor Hallie is absolutely miserable. She has been a really good sport about the fact that she lost her spot in Mommy’s lap when Evie came home, but today she just couldn’t take it any more. Greg took over with Evie’s care for a while so I could give Hallie the snuggle time that she needed. We had hoped to make it back to church this week, but that isn’t going to happen.

On a more positive note, the kids all enjoyed Christmas and New Year’s Day.