Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Wow! I'm a little behind...

We started the Christmas vacation with Evan's class party. I've never gone to one of his parties, and I was drafted to be in charge of it. Hmm, how'd that happen? The kids made some crafts, played pin the nose on the snowman and ring around the Christmas tree, ice cream and hot chocolate and called it a day. It was fun - not as chaotic as I expected, with lots of help from 6 or so other parents.

The weekend brought the Church festivities and Santa there. Colby beat up his buddy who I watched last year, and he beat Colby back. Good thing it was only 2 short songs!

Mon-Wed found us at my mom & sister's so my mom could have foot surgery on Tues. Monday Colby and I got to hang out in their fine 16 bed hospital with 1 inpatient - not us! He had bilateral ear infections, and that tonsil looks ugly too. By the way, I don't see ear tubes. Surgery day, he came to the hospital and was a very mellow version of himself. Mom had 7 warts removed from the bottom of 1 foot, which had been bothering her for several months -probably from chronic prednisone. It was slick, nasty snow and ice getting her home that afternoon, not much fun trying to keep her off her foot. Wed was Christmas Eve - a decent drive back home, with Mom in tow.

We opened presents on Thursday, and spent the afternoon with Tom's parents and family.

There wasn't an intentional theme with the books, but I found it amusing when I looked around and everyone but me had a book in their hands! We have broken in the Wii in the background, too. Finally, video games that interest me. The kids ask me for help in Mario on the DS, and I don't have the patience for it.

We sent Mom home with my sis on Friday, and I worked all weekend. I took care of a guy from here who was in a car accident on C-mas Eve, and he's pretty stinkin' sick. If you're a praying person, say a prayer for Joe. It's gonna be a long recovery.

Monday was C-mas with my dad, stepmom and stepsis, sister and family came back and brought Mom. The neighbor girl was here too, just for good measure. Her dad's in Afghanistan, and her mom was at work - she may as well stay. There were girl things left over from the school party, so I fixed her up a gift to open too. It was also dreaded dentist day. Evan was threatened a few weeks ago by the dentist that if he didn't get his 2 front bottom teeth out, he would pull them. His permanent teeth have been in for a few months, and baby ones loose, but he wouldn't work on pulling them on his own, so Dr. T had to. Santa, the tax man, the dentist and the tooth fairy all in the same month - it's too much!! Evan was quite mad at me for most of the morning, and shed a few tears. I told him when he got them cleaned that I wasn't sure the tooth fairy came if the dentist had to pull the teeth, but Dr. T assured me he would work it out with the tooth fairy.

Tuesday was Gingerbread houses - I love doing those, even if they are a lot of work with little kids. Six kids, 2 adults, 3 houses. This is ours.


Wednesday was work again - finally, a day that we weren't horribly short-staffed. It was pleasant. There tends to be a lot of call-ins on the weekends lately, and it gets old and frustrating and bone-weary to always work short with high workloads and late or no lunch. It doesn't do much for morale or quality care either one.

Thursday - woohoo - Branson for a long weekend! A friend gave us a 3 nights at her timeshare place, so there were 16 of us - 3 families - for the weekend. It was much appreciated. There was swimming, Chinese Acrobats, the fisheries and dam, a water park, and more swimming. They made it back for a leadership meeting at church on Sunday afternoon, but I played hookey on that one. We came home, did laundry and cleaned up the Branson stuff.



That leads us to this week. Tom is going back to working eves for a while, so while I love it that he's home during the day, he & Evan miss each other in the evenings. Tom gets woken up in the mornings for a little bit so they see each other. It is time to organize the toy room a bit so this stuff gets put away, and get the tree down. I love all the stuff, but it's time to reclaim the living room and kitchen!

Here's to a calm 2009!