5 Reasons You Get Sick After The New Year

 

  Good morning y'all! As I had mentioned in an earlier post we all had colds right after Christmas and into the new year, so fun right?! Well thankfully we're all better now, but it got me thinking. We get sick almost every year right around the new year. We're pretty healthy around the rest of the year and we don't get many major illnesses, so I can't really complain. Instead I'll just walk you through 5 reasons I believe we get sick every new year. Now I must forewarn y'all I am NOT a doctor, I just play one on Google, so enjoy my personal commentary on our "new year, new colds".

1. Cold Weather
   Some of you are probably thinking "well duh!", but seriously it's true that cold weather is just another reason you find yourself more susceptible to that pesky cold going around. There was a study at Yale a couple years ago that finally confirmed suspicions that cold weather can weaken the immune system. It also probably doesn't help that we live in Virginia and our weather is more all over place than a toddler on a sugar high. One minute it's 60 degrees, and the next day it's 18 degrees and snowing. Welcome to Virginia.

2. The Holiday High
   With Christmas comes excitement and good feelings about family and friends, and maybe even a few people you don't normally like haha. Christmas truly puts a little more peace in the air. Well it does for me. They even say people are more likely to be looking for love right after Thanksgiving up until Valentine's Day. My point is that Christmas brings happiness, it's the high point of the year for so many families and individuals. Everyone knows that endorphins are the chemical explanation for happiness, and most people start to feel a little low once it's over. When your endorphins are a little lower it weakens your immune system leaving you open to whatever germs and bugs are going around. Merry Christmas ya filthy animals.

3. Crowds/ Family Gatherings
    Now I love family/friend gatherings around Christmas. God wants us to not only honor the birth of His son, but to be thankful for our brothers and sisters, and cousins, and uncles, and that one person that you're not really sure how you're related to but you love just the same. With all that said OF COURSE we're all going to be sick after Christmas we all just came in from the cold and are in someone's living room with sometimes 30 other people you haven't seen since last year. You don't know if so and so washed their hands, and they don't know if they're about to fall sick the next day. Oh the suspense haha! Hey at least everyone is all sick together.

4. Poor Diet
   At that family gathering you probably had at least 2 of your favorite foods, which I would dare to guess are riddled with fat. That's why they're delicious, duh! Not gonna lie, I love any food that I know I'm going to hate myself for eating in just a few hours because I'm so full. But I'm usually too full to even eat dinner so I call it even. Then I eat leftovers for breakfast. I say all this to say we all know that keeping up good dietary habits is good for our overall health. So when we veer off that track our immune system turns against us. Which really makes no sense to me, like you would think it would be happy with all that mac 'n' cheese!

5. The Christmas Rush
    My final reason I believe we get sick right after the new year is basically all the different things we're doing right around Christmas time. We're going to this family gathering, we have to bring a casserole to this get together, we still have to wrap so and so's presents, oh yeah we have to get that person a present. We're staying up later, and getting up earlier. Every weekend is more jam packed than the next. When you're stretched too thin your immune system gets even thinner. We love Christmas, and all the memories made, but we're maybe just a little glad once we can catch our breath. Then comes the colds.
  Nevertheless, the good news is this: when we look back on Christmases of the past we don't think about how sick we were right after. No, we instead remember our family and friends, and all the funny/sentimental/weird memories we made. Then we get a cold.

Linking up with April

This Will Be Our Year

  Hey y'all! I hope everyone's year is off to a great start. As you can see I'm a little behind on blogging. First it was an unfortunate reaction Miller had to some new formula. Warning to all parents, but especially parents of children with g-tubes, Pediasure is NOT always the best formula. It can sometimes be too harsh for little bellies. So don't be afraid to keep things like they are formula wise. Miller was almost instantly better once we switched back to his original formula.
    Then came the holidays. We had wonderful, memorable celebrations with family. Lots of food, lots of thoughtful gifts exchanged, lots of laughter, and lots of reminiscing. Miller was very spoiled, not just by presents but by affectionate relatives too. He of course was more than happy to oblige. I have to say this Christmas felt extra magical.

Miller's 1st visit with Santa Claus

Ugly sweater Christmas cookie decorating

Miller (well actually me haha) opening his Christmas presents

I saw this shirt at Target and thought it was too cute!

Mommy forgot milk so Santa got eggnog this year...oops!

Happy new year!

    Once all the festivities had ended and the happy chaos had died down, then came the colds. UGH. Seriously though each week someone new had the cold. I just did my week. Thankfully Miller didn't get one. So now I think (or hope) life will start to get back to a routine.
     With the new year comes new goals, new hopes, new beginnings. I'm actually one of those dorks that loves making new year resolutions. I probably just love the chance to make a list. All the same resolutions get made. Most years it's about reading more, or exercising more. The basic new year resolutions. Well this year I made the basic ones, but I also made a more general resolution. Not really a resolution, but more a mantra. 'Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen'.

  My mom always says that to me. She says it so much she actually gave me a necklace ( a gold fortune cookie no less, can't get a more optimistic symbol than that) because it came with a card that had that saying. The last few years have taken a bit of my optimism I'm a little ashamed to admit. It can be difficult to keep the kind of attitude that good things are headed your way when you've been delivered a few low blows. So that's why this year that's my mantra. And I have to say this year I actually believe it.
   What are your new year resolutions? Did you make any? Are you an optimistic person at heart?

 

Holidays On The Cheap

   Hey y'all! I'm sure everyone is busy making plans and lists for Thanksgiving next week, I know I am! According to the buzzfeed quiz I'm the tradition enforcer. I was pretty surprised by how accurate that is haha!
   Speaking of traditions we just finished up a tradition at our house of putting up all of our Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. It really makes it feel cozy to have all our decorations up for Thanksgiving. Plus we have longer to enjoy them before we have to take them all down. If the stores can put up their Christmas decorations now why can't we?!
   Here's what I did with our mantel:

   I felt like doing something a little different this year, more simple. All, I repeat all, of the items on the mantel were purchased from the dollar store. We actually used those glass vases as centerpieces for our wedding. I really like these led candles better than the plain white ones. First of all for looks, second of all for the effect they give off. They're way brighter than the small white ones.
   In other news, the other day when we were picking up our weekly groceries, Food Lion had a bin of pumpkin flavored baking goods on sale. And I may or may not have bought 10 boxes of pumpkin pudding on sale for 30 cents each... I also found a few boxes of Jello brand pumpkin cheesecake mix for 50 cents, so I made 2 of the boxes the other day, and here's a picture of the end results:

   It didn't firm up quite like I expected it to just from chilling in the refrigerate for an hour, so I put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes, which seemed to help. It had great flavor and everyone enjoyed it in our house, but it was nowhere near like what you think a pumpkin cheesecake would be like. I can't wait to see what I can do with the pumpkin pudding.
   By the way!!!

  I'm sure y'all don't care about this but I just had to share my phone background since no one really gets to see it and I think it's adorable haha! I made it on this app called Marley Lilly(it's free by the way). I know the app is suppose to be used to shop on their site but they have a great feature where you can choose from tons of different backgrounds patterns and colors. And as you can see you can add your own monogram to it! And yes I've already made my Christmas background....and one for when Baby H arrives....
   That's all for now, just a post to say hello! What kind of traditions does your family have around this holiday season?

He's A Belly Sleeper!

    I had my doctor's appointment this morning, and so far so good! Baby H is measuring 20 weeks and 4 days, although they are keeping me at 20 weeks and 2 days(they only change your due date if it's at least 10 days different). He was moving around quite a bit, but when we tried to get a picture he was on his belly. He's still a boy haha! It's kinda funny because last night I had a dream he was a girl and they had it wrong before, but we're sure he's a boy. My doctor was telling me how important it is right now to get as much calcium as I can so the baby won't be sucking it from my bones. So don't be surprised if you see me in Food Lion buying 3 gallons of milk at a time!

    Some of you may remember in my last post I was taking about my horrible indigestion problems. Well yesterday I didn't take my prenatal vitamin to see if that could be affecting my indigestion. The result: my indigestion was way better(I had slight issues still but not the massive amount I had before). So I asked my doctor if he could prescribe me a vitamin with maybe a thicker coating to help prevent it from affecting my digestive system so harshly. This is what he sent me home with....

   I think he sent me home with like 4 different prenatal vitamins. He told me just try one, if I like it give him a call and he'll write a prescription for me. If I don't throw it away and try a new one. So thanks to my doctor I have plenty of options, hopefully I'll find one I like!
   In other news I have been looking online for a good, cheap maternity dress for the holiday season. I thought I found actually 2 dresses I liked at Target for only $10 each, but when I went to order them I realized they didn't have my size. I looked online at every store I could think of but everywhere else was either not cheap enough for me( maybe it is for y'all but just ask my husband, I'm cheap), only had summer dresses, or didn't have my size! Maybe I'll just wear sweats, or a potato sack, during the holidays. I plan to check out Kid to Kid(a children's and maternity consignment store) and a few other places, but if you know of any good places to find maternity dresses please let me know!
    Soon Dillon and I need to sign up for Lamaze classes. I was comforted to hear my doctor say if we didn't get around to taking Lamaze classes they can still talk me through everything at the hospital. So I'll breath a little easier, for now haha. I would love to hear y'all's experiences with Lamaze classes and if there's any other classes that might be helpful to Dillon and me.
   With Christmas approaching fast( yes I'm one of those people haha) I really need to start looking up cookies recipes! I love baking for the holidays, but I always feel like I never get around to it until Christmas is basically over. This year I will start early, please don't quote me. At least I'm always crazy early with our trees. Here's our first one this year and my latest bump picture!

        P.S. Yes I know Halloween isn't even here until tomorrow. I told you I'm one of those people.