What Am I Doing?

This picture should be at the bottom of the post. You'll see why when you get there:

Brent is at session meeting tonight which will probably go forever, so I was sitting here thinking about what we've been doing the past few months and what we're doing now and it dawned on me that I haven't recorded a whole chunk of our lives from Thanksgiving to now. Did I do Thanksgiving? I think I posted the pics on FB. Anyway, I thought I'd share some about what went on with us over the holidays and some pictures.

We had a Christmas party with our Life Group. It's a small little group, but what an amazing group it is. I know groups change and grow and get smaller, but these two couples have been such a blessing to us, we have really appreciated them and their kids over the last year.

In the blue shirt and striped shirt are Daryl & Kathryn and the other couple is David & Mia.

Both of those couples have one boy, Jonah is talking on the phone (probably long distance) and little Caleb is to the right of him. They have all been so gracious and understanding about the hurricane called "McCaigers".

Hunter's class Christmas party was a hit (despite that it almost caused me an ulcer). There was a craft. Here they are making it. They put red & green tissue paper all over a mason jar and put a piece of material under the lid. We gave them each a small string of lights to put inside the jar to light it up. It turned out really nice.

We played a game wherein the kids had to dress one of their group up like a Christmas tree. They loved it! Don't they look thrilled?

This is the day I helped with Carter's party. It was a great time. They played games, did crafts and ate lots of candy. They actually were given some pretend money and had to go to the "store" to buy different kinds of candy to decorate their "Christmas tree", which was an upside down sugar ice cream cone with green icing on it. Every experience is a learning experience...

I'm not sure how many people know, but at the beginning of December I found out I needed surgery, sooner rather than later. It's a lot of gory details that I won't go into, that ends with "I had my left ovary removed". I've been feeling much better since the surgery and I was very glad that I had it done. Until I got the bill from the hospital today in the sum of $22,000. Yes, we have insurance but it isn't very good. I think we have a $5,000 deductible or something crazy like that. But, we'll get through it, we always do. And, in the long run, B & I both know it was the right thing to do b/c this mess wasn't going to just go away. The surgery was on December 23rd. It took the whole day and my mom very graciously surrendered to the call to babysit the Hurricane for the day. So needless to say, I wasn't in great shape for Christmas!! I slept through all of Christmas Eve, was very groggy on Christmas day and it took somewhere between 8-10 days for me to feel like I was all better from the surgery. It was all good, though. Brent was home so he took care of me and everything else. Very sweet and gracious people from church brought us food (two days before Christmas!?) And it was a peaceful and quiet Christmas. Of which there are only THREE pictures. Can you believe that??!! Oh, my poor family. Now, this ruins my "25 years of Christmas" book. O well.

During my recovery, this little guy turned 6 on Christmas Eve:

Eric Clapton, that you?

Isn't it so sweet that Daddy made the cake? Everyone went to church except me, who had not been out of bed since the day before, so my goal was to be on the couch when they got back so I could watch my boy open his presents and blow out his "6" candle.

Two of the 3 pictures from Christmas '08. The third one is just a picture of the tree before the kids came down.

Carter is holding up a wooden bird feeder that you can paint and I have to tell you that he has painted it, and that across the top he painted these words: "Bird Haus Do Not Tush". I think it's supposed to say "touch", but it's really cute like that, so I didn't even tell him. Parker is opening up a huge book of Curious George stories that he calls "The Bible of George".

Auntie spent the night on Christmas Eve so she was there to open presents with the kids and it was a really nice and laid back kind of Christmas. No Christmas dinner, no lots of people around, no visitors (well, my mom and Tom came for a few minutes and brought presents for the kids). Just us and Christmas. It's all good.


And then there's this:

"I could has me some salad????"

This dog will eat anything. I'm actually very concerned about it. I bought something called "bitter spray" which has really helped with furniture, shoes and toys. But what about bills, books, pens, pencils, pillows, blankets, baggies, bras. You get the picture. We got Kolbie on January 2nd. It has been crazy, but in a good way. He's a good dog. Deep down. Right now he's a gigantic puppy. You know what puppies are like. The jump, they nibble on your hands, they bark, they want to sleep in your bed, they want to sit in your lap. Now imagine that puppy weighs 95 pounds. Nuff said 'bout that.

Kim Cates came to visit over New Year's Eve and we had so much fun laughing and playing. I wasn't feeling 100% when she first got here, but I think her being here encouraged me to get better fast. On New Year's Eve, Kim, Hunter & I went to my mom and Tom's for a little while. We got to meet Laura's boyfriend, Darryl. He's from Portland, OR and was visiting. And we got to see Aunt Hoolie, Uncle Cary, Cody & Casy. And my step-sister Erica was visiting from Cali. Brent got to stay home with the boys. We were home well before midnight and fell asleep watching a movie. Happy New Year! Man, we're getting old. Reference the picture at the beginning of the post of Kim, Hunter & me. We're buddies.

There. Aren't you glad I didn't do all the other things I should be doing tonight?