Decking the Halls

This was our first year (of the past 7) not going out and cutting down our annual Christmas Tree...while we sure did miss the sentimental meaning of our little annual field-trip, we quickly got over it, didn't have to worry about watering and the constant clean-up, and had fun decorating with the kiddos.

Bruce and Chase were the official lighting crew...

Chase took his job VERY seriously...



Daddy and Chase standing back to make sure the lights were spaced properly



Addy and I understood that there was only so much space next to the tree, and we (I mean Addy) spent our time doing neat stuff like:

  

Oh Addy...

The boys did a great job with the tree, there were many mid-decorating dance-off's to Christmas music coming from the TV, and the kids even got a snazzy picture with our very own in-house Santa...

Too bad I didn't make up some sort of "Elf on the Shelf" story for our Santa...you know, about our Santa keeping an eye on the kids behavior and reporting back to the "real" Santa...darn it!

Why the 1st half of the year was a complete blogging wash for me

I had a long-winded post about this whole thing, which I think is "too much", but I think these 2 images do the trick!

(this came on January 4th, Bruce's first day back to work after Christmas and New Years...no warning, and no severance)

and then...

(This happened on March 4th...the rehabilitation process for me was 4+ months long and awful...this is a picture of me getting my 2nd cortisone injection into my spinal cord, to reduce the swelling at the base of my neck and chill my nerves out for a few days, about 2 months after my operation)

Made me pretty much not really feel like blogging the first half of the year

We are glad to have it behind us, besides the 2 really, truly sucky things that happened, there were some really great things too...but the thought of going back and trying to re-cap everything is just too overwhelming for me...plus, my memory is pretty fuzzy of the entire month of March...sad, but true!

Here's to moving on!

Email from Grammy!

Chase of course fell asleep in the car on the way home from Del Rio. They were excellent and ate like Saxons.

Addy and I fed the animals with hugs and kisses ALL around, found a frog, had to play with that Chase still slept.

Got home put bags in the house and Frank out and yes! Chase slept. Woke him up came in the house had milk, peed, wasted face AND hands, brushed our teeth.

They went into chases room got jammies on while I took Frank out, Came upstairs to a blue TV screen and this!

(seriously!?!?!  This NEVER happens!!!!)

Sweet Dreams!
Grammy

You Run, You Slide...

You Hit The Bump, And Take A Dive!! Gotta love the 80's jingles that are permanently burned into our brains!

(please note the patio cushion padding the corner of the playset..it was a necessary precaution, but thankfully was never put into action!)

One night last week, it wasn't quite sunny enough to hit up the pool after dinner for an hour or so to burn off some steam, but it sure was hot enough! So, we broke out the slip and slide that had been hanging off the walk-up basement stair railing since the beginning of the summer (Don't judge, it was hidden behind the bushes!!) The kids aren't big enough yet to be able to really fling themselves all the way down the slip and slide, so we kind of chalked it up to a "next summer" kind of thing. But, that was on the flat surface of our side-yard...we kind of thought our back yard was too steep...ended up being perfect!

Addy is a chicken...slowly but surely she is becoming more adventurous...I think it's because she is so eager to start pre-school, and thinks she has to be a big-girl (aka: brave) before she can go!

Here she is...Mom, I don't know about this...

Oh yeah, I'm a big girl!! I forgot! Here goes nothing!

Whee!!! This is fun!

Ok, Mom, being a big-girl is fun! (pardon the upper lip...this was the day after her lip procedure!)

I even took a few turns (In my work dress...good thing the neighbors weren't out!) which totally amused the kids and mortified my husband. Ha!

Super Patient Addy

Yesterday Chase and I took Addy to the dentist to have a Frenectomy done on her upper lip!



You know that piece of tissue that connects your upper lip to your gums above your teeth? That strip of tissue ran all the way down to her gum-line, between her front teeth. Any time she'd bump her lip, it would always bust open and bleed. It was always painful for her to take shirts off, if they brushed up against her lip! When she smiles, you don't see her upper front teeth.

Here she is right before her procedure...very excited!

My pretty little girl!

Getting ready, watching a Princess Movie on the overhead screen...they totally didn't have this kind of thing when we were kids!

Numbing gel doing it's job, Nitrous (AKA: "the Princess Nose") doing it's job... ;o)

The procedure was very quick and painless! They used a water-laser and sliced it right up to where it should be! Addy looked like she was levitating while laying on the chair, she said she felt like she was floating in the ocean!

We came home and went about business as usual! Addy looks like she got a collagen injection in her lip, and the swelling should subside over the next few days...here is a not so great shot of her this morning, she still doesn't quite know what to do with that big, fat lip!

After seeing her lip once everything was all said and done, I felt bad getting it corrected, like I was ruining her smile, but after a few days, I know it will look normal again, and it's for the best, getting it taken care of sooner than later!

What Balmy Weather!

OK, so as I type this, I'm sure the rain clouds are rolling in! We were so thankful to have a break from the frigid weather for a bit this week with it getting into the upper 40's and low 50's over the last few days!

The kids were able to get outside and brush up on their sidewalk chalking (daddy too!), and ride their new bikes and tricycles that Santa brought! Chase is super-fast on his big-guy bike, and Addy is a mess on her little pink tricycle...I'm glad we went that route with her instead of a little bike, she just has WAY too much going on to try to ride a bike...she is so silly.

Here's Chase and Addy with their next door neighbor, partner-in-crime, Drake...Chase looks like a giant next to them!

Today we headed over to the "dinosaur park" right around the corner from my office in Ashburn. The funny thing is that a good family friend of ours (The Preddys...the street next to the park is named after them) owned all of that land back in the day, and I have many fond memories of going over to their house and visiting the cows on their farm. Well, being that the land is dead-center in the middle of Ashburn, the old house is now surrounded by regular cookie-cutter homes and the park sits off to the side. I had never been there before and was blown away with how big the park was and loved that there were 4 or 5 different play structures for the kids to choose from. It was a bit more chilly today, but the kids loved it and I had a tough time getting them back to the truck to leave!

Haha, you can see the piece of tape with her name on it, from church last weekend...

Chase definitely bit it a few times, running around, look at all of the snow patches still on the ground! Geez, melt already!!!

Whee!!! I just noticed she had 2 different colored pig-tails, we're snazzy like that ;o)

What a mess!!

Happy, happy campers getting to be outside for a bit, bring on the warmer weather!!!