Time to Relax

At least I hope so. This has been a very busy couple of weeks for us.  Yesterday was wonderful.  The only thing that could have made it better was if Ronnie had been off work.  He was supposed to be, but some things happened at the hospital and he needed to go in on Christmas Day.  And Christmas Eve, but we already knew about that one.

Yesterday morning we had a family brunch with Aunt Wii and Unc, and their 3 boys, 1 daughter in law, grandson, and Aunt Wii's Mom.  After sampling a bit of everything Ronnie got ready for work and Paige and I left to go visit family.  We had a 45 minute drive. Paige watched her new Snow White DVD on the way.  First stop was my parents house.  Paige opened her Princess dress up trunk.  She immediately started taking off clothes to get dressed up.  She was half naked (only panties & a turtleneck on) when she realized she didn't have any shoes.  She looked at Grammy and said, "But what about the shoes?"  My child must have shoes for everything!  We told her to just put her clothes on and get dressed, that we would worry about shoes later.  Next she opened the matching shoe boutique.  Life was good.  We left Grammy & Grumpy's house to go to Granny's.  (That would be Mom's Mom.)

Let me tell you about Granny's Christmas tree.  It's been up in the living room, which we only really use on Christmas, for 10 years.  It's decorated with ornaments, Mardi Gras beads, and Easter eggs.  I walked into the living room this year to find it gone.  In it's place was a tree put together by Aunt Glennis and my cousin Stephine.  It was beautiful.  A pre-lit, revolving tree decorated with bright colored squares.  As I got closer, I could see that each square was filled with a picture.  Lots and lots of pictures.

A picture of my grandmother at 21.

My grandfather's going hunting in his Caddy.

My graduation from Army Basic Training.

Granny & Paw Paw's 25th anniversary pictures.  I'm the cute blonde in green.

And their 50th.  Wonder why they weren't holding me and Nancy this time.

My Aunt Shari who was killed less than a year after this picture was taken.

Pictures that were amazing to look at.  Each picture was printed in black and white.  Kleenex should have been placed next to the tree.  My favorite gift this year?  A CD of all the pictures on the tree and more.  The gift exchange and gumbo that came after were good.  It was nice to see Paige have a Christmas like I remember it.  In Granny's house running around with my cousins having a great time.  I want her to have memories like this when she grows up.

Our final Mississippi stop was to see Ronnie's parents.  They got a new dog from the pound for Christmas.  He was in doggy prison for eating the chocolate covered cherries at his last house.  Paige brought him some treats so that he could eat something a bit more appropriate.  We spent some time with them then headed home.  We finally made it home well after Paige's bedtime.  In fact, she was asleep before we ever got to the interstate to drive home.

Today Ronnie's older sister Connie stopped by for breakfast.  She brought her husband and daughter as well.  We ate, then watched the 2 girls play Wii for a bit.  Connie wasn't feeling well, so she headed home.  We had a good visit though.  I'm sure you were probably expecting pictures of our Christmas.  I'll blog those when I finally download them from my camera, including telling what Santa brought.  For my Facebook friends, you can see all of the pictures  in the Old Family Pictures album if you want.

Why?

Why do I do this to myself?  I know it's the holidays and I'm busy, so why do I make it worse?  I know the reason, I just can't say no.  And I really want things to be nice.  This week has been really busy for us.  Actually, the last couple of weeks have been.  The start of the craziness started with the Relay 4 Life team I'm part of.  We're working on fund raising, even though the event isn't until April.  Each week we have a bake sale.  Someone brings in baked goodness and the office pays to eat it.  The past three weeks have been all me and Ronnie.  We've been bringing in cupcakes: peanut butter chocolate one week, cookie dough the second week, tiramisu cupcakes this week.  We get next week off, Kelli's Mom is taking over and making cookies.

Another part of our fund raiser is Wednesday lunches.  See, each Wednesday we play trivia as an office.  Before trivia we meet in the training room and eat together.  Each week someone makes lunch, and the rest of the office pays $5.00 each for lunch.  Last week Ronnie made cheddar broccoli soup, salad, rolls and sweet tea.  Today was chili, mini corn muffins and sweet tea.  Except I forgot the tea.  Kristi told me I was fired, everyone else says I'm not.  The chili was gone within 20 minutes.  I think there was a couple of corn muffins left, but I'm not sure.

Daycare is having their party this week.  That means I need to put together some sort of gift for Paige's teachers.  She really only has three teachers, but there are others that help out.  I can't leave out the director, or the teacher who helps out in the morning.  I've been making chocolate covered pretzels like a mad woman.  Also this year I found a mold for candy canes with a chocolate candy on it.  I've had to make 7 sets of candy for daycare.  Then I offered to make 2 more sets the above mentioned Kristi's kids to take to school for their teacher.  Each set is 2 candy canes and 4 pretzels.  Pretzels are finishing up in the fridge now.  I still need to make 3 more candy canes to be done.

Then there's the usual stuff that needs to get done.  I spent last night wrapping presents.  Have I mentioned that the roof was leaking?  Yeah, that needed to be dealt with.  I've also had to make gingerbread cookies.  So technically I didn't have to make them. But I love them.  So I made them.  I'm participating in 2 Secret Santa exchanges, so I've been working on those.  Our office does 1 gift a week for 3 weeks (snack, ornament, reveal weeks).  Ronnie's been working late and I've been super busy at work learning a new concept.  And I went back to the doc today for a check up.  Carpal tunnel is doing better, but he still wants me to consider the surgery before it gets too bad.  And I've lost 13 pounds in the past month.  I'm getting closer and closer to my goal weight.

Too Smart

There are some days when I think Paige is too smart for her own good.  Today was one of those days.  We stopped by Target to pick up a few things.  While we were there I looked in the toy department for something Grammy wanted to get Paige for Christmas.  I actually spotted it and decided to go ahead and get it, even with Paige there.  I know, not the smartest move, but it couldn't be helped.  It was just the 2 of us, so I couldn't get Ronnie to distract her.  And last time I  didn't get the gift when I saw it resulted in my searching 3 states for 2 weeks to find it again.

As I picked it up I told her Ms K (a lady I work with) wanted it for her little girl, KJ.  Paige thought that was OK.  Then she saw what I was holding: a Disney princess dress up trunk.  Complete with an Ariel outfit among other things.  (Mom already found the matching shoe boutique, so we're set.)  Paige realized what I was holding and thought about it for a minute.  She started petting the box like a cat.  Then looked up at me all innocent and said: "How about we get one for Daddy's little girl, too!"

Early Christmas Gift

Our family got an early Christmas gift from Dr. B, my Dad's cardiologist.  On Wednesday it was decided my Dad needed to have a heart cath.  My parents met with Dr. B on Thursday, yesterday.  It was scheduled for today.  He has been having irregular heartbeats.  The EKG's indicated 2 to 3 blockages.  Because of other medical conditions Dr. B decided to tackle this in stages.  Today was stage 1.

Stage 1 was exploration.  Dr. B would do the heart cath, and see where the blockages are.  Stage 2 would take place on Monday or Tuesday where any repair work would be done.  This would allow Dr. B to use a minimum amount of die, which is bad for your kidneys.  He would map the blockages, then use the maps next week and not be required to use the dye.  This would be best on the kidneys.

Stage 1 took place at 10.  At 10 AM Dr. B kicked us out of the prep area.  He said they would finish up prep, and do the procedure, that we should expect it to take an hour.  Imagine our surprise when just 30 minutes later we were called to the consultation room.  Granny (Mom's Mom) and Uncle Little Erie (her oldest brother) were with us.  Mom said she felt it would be good news, I wasn't so sure.  Dr. B walked in with the absolute biggest smile on his face.  He said it took half the time because there were no blockages to map.  None.  Dr. B's exact words?  "His arteries look better then mine.  I have more blockage than he does."

Stage 2 has been cancelled.  Dr. B said that this is our Christmas gift.  He also said he feels much better about his family vacation to Bethlehem now knowing that everything is good.  Being the person I am, I had to ask about the irregular heartbeat and what is causing it.  Dr. B says it's probably his heart trying to keep up with other medical issues and some infections.  Now that he knows there are no blockages, he can control the heartbeat with medicines.

When Dr. B left the room we immediately pulled out cell phones and started calling the rest of the family.  Mass text messages were sent out.  Our family has had our first Christmas gift.  I know, you aren't supposed to open them early.  I hope you'll forgive us the faux pas.  But I can promise this is one gift that won't be re-gifted.  I hope your Christmas gifts are as wonderful as ours.

Grammy Sews

My mom makes great children's clothes.  She goes to one craft show a year and spends time making the outfits all year long.  I'm sure you've seen pictures of Paige in some of the clothes on here.  All the smocked stuff Mom made.  I sat down today and started her an Etsy shop.  It's a work in progress, so I hope you'll be kind.  Please take a look and let me know what you think.