Merry Christmas!
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Friday, December 26, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Christmas Magic Part I
Stressful as it is, December is still magical. Christmas time is so wonderfully festive. We'd been pretty busy until The Sickness came to visit us.
We went to December Nights in Balboa Park last Friday. Unfortunately we got stuck in accident traffic for almost 2 hours, had to park 8 blocks away and then forgot the camera in the car! It was a comedy of disasters! So no pictures! We still had a lot of fun, so I think this might be a new tradition for us. The museums are all free and there are carolers, lights, food and festivities all around. Since we got there so late, we only had time to tour one museum, so we went to the Natural History Museum to look at the dinosaurs! It was amazing and fantastic! Isaiah and Lily were ecstatic! We'll have to go back one day soon!
On Saturday we went to Home Depot to pick up our little Christmas tree. I just love going to the tree lot. Even though it's not a fancy expensive tree farm, it's still wonderful. The smell of the pine, the excitement in the air, picking that perfect one, and listening to Christmas music in the car. The kids enjoyed riding on the Home Depot cart!
That same night we went to the Christmas Parade on the 101 here in Encinitas. We got there early enough to get a great spot! We packed chili and hot cocoa in thermoses and camped out to watch the parade. I love the simple, campy hometown feel of our little parade. Isaiah got candy canes and a Rudolph nose from the passers by. Lily had her first taste of hot cocoa which she spit out, but then drank up like a mad woman!
Notice the hot cocoa stain on her sweater!
Throughout the weeks we've been slowly decorating the tree. My extravagant theme trees are on hold for a few years. It's all about fun! No color themes or schemes like in the past. And yes, this year I even gave in to colored lights again. I am usually a white twinkle lights only kind of gal, but what fun is that for the kids? Last year, we started the tradition of letting the kids pick out a new ornament each Christmas. That way we can look back and remember what they were in to every year and when they have a family of their own, they will have their own collections to put on their trees. Lily chose Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Isaiah chose Walle. Unfortunately Walle ornaments were sold out everywhere we looked, so I had to *make* one! We'll continue decorating the tree all month. I'm thinking popcorn and cranberry garland next!
I will be posting more Christmas Magic as we go through December! I hope you and your family are having as much fun as we are! God Bless you!
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Monday, December 15, 2008
Still sick, but Positive!
After Lily's doctor appt today I took the kids over to Petsmart. We haven't been out in days, so I thought it would be a fun little field trip. Lily is crazy about the birds. She just loves them and is so happy to see them. She walks over to them and signs bird and says, "Mama, mama, mama!" in the sweetest little voice it makes me want to buy all of the birds for her. But I take issue with caging birds- it just seems wrong that they can't fly around. Isaiah loves the fish! So I couldn't help myself. We've just been so sick and icky I thought I would buy us some fish to cheer us up. We haven't had Betta fish for years (our last each lived for 3 years). Of course Isaiah wanted a yellow one, but they don't have yellow betta fish, so he chose a nice orange one instead. Lily even got to choose one. Well, I put two in front of her and let her point to the one she wanted. Isaiah named his fish "Splishy-Wishy" and we call Lily's fish "Squishy". So Splishy Wishy and Squishy Fishies are the newest additions to our family. As we were driving home Isaiah asks me what the word "Positive" means (because he heard it on the radio- as in "positive attitude"). I told him it meant happy or good. When we got home with the fish he said, "I think they are going to be so positive here in their new home!".
Squishy on left is Lily's fishy. Splishy on the right is Isaiah's.
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Sunday, December 14, 2008
Busy, Crazy, Sick
The last quarter of the year is always such a whirlwind! If I had the power to pause the world, I would abuse it mostly in the last few months of the year. Yeah, so we have less than 2 weeks before Christmas... what? Didn't we just get through with Halloween?
It has been a 3 ring circus around here!
We discovered that we had a chunk of unspent funds left in our Medical Flexible Spending Account last week. It needs to be spent by the end of the year (which is approaching at lightning speed) or we lose it completely. So I did something crazy! I got lasik! I checked out a few places and within days had my decision made and my appointment scheduled. I had Intralase and CustomVue LASIK in case you are wondering. Let me tell you I had the most amazing doctor and I would NOT TRUST ANYONE else with something so precious as my vision. He did a great job took so much time to get everything perfect! But I'm not going lie to you, recovery was FREAKING SCARY! OMG! An hour after the procedure, I felt like someone had taken a cheese grater to my eyes! I had issues with losing suction with my left eye when creating the flap so it went through even more trauma than my right. My left eye felt as if it was cheese grater-ed and then poked with a fork. I really really was not prepared for that kind of pain (and I have a very high threshold). I went through a very scary emotional 3 hours... seriously wondering what I had done to myself. I'm not kidding, the torment drove me a little bit crazy. I really was wondering if I would go blind... trying to savor the last sights of my husband and kids. Mourning the loss of not seeing my children get married. Praying to God to save my vision! Yeah, a little over-dramatic I know. But I've never experienced eye pain before... the eyes are so closely connected to the brain so I was just trippin! My advice to anyone who does this- VICODIN. I had some leftover from after Lily was born and boy did that take the edge off! After the first 3 hours, the pain amazingly started to subside with drastic speed. By the end of the night it was more uncomfortable than painful. The next morning my eyes just felt sore. But still looked extremely scary. My surgery was last Thursday. Days later my eyes still look very scary. Especially my left. It's BEEFY red. But guess what? My vision went from 20/50 (left eye) and 20/40 (right eye) to 20/20 (left) and 20/15 (right). That is better than perfect! I'm still adjusting... since I've never had correction before it's going to take a little longer to completely adjust. It's a little frustrating... hard for me to read and hard for me to take pictures (2 of my most favorite things)... but hopefully in a few weeks, all will be good and I will look like my normal self again. Meanwhile I'll be wearing sunglasses everywhere (including indoors-while in public). Yeah, I'll be that annoying person wearing sunglasses INDOORS (never judging those people again!). The difference is amazing though. I've been missing out on so much detail all these years... textures, colors- they all pop out like never before. And DANG, my kids are WAY cuter than I thought. LOL.
So while I'm recovering from surgery, my children decide to get sick and my husband is out of town. Why does this always happen? The kids are darn sick. High fever and vomitting sick. Huge red sores in their throat sick. It's Enterovirus and it's not fun. So I'm wearing protective goggles like all day because I don't want any of their Ebola flying into my eyes and causing blindness! Seriously? Really? My eyes are SCARY RED, my kids are puky and cranky and my husband is across the continent AND CHRISTMAS IS IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!
As much as I hate for my kids to be sick- it is so sweet to hold their warm feverish bodies next to me. They are usually so wriggly and bouncy that I cherish times like these that they want to be held and cuddled. We have been quarantined since Thursday though and I'm getting a little stir crazy...but I love having an excuse to be in pajamas all day. I also love seeing the kids marvel at the Christmas tree! We put candy canes on the branches today and the kids were just delighted! It's more magic than ever- Christmas with kids. I did learn one thing today- chocolate pudding makes everything better. I think it's going on the sick kids menu from now on.
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