Tired of me yet?

Again, sorry for the onslaught of posts as I try to catch up this last year. Good news though, I am half way there! Woohoo!

Happy New Year!

We celebrated New Year's Eve at our house this year with Hettie & some good friends of ours Shanna & Terrell. We had tons of fun playing games, watching movies & hanging out. I decided I needed to use on of the kids new straws to celebrate :-). There was one really funny moment though. My friend Shanna accidentally busted my nose...she bonked into me, pushing the end of the straw into my nose! I know, random. Anyway, the end of the straw was actually pretty thick plastic and it cut me inside my nostril. Of course, this happens right when you are supposed to start counting down the New Year. So, between shouts of '10...9...8...' you could also hear shouts of 'oh my gosh...get her some towels' as blood began pouring out of my nose. Really, this kind of stuff only seems to happen to me.

And, here is me with the hubbster. There was no New Year's kiss since I had toilet paper shoved in my nose...we barely could toast our champagne! Good times.
Bring on 2011.

Christmas Day 2010

Christmas Day was really crazy this year, but lots of fun as well. This first picture is actually on Christmas eve. Mamaw stopped by to help the kiddos make their cookies for Santa.

Aren't these some ugly...I mean super cute cookies we made??? At least they were really yummy.

The kids got to open their presents from each other on Christmas eve.

Posing with the cookies & milk they put out for Santa.

Reading them their Christmas books before bed.

Christmas morning! We had our immediate family Christmas in the morning, then my side of the family came over for lunch, presents & games. We even had a gingerbread house decorating competition, which I got to judge. We all had a blast together & played games well into the evening.

It was gloriously cold outside...Yay! So, the kiddos played outside with their cousins all afternoon. Then, we headed to Derek's parents house to spend the night, and had Christmas morning with them the day after Christmas.

Kiddos opening their stockings at Granna & Gramps house.

Funny stocking presents!

Dawson super excited about his Batcave!

And, Andi with her baby Cinderella pram.

Andi riding new princess bike that Santa brought her.

And, Dawson riding his spark scooter that Santa brought him. Do you see the sparks? Pretty cool. Well, no awesome cabin in the snow this Christmas...but, tons & tons of wonderful memories made with family!

Santa pics

Another photo session courtesy of Imaging Studios. Here are this kids pics with Santa this year! Yay, this was the first year that Andi didn't scream. She still wasn't a big fan of sitting in his lap. Can't say I blame her though, it is a pretty darn weird tradition. This is another collage I did for my photo calendar this year.

Elfcapades

Last Christmas 2009, Granna (Derek's Mom) sent our family an 'Elf on the Shelf.' If you are not familiar with these Elves, they hang out at your house all day & then fly back to report the kiddos behavior to Santa each night, then return back to your house landing in a new spot. So each morning, the kiddos search the house trying to find where he landed. The elves come with two rules: 1. You have to name them immediately. Dawson of course named him Jingles. And 2. Kids are not allowed to touch them or they will loose all their flying magic. That is the rule that just drives Dawson absolutely crazy. He wants to hold him SO BAD. This first picture is of Jingles sitting up on a high ledge in our MN house the first Christmas we had him.

So, fast forward to Christmas 2010. Here are the kiddos hugging on their new elves right after they arrived in the mail. Dawson kept coming home from school telling all these crazy stories about his friend's elves & the mischief they were doing. Most importantly, they had elves they could touch! He was very upset that Santa had not sent him an Elf like that. After spending some time on google :-), I managed to convince Santa with my Visa card to send two red headed 'Elf Magic' elves to live at our house. These elves are very lovable & known to get into all kinds of mischief. They come with names & ironically they were named Jingle & Jangle. So, we now have three elves: Jingles, Jingle & Jangle! Since we got them only a week before Christmas...they were extremely mischievous.

Here is a picture of Dawson cracking up laughing...if you look close in the background, their elves had hung the kiddos underwear all over the Christmas tree during the night. Most mornings, no matter what the elves had gotten into during the night, we found them fast asleep in the freezer since it reminds them of home.

Their first night with us though, they went on a super crazy rampage after we went to sleep. When we woke up, we followed a trail of marshmallows to find them & they were laying next to my camera. After looking through the photos on my camera, we learned that they had taken pics of each other during the night. The top photos are of Andi's elf Jangle having a tea party with Jingles, swinging outside, eating marshmallows on the couch & riding Dawson's remote control truck.

Dawson's elf Jingle drove Derek's new car, watched our family's 'Elf yourself' video on the computer, hung out with Jingles & climbed the tree in the backyard.

Christmas morning, the kids woke up to find their elves had wrapped their rooms during the night.

And, here are all three crazy elves: Jingles, Jingle & Jangle...hanging out together on our Christmas tree that Dawson named 'Jingles the tree.' Needless to say, our kids LOVE having all the elves around, but Dawson is so into it! It's hilarious!

1st annual Cousin Cookie Christmas

On the Saturday before Christmas, our family had our first annual 'Cousin Cookie Christmas.' I just made that name up, but I kinda like it. It was the most wonderful relaxing fall day and all the kids & grown-ups had such a good time. The cousins exchanged presents, decorated Christmas cookies, played outside in the gorgeous weather, and we all munched non-stop! My sweet cousin Kim hosted the event & spent hours baking Christmas shaped cookies & mixing icing colors for the cookie decorating! I just love all these photos of the cousins hanging out & laughing. The first photo is Andi with Brynn, Sami & Audrey.

Here is Dawson with Ella, Sami hiding in the back, and Tobie

I just love this picture of the girls playing outside, it was just such a pretty day outside.

Hettie & Dawson at the cookie decorating station.

These two cousins share a birthday, just one year apart, and they always seem to play together really well. Andi with Blake, my cousin Kim's youngest.

I found some Christmas Bingo cards at Wal-Mart this year, and they were a HUGE hit with the kiddos!

And, Derek was a tad late to the event because...he was buying his new car! Yup, he traded in his pick-up for a new camaro. He has since named 'her' Evelyn.

Of course Dawson was pretty pumped about Dad's new car too!
But, this was such a wonderful day & I can't wait for next year for our 2nd annual Cousin Cookie Christmas!

Disney Princesses on Ice

Oops, I forgot a post...this was from back in November. For Hettie's birthday, we treated her (and Andi also) to the Disney Princess on ice show. It was really cute & both our princesses loved it: the birthday princess Hettie & princess Andelynn.

On our way there, this was how Andi chose to dress up at first, until Hettie busted out the princess decorations she had bought for the event.

Granna, Hettie & Andi before the show started enjoying their princess snacks.

Me & my princess.

And, birthday girl Hettie with Andi. What a fun princess afternoon!

Christmas Card 2010

Here was our Christmas card this year...Merry Christmas! :-)

For your entertainment

Getting a tonsillectomy has been on my 'to do' list for over 15 years now. I am super glad that I can officially cross that off!

I know, I know, I am a HUGE dork...yes, I took a photo of my tonsils the day before my surgery. But, they have literally been such a huge part of my life, I wanted to remember just how massive they were. As you can see from my glorious close-up, the suckers touched even when they weren't swollen. Sometime when I was younger, I even began referring to them as 'the twins.' They were the source of major issues in my life: multiple cases of strep throat each year, choking, sleep apnea...and last year, I even had a staph infection in my tonsils. Yuck. So, why did it take me so long to get them taken out? Well, it was hard to find a 3 week period to do it in, because that is the usual recovery time. Actually, it was hard to give up doing other things for 3 whole weeks. There were even two different times through the years that I actually had the surgery scheduled, but I canceled it so that I could go on a ski trip & something else that I can't even remember now. But, I am sure it was funner than getting my tonsils taken out. Here is how I finally booked my surgery.

Sometime in October, I had experienced something really weird. I began showing all the signs of having a stroke: the right side of my body went numb, my vision was being replaced with different images, my heart rate was sky high, and whenever I tried to talk I kept saying really weird things. But, the first symptom I had was a really bad headache. I was home with Andi by myself & I tried to call Derek & tell him what was going on. But, you know what I told him? I told him 'red firetrucks irritate me in the rain.' WHAT???? I was so frustrated because I knew what I was trying to say, but that was not what was coming out of my mouth. Long story short, they admitted me in the hospital for testing. They did TONS of tests including a cat scan & determined that I didn't have a stroke. So, they think it was one of those severe migraines that mimics a stroke? Although they couldn't be sure that is what it was. They were sure about one thing though. They only had one result from my cat scan: my tonsils were way too big & needed to be removed. Ha! While I was still in the hospital waiting to be discharged, my cousin Shauna (who is an ear, nose & throat PA) called me on my cell phone. I just thought she was calling to check on me. Nope, she was calling to let me know that she was going to schedule my tonsillectomy because she knew after this hospital stay I would have met my deductible & I had no more excuses. She had been trying for years to get me to do it. So, we got it scheduled.

How was the surgery? Absolutely horrendous. Worse than childbirth? DEFINITELY. Did it take 3 whole weeks to recover? Nope, it took longer. I had envisioned relaxing in bed for 3 weeks reading books & watching movies, but I felt way too bad to do either of those. I just lied in bed in intense pain for weeks waiting for it to end. Unlucky for me, I have side effects to every drug I take. Pain meds make me hallucinate that aliens are trying to abduct me & antibiotics make me sick to my stomach. So, it was an interesting couple of weeks. I celebrated one week post surgery throwing up all day because of my antibiotics. (Which feels just lovely on a very sore throat.) So we switched antibiotics & I had to start taking anti-nausea medicine. Words really cannot stress how horrible the surgery makes you feel. I am SO GLAD this is behind me! And if you are really brave, you should ask me about what the pathology report said they found inside my tonsils sometime. :-)

Choppin' down a Christmas tree...

I REALLY wish that I could blog about what a fun, perfect day we had chopping down our Christmas tree. But, that would be a big ole fat lie. Even by looking at the pictures you would think we had a good time. But, it was horrible, beyond horrible really. Normally, we just take the kids to Houston Garden Center to pick out a tree each year, but I had been wanting to take them to a tree farm to chop down our own tree. I had done that a couple of times when I was a kid and always thought it was really cool. So, I decided this was the year they were old enough to enjoy it. Wrong. My kids screamed, whined, complained, cried & fought the entire time. I think everyone at the Tree farm probably burst into applause when our car finally exited the parking lot. First of all, it was hotter outside then the weather report said it was going to be. So, we were all dressed for cooler weather & we were sweating in our sweaters in the 80 degree weather. That was the first problem. The second problem was our timing. We arrived at the tree farm about an hour to lunch time. I thought the kiddos would be fine til after the tree chopping was done, and then we'd hit a restaurant on the way home. Nope, apparently they were completely starving & they acted like we had not fed them in weeks. The last problem was me. I mean the trees. No, really me. See, I LOVE picking out my Christmas tree, and I am just a tad particular about them. (I may have even gone to 6 different places one year to find the 'perfect' tree.) Well, this tree farm definitely did not have any trees that would even come close to what I would call a 'perfect' tree. The combo of all of this made for one of the worst days I've had since becoming a mom. As we were dragging the kiddos all over this place looking at one sad tree after another, Derek kept telling me if I didn't like any of them we should just go somewhere else. But, I was in the mode. Plus, we had already invested all this time dragging whiny kids around the farm....SURELY there was decent tree somewhere right???? I am not even sure how we got this many pictures where everyone looks happy, because they were very rare happy moments mixed into the horror.

The kids with the measuring stick that they fought over the entire time.

Kids with Dada

Alas, here is Derek with the kiddos chopping down the tree we picked. Okay, we didn't really pick it. It just happened to be the tree right next to me when the whiny kids pushed me right over the edge. It definitely had a Charlie Brown look to it, but at that point I could care less. I wanted to be anywhere but right there at that moment. Calgon take me away! Derek kept pointing out all the big bald spots on it & I kept saying angrily 'We'll just put that side to the back.' I can remember him muttering something like 'Well, we can't put every side of the tree to the back though.'

But look at this happy face jumping on hay bales!

Both of them jumping on the hay bales.

Dawson posing for a pic.

The second half of our day was completely turned around. We all ate lunch, watched a movie, took naps or just chilled out. But, by the time we started decorating the tree, everyone was very happy & agreeable. (Okay, Derek may have also gone to the store & brought back a bottle of my favorite wine to help out with the everyone being agreeable part. :-) We turned on our favorite Christmas music, the movie Elf soundtrack, and we all danced our way through decorating the tree. Seriously, if you don't own that cd, buy it. Best Christmas cd ever...the kiddos love it.

Posing with the decorated tree...which didn't end up looking THAT bad after we dressed it all up. (We did spend quite a bit of time though analyzing which part looked the worst & needed to face the wall.)

This was Dawson's idea for a good photo with the tree.

Dancin' with Dad

Dawson's favorite dance move since we got the tile! The slide!

Love this one, Andi dancin' with Dad.

And, TADA! All done with the Christmas tree saga. I was probably thinking right after this picture 'Yay, I can FINALLY put the kiddos to bed now!'