I'd like a turkey sandwich with a side of DayQuil, please

Wow, what a month November was, riddled with injury and illness for my little family. First Jaina, then Libby, then Malachi. When Malachi spiked a fever of 101.1, I tried getting him in to see our pediatrician, but they were "too busy" that day. John was in Atlanta and I had no internet access because HP had refused to cover under warrenty the neccessary repairs for our computer. John called around to a few different doctors and found one that could see Malachi right away. And as it turned out, Dr. Mafia (not his real name, he just looks like a Latin Mob boss) is pretty wonderful, so it all worked out in the end. Malachi recovered from his cold, and so did his sisters. We had a mini-Thanksgiving with a small ham and some sides, saving the real thing for my parent's visit.

Mom and Dad flew in last Thursady to visit with us. Later that day Libby started complaining about her stomach. She was running a low-grade fever which spiked to 103.3 in the middle of the night. Jaina woke up with a disgustingly snotty nose, and Malachi got stuffed up again as well. John had started a cold Thanksgiving weekend, and it was not getting any better. Friday, Libby woke up feeling better and we hung out, doing a little shopping, some reading, and taking it easy. Dad and I got some firewood so we could enjoy our fireplace over the weekend. Saturday Mom and I did some shopping (and some more, and then a little more) while John and Dad stayed home with the kids and watched football. Dad also cooked the turkey for our late Thanksgiving meal. Mom and I got home and finished up with the fixin's. It was all wonderful. Just wonderful. Then Mom and I went out again after dinner to do even more shopping. Unfortunately, Mom started feeling poorly, and so did I. By Saturday night we knew that the only one of us well enough to go to church the next day would be my dad.

We had planned to have Malachi's naming blessing that Sunday while my parents were here. We still wanted to do it on Sunday, but knew that doing it at the church was out of the question. So John made some phone calls and arranged to have the blessing done at our home Sunday afternoon. John's brother and his family were able to come, as well as a member of our Bishopric. I decided to go ahead and dress Malachi in the blessing gown Mom got for me when Libby was born, since there would be no other opportunity for Malachi to wear it. The blessing was nice, even though Malachi cried through it all. Joyce was able to record it on her phone and transcribe it for me, which I appreciated, since I wasn't able to hear most of the blessing over Malachi's crying.

Monday I started feeling a little better, while my mom felt even worse. She spent most of the day in bed. The only good thing about Mom being sick was that it freed up her Kindle for me to play with :) Jaina was still a little snotty, but Malachi and Libby were fine, so we hung out around the house playing. Tuesday it was time for them to leave. We were sad, especially the kids. It's hard being so far from family. We hadn't seen my parents for 11 months. I'm happy I'll get to see them again in a few weeks when I fly out for my sister's wedding, but I'm very sad that the girls don't get to go with me. Libby really enjoyed her time with "Ana and Papa". And Jaina was just smitten with my dad. I wish we lived close enough to see them more often, but at the same time I know that Texas is the right place for us to be right now. Oh well, I just have to look forward to this summer when we'll all go out to NC for weeks and weeks.