Together Again...

My Grandpa is home with his Heavenly Father and his beloved Betty. My Grandma passed away about 3 months ago. She never regained consciousness following a terrible car accident. My Grandpa never recovered either. If ever one could die from a broken heart, it was him.



Friday January 4th would have been their 67th wedding anniversary. Other than the war, no one can remember a day they'd ever spent apart. My mom, aunt, and Grandpa gave me my Grandma's wedding set for Christmas. I've been wearing it ever since. I'm nervous about wearing it but I can't NOT wear it. I will cherish it always.

I'm sad that he's gone but I am glad that he is home and no longer in any pain. Give your loved ones an extra hug tonight. Bye Grandma and Grandpa, I love you guys. I'm comforted knowing you'll never have to spend another day apart again.

I found this picture tucked inside their wedding invitation...this is how I will remember them.

In Recovery Mode...

We still have one more Christmas gathering to go. My dad's house tomorrow after church. But for the most part we are winding down from the Christmas festivities and trying to get back to our normal schedule. It's been hard to get back on track. It's been rainy and dreary for a week it seems. Makes it so hard to even get out of bed. But we need the rain so badly it's hard to complain about it.

We tried to scale it back on Christmas this year. There is not one thing that our kids need. The Lord has blessed us in that way. And it doesn't help that the kids have up to 5 Christmases with all the Grandparents. They were asked to only give one gift per child and so far they have done excellent.

Tim's watching the Wake game and I finally got all 365 pictures off of my camera. And I just realized I have some more on the other camera.

Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Hope you and your families had a very blessed Christmas.

Cliff Notes version

I am so exhausted. The last two days have worn me out. Here's the Cliff Notes version of the day...

Wednesday:

• up at 5:30 to be ready before the kids get up
• get all kids ready; boys in their Christmas program clothes, P.S. it's going to be nearly 80 degrees today
• Pre-school Cristmas program at 10:30
• 10:25, Cooper's teacher frantically hunts me down in the sanctuary
• 10:20 Cooper vomits all over the classroom
• 10:45 we go back home
• Cooper takes nap with the "bucket"
• 1:00 Cooper awake, Cameron down for nap
• follow Cooper around with the "bucket", thankfully he seems just fine
• 2:15 (Abbie due home in about 30 minutes) phone rings
• Abbie's teacher, "She fell on the playground and hurt her ankle. We carried her inside but now she won't get on the bus"
• I talk to Abbie trying to be a bit stern with her quietly enough so the teacher won't hear me. She's not budging.
• 2:20 wake up Cameron from his nap (he hates this), at least he's still dressed. Throw Coop in the car wearing his Buzz Lightyear jammies and Lightning McQueen slippers...and the "bucket".
• 2:35 get to the school and realize that I can't carry a 21 month old and a 7 1/2 year old at the same time.
• Lock the boys in the car and pray that I don't get a visit from social services any time soon.
• Teacher tells me that the morning story was about The Boy Who Cried Wolf....of course it was.
• Get Abbie to the car and decide that I will take her to the Dr's to get an Xray...and drag the boys along.
• Tim came to get the boys from the office.
• Nothing broken, not even a sprain, only a strain
• She walked back out to the car
• Skipping dance class tonight
• Help Tim review his presentaion
• Do a load of laundry

Thursday:

• Abbie up and about like nothing ever happened
• My coffee isn't working
• My Wellbutrin isn't working yet, only been 5 days, it takes a few weeks
• it's been a few years since I put so much faith in such a little pill
• I'm going to need more coffee
• Spent the morning making snacks for Cooper's Christmas party tomorrow
• Finally get a shower at 3:00
• Abbie has Brownies, going to take goodies bags to the nursing home and sing some songs
• Tim has study group so I have to take the boys
• Abbie gets a ride so I get to go back home
• Darn, I took a shower for nothing
• Have to go finish chocolat-ing the Peanut Butter Balls
• Start all over tomorrow....

Let the festivities begin...

First I just want to say...Whatup with my "triple trouble" picture?? I didn't change anything. I thought maybe it was one of those strange Blogger things that goes away as magically as it appeared. Any advice??? Maybe I'll just try to change the picture, who knows.

So begins the Christmas celebrations. We had 2 grown-up Christmas parties this past Friday and Saturday. We took turns. My turn was Friday, Tim's was Saturday. We are not big drinkers. Tim enjoys his wine now and then, but I save all mine up for one big blowout every year. I think I do pretty well handling my liquor for not "practicing" throughout the year, but then again, I did do my training at ECU. This year included Vodka & Blood Orange soda, Hypnotiq, Jagermeister&Root Beer, Goldschlager...I think that's all :) I remember crawling up the stairs, down the hall, and in to my bedroom and just laying on the floor. But I had fun at my once a year blow out, that's what matters! On Saturday night we went to our neighbor's house. Tim enjoyed his wine and hanging out with the guys. I'm glad he let loose and relaxed (only 2 more days in this semester, yeah!) I went home around 9:30, that's when the G'parents had to head off to their own Christmas party. Tim stayed and made it home around 12:30. The next morning he was sure he was dying. He hadn't accounted for how differently alcohol would affect him after losing 50 lbs.

So now you probably think we are big time boozers...just stressed out parents that needed to let loose.

Saturday Abbie went to Raleigh with Grammy to see High School Musical on ice with Linda and Audrey. I haven't seen any pictures yet but I there's no way 2 G'mas took their g'daughters to HSM and didn't take any pictures.

Meanwhile, I went with Grandmomma to take the boys to a lunch with Santa. I was really proud of Coop. He was scared at first but when Santa started talking to him, he jumped right up on his lap.

Let's just say that Cameron did not care for Santa. Here is what happened whe I tried to get Cam closer to Santa:

Sunday was the annual Lewisville Christmas parade. Abbie's brownie troop walked in it. I walked too and pulled Coop in the wagon. Tim watched Cameron at home but he slept the whole time. Maybe both of them slept the whole time. Next year I think Cameron will be able to sit through the whole parade and really enjoy it.

Sunday, after the parade, Abbie, Coop, and I made the Gingerbread Tree. Abbie said she wanted to do the tree this year since we've done the house for the past few years. No project that requires icing is ever complete without the final Funny Frosting Face!

And just because I know you won't be able to sleep tonight if you don't see a picture of my tree, here it is. It looks so small in a photo. It seems to be so much larger when it takes up the whole corner of the family room. Wow, I really want to slipcover my furniture.

Oh sheep, I broke my ass...

While I was putting out my Heartwood Creek Nativity, the styrofoam protector slipped out of my hand and dropped all of about 6 inches but that was enough for the donkey and shepherd to fall to the floor. Donkey's tail broke off, as did Shepherd's hand. His staff looks a little crooked, too (he-he, Lord, please forgive me :)

Resorting to Bullets...

No not that kind. When friends ask me "What's going on?" I can never really think of all that much yet, I never seem to have enough time to do all of that "nothing " that's going on.

Here's some things I have wanted to post about:

• Abbie's Thanksgiving dinner blessing that included "I'm thankful that I did not get Cameron's virus"
• I'm thankful that Cam's hand-foot-mouth virus, although pretty bad, was mainly a "cosmetic" illness. If you've ever questioned whether or not your kids have it, there will be no doubt once you've actually seen it. Cam broke out in blister-y, wart-ish bumps that were the the worst on his feet. It probably took a good month for them all to fade away.
• Abbie started dance class again. She went when she was 4 but wasn't all that thrilled. She did love the recital.
• We all got our flu shots. Cooper is the only one that had a bit of a reaction. His thigh looks red and purplish and is a bit warm to the touch. It hurts him too.
• I took Abbie to see Enchanted. It was a cute movie. On Black Friday I got her a Princess Giselle nightgown/dress-up for Christmas at a really good price.
• I got the Deceptively Delicious cookbook and I'm eager to try new ways to sneak veggies into my kids' meals.
• We went to Portrait Innovations to get the kids' Christmas portrait made this year. As happy as I was with the portraits we made in August, I was as equally disappointed with these. They were running about 40 minutes late, I REALLY hate that, but I do understand that all kids are not as cooperative as mine, yeah right! There was only ONE picture of the 3 of them that was even close to acceptable for the Christmas card. I should have gotten up and walked out with NOTHING, but then that would have been a complete waste of 2 hours of our day and I still wouldn't have any Christmas pictures because they were booked up solid for the next 2 weeks. So any of you reading this that will get a Christmas card from me...You have been forewarned, I don't want to hear about how this wasn't such a great photo...this one isn't smiling, that one should have moved over a bit, so-and-so's hair is messed up. I ALREADY KNOW!

Merry Christmas :)