A Catch Up Holiday Post

Well the Christmas season just flew by!  With two extremely excited kids, I had to just do Christmas rather than write about it this year.  It was so much fun though.  They were over the moon excited about Santa, baby Jesus, Ralph (our reindeer alternative to the Elf of the Shelf), snow, trains...

My favorite part of Christmas is the skit at church.  I am in charge of it and I just love it.  This year I let both kids be in even though Lilah is technically too young.  They were mice with their cousins Jade and Junior.  Candi dubbed them "the rat pack."  They were so freaking cute!  I have no pictures.  Mom fail.  My work assistant may have some.  If I ever get a hold of them, I will post some.

The kids got all they wanted and more from Santa, family and friends.  We had lots of time to spend with those that we love, ate a lot of good food and played with a whole bunch of new toys!  It even snowed in the weeks leading up to the big day, which gave us a few extra days off of school and a bunch of memories.

So here it is ladies and gents.  My Christmas photo dump.  Enjoy!

A quick side note....sad that this is a side note and not it's own post...you may notice the gigantic bruise on Lilah's nose in some of the pics.  We thought she broke it, but she didn't. She face planted into the foot board of our bed while running one night.  It bled a lot and she cried a lot.  Thankfully, our professional Christmas pictures were taken before it happened!

Dear Blog, I've Missed You

Dear Blog,

I've missed you.  Things got a little crazy right before Thanksgiving and I've been working on finding a new normal.  A new normal where my best friend's mom resides in heaven instead of in a nursing home bed.  A new normal where cancer is a chronic disease.  And where I am at peace with all of it.

Am I?  Not really.  It's not fair.  None of it is.  Shawn says I have a skewed version of fair because I have been lucky in life.  He's right.  But it's still not fair.

But I am choosing to be okay with it.  What else is there to do?

Donna is in a better place.  I can't even imagine to go from what she had become to a place where all is healed and she is free of all of her earthly torment.

Mom is here with us.  Sick, but still here.  She starts treatment today.  And just like I've been saying, it's like the bad news gets chipped away little by little.  It's still bad.   But it's liveable.  And LIFE is what it's all about.

We thought Lilah broke her nose.  She didn't, but it looked like this is still quite noticeably bruised.

It snowed a lot.  The kids had a ball in it.

Thanksgiving and my birthday came and went and now we have five days until Christmas.

And I feel so blessed.

So blessed to have known Donna and basked in the light she gave off when she was well.

So blessed to have my Mom and medical science keeping her here with us.

So blessed to have my babies healthy and so very excited for Christmas.

So blessed to have married my high school sweetheart and to have my best friend also be my first and only love. 

So very blessed to have amazing friends and a wonderfully supportive family.

We took a Christmas tree and some baking items to a family from church.  That's what they wanted for Christmas.   It was almost too much for me to handle.  Their house was very bare.  Both the mother and one of the children underwent major surgery this past year.  They have had it really rough.  We were able to go back and take gifts as well.  They didn't ask for the gifts, but they needed them.

It can always be worse.  Choosing to be positive once I have grieved is a wonderful trait my mother passed down to me.  I hope to pass it on to my own babies.

I promise to check in more.  I didn't know how to write all of this down.  Now that I have, I can move forward and post the pictures of my beautiful children that our wonderful photographer captured.  And snow pictures, Santa pictures and the Christmas pictures that I will have soon.  I cannot wait to see their faces on Christmas.  They are so genuinely excited and they so innocently believe.

The Christmas Eve skit is going to be out. of. this. world.  The kids are going to be mice with two of their cousins.  Shawn's Aunt has dubbed them "the rat pack."  There will be a real baby Jesus!  And Shawn's Uncle will make an appearance as Santa Claus.  He will bless the baby Jesus in silence.  The kids in that church are going to LOOSE THEIR MINDS.

Thanks for giving me a place to share.

Love,
Maria

Ramblings of a Sleepy Girl

Lilah has for reasons unbeknownst to me decided that deer lives in her room.  Sometimes she won't go into her room because according to her the deer is in her bed.  Other times we will be in her bed as she is falling asleep and she will tell me that the deer just jumped out the window, or some other randomness.

Last night as Lilah was falling asleep she was pushing on her sheet as if it was bothering her, so I moved it off of her.  She grabbed it and pulled it back up saying, "No!  Keep it on.  I don't want the animals to see my butts."   

Then she followed that up with, "you can't leave me in the snow because that would be terrible!" 

I said, "okay, Lilah, you're right, I won't.   Now go to sleep."

And she did. 

Girly

Lilah is 100% a girly girl.  And I LOVE it!!  She has been taking gymnastics for a few months and is really good at it.  She loves it too.  I love seeing her in her little leotard and leg warmers!

She's gotten to tag along on some girly adventures lately and she thinks she's hot stuff!  We had a tea party for my lead teacher's baby shower and Lilah fit right in.  Then last week Lilah, Teri and I hit the nail salon.  She was overthemoon excited!

And just because I feel you may need a good laugh, I will add this bit of information to this post about my baby girl.  The other day she went into her room where she was supposed to be putting a new pull up on.  Instead?  I found her with a bottle of hand sanitizer.  If you ask her where she put it, she'll tell you.  "All over" her "gina."  And yes, she is the child that will be the death of me. 

Halloween 2013

I feel like we spent all of October preparing for Halloween only to celebrate it into November.  The weather here was a lacking on the 31st, and having listened to the weather reporters, we made the call early in the morning to do our "real" trick-or-treat on Friday at the golf course community where my dad, brother and SIL belong. 

Since the kids were so excited about the holiday, and picked their costumes very early in the month, it was a real bummer to have to put it off until the day after.  They handled it pretty well though and since the weather was slightly better than predicted (at least for the first 45 minutes of trick-or-treat), we did make it to a few houses in our neighborhood before the rain really started coming down.  The kids enjoyed giving out treats almost as much as they enjoyed getting them anyway!

Besties for life.  They have no choice :)

Sweet cousins :)

This is the only picture that shows how genuinely excited he was for this holiday!

The Minnie witch hats Aunt Teri made!

Lilah's friend Bob was Mickey!

Much to my surprise and happiness, Brian and Lilah have jumped right into the preparations for Thanksgiving-my favorite holiday.  I was worried that because it doesn't involve presents, fireworks, candy or costumes, it might not have the same appeal.  They have been great though.  They helped Shawn take down the Halloween decorations and helped me put up the Thanksgiving decorations.  Then they went to Nana's and asked her where her Thanksgiving decorations were!  They are funny!  They have learned a few turkey songs and have been signing them regularly.  I have a feeling Lilah will make an appearance in the preschool Thanksgiving Dinner performance.  She thinks she is in the 3 year old class so I don't see them being allowed to perform without her.  Brian has been all excited to tell me about the pilgrims this week.  He came home one day and said, "Mom, they had a BAD king!  He wouldn't let them pray!"  Love that boy!  Shawn went to Plymouth last year on business so Brian was excited to wear his Mayflower shirt to school and show off the pictures his Daddy took on his trip. 

Can't believe it's already November 9th!  It will be 2014 before we know it.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Sometimes I just have to stop and write down some of the things that my kids say so I never, ever forget them.  I have had two of those moments in the past few days...

Lilah

My lead teacher is VERY pregnant and we have had several false alarms where we thought she would deliver and then she hasn't.  Thus there has been much talk about baby Bella, when she's coming out, etc.  Bella will be hanging with me and Lilah in my office during the school day once here mommy returns from leave, so there has also been much discussion about who will hold the baby and how careful we will have to be with her. 

I tell the kids often that they have to be happily married before they can have kids.  I also tell them that babies come out of their mommy's hearts because the mommy loves the baby so much.  I mean, they are 5 and 2...that's as far as I am going with that discussion.

So this is the conversation I had with Lilah the other day...

L: "I'm married."
Me: "Oh really.  Who did you marry?"
L: "My Brian-boy."
Me: "Oh wow, that's great Lilah."
Longish pause...
L: "I have a baby in my belly."
Me: "Oh, do you?"
L: "Yep. Her name is Bella.  She's going to come out of my heart.  You will have to hold her.  I might drop her and she could get hurt really bad."

Two going on 17.  For real.

Brian

Today at the gym when I went to pick up Brian, a middle school aged girl stopped me and said, "I really like your son's hearing aids."  I replied, "thanks so much, sweetie!"  She lifted her hair to show me that she also has hearing aids.

As we walked out, I asked Brian if he noticed that she had hearing aids too.  His response...

"No.  What kind were they mom?"

Me: "Oh I don't know, red and brown, maybe."

B: "No MOM what SUPERhero?  (Insert eye rolling.)  Red and brown?  They must have been Iron Man ears."

LOVE him.  

Fall and a Brian Update

This should really be two posts, but I am out of time today!  Tomorrow is set to be our last aural rehab appointment.  This means that Brian has done a great job transitioning to wearing his hearing aids and he has met or is very close to meeting all of the goals they set for him!  This means we are heading back to what should be our last segment of time in private speech therapy.  Can I get a Hallelujah?   P.S. Brian also got a 100% on his first AR test today.  That kid rocks!

Onto the fall happenings.  We have visited many a pumpkin patch.  Lilah went twice with the preschool and we also went with some of our best friends.  One of the preschool days Uncle Bill and Gavin even joined us!

The kids are LOVING their costumes and have had several chances to wear them.  They have attended two Halloween parties-one at Brian's school and one at the preschool.  It's such a fun time of year with kids!

I apologize for the many, many pictures below.  There were many, many more taken :)

Brian LOVES these things!

This is the new thing...finger in nose.

He made the pin after getting it out of treat box.  So excited!  He later gifted it to his teacher. 

Had to get Bib's kissing pic!

Argh!

So excited to be riding a school bus to Brian's school Halloween party!

Proudly showing off his class pumpkins!

Cool spider hats they made at the preschool Halloween party.