Christmas at our place

Well, looks like it's all over. Which is nice to know it's behind us and we can move on. Although we had a very fun morning, the rest of the day was... well... we all ended up with stomach flu, so you know how the rest of our day (and right on into the weekend) was. YUCK!



I had a tough time getting started into the Christmas spirit, but as the days got closer, I got so excited to give TJ the gift I had gotten him, and to see the girls' faces as they opened up their gifts, it was going to be so much fun!

Getting the house all ready and festive. Thanks to everyone who gave us their Christmas cards, I really enjoyed putting them up and seeing them everyday!


The cookies were thoroughly enjoyed by Santa and his reindeer. This year the reindeer didn't get their usual Pepsi, the girls opted to leave a Sprite for them, good news too, I hear the reindeer are going to give up soda in 2010....



The stockings were hung and nicely stuffed. Well, except, Mrs. Claus fills all the stockings except for Mom's, Santa does that after he's finished with all his treats, and Mrs. Claus was tired, so she had to get back to the North Pole... whatever, they were hung, and they are cute, and that's a SWEET board they are hanging from, right?





It really was fun, lots of fun. I surprised TJ with his, gift, he seemed kind of bummed while we were opening gifts, he didn't have a lot to open and was less than thrilled with the too many shirts and ties I bought him -oops. But once he got to the good gift, all the rest were behing him. He opened it (probably expecting more ties) and when he saw what it was (a Zune player) he got all squirmy in his seat, it was totally worth making him open all the ties!!



Austin didn't really have a lot to do, but he sat there nicely while everyone else helped him open his gifts!



The girls have stay busy with all their new stuff, and were so excited for finally a warm day that they weren't sick to go outside and play with some of their new toys, it was great!

And my favorite was that TJ picked out "Beatles" shirts for all of the girls, they were oddly very excited when they opened them. Now they can look just like Dad!



That's all we've got. I'm such a bad picture taker on Christmas day, I take a few, then set it down to enjoy the morning. And then it never got picked back up for the whole next week, since we were all sick. Fortunately msot of us are feeling better, and almost back to normal, some are still plagued with a nasty cold. Oh! I forgot to mention that TJ has decided to share his garage with me, since he got me some new saws for Christmas! I can't wait to clear out some space and start cutting something!!

And um, Madison had a birthday sometime in that last few months! I can believe that I forgot to post the pictures, because it was all I could do to throw a little party together. It was cute, her and her friends had fun, that's all that matters. Oh yeah, Tristan turned 2 also... do I have pictures of that? No. Oh well, we'll catch it next year!!

Austin at 3 months

Here he is trying out his bumbo seat, those things are pretty cool. he doesn't really know how to hold his head up very well in it at that age. Well, maybe because he's a bit top heavy... anyway, now he does much better in it, but I still feel bad leaving him in it for too long, it jsut doesn't seem comfortable at all... and he always looks really bored in it!

A few "oldies" of Austin

... Well, how "old" could they get? I mean, he's not even 5 months old!

These are him at 2 1/2 months. My friend gave me that shirt, which I think is adorable, especially since we live in Texas. And it just so happened to match-ish with that adorable blanket another friend made for me. Wow, I have awesome friends! so, here he is!!

Ah, blogging

So I read back on some old posts to the blog, I was actually looking to see if I had set any goals for the new year last January... I didn't so I'm off the hook with meeting or not meeting them! Anyway, seeing the pictures and some of the things I had written, mademe realize that I kind of miss blogging. I never make time for it anymore, as I'm sure most of you can guess why? I've kind of turned into a nut after this 4th child came along and kindergarten started. Although, most recently I've been feeling a bit back to my old self and ready to get on with life. Get on to setting new goals and changing things around here in this new year to come.

On that note I grabbed a bunch of recently old pictures and got them ready to post, so I'll try to get them up sometime today, I might have to give up my facebook farm in order to make time for more important things in my life!

Anyway, that's all, look for new pictures, and maybe more blogging this year!

It's Christmastime

It's been a little tough for me to get in the Christmas spirit this year. But, alas, the day is almost here. I was able to go out Christmas shopping with TJ the other nite and we had such a blast buying stuff for the kids. Seriously, who knew shopping for toys could be so much fun?!!

Anyway, after a rediculously busy, hard to keep up with, week for me last week I am looking forward to jsut relaxing these next couple of days. Taking it easy, making some treats, wrapping gifts... that shouldn't be too hard, right? Right.

So, for right now, a copy of our family Christmas card, to all those who may have not gotten one ~sorry~ I apparently underestimated on how many I wanted to send out, next year I better up the number!

Tristan's Trip to the Cardiologist

Okay, so we FINALLY had that 6-month check up, which, can I jsut tell you has seemed like it's taken forever to get here. In fact, they didn't want to see me until January, but I was getting pretty anxious any time I thought about it, so I made them move me to December. (Because if it were bad news it'd be better 7 days before Christmas? Whatever, I wasn't thinkin about THAT in October.)

Anyway, so here's the deal..... nothing's changed. yeah, all that, to hear that. Which is actually not bad news. I mean, it's not the greatest, because the problem didn't go away, but it hasn't gotten worse or caused her anymore problems.

I think the part I get so anxious about is this "sit and wait" thing you have to do. Because of course they don't just want to go cutting her heart open to remove the extra tissue jsut for good measure. It's not that kind of deal. Not to mention the extra risks that come along with surgeon in and of itself. But also the cardi. mentioned something about how if by "chance" they were to clip this extra tissue too close to the wall of the heart, then it could cause problems with the heart. Now, I'm sure they are good at what they do, and heck, they mess around in their ALL THE TIME, I mean, they are Pediatric Cardiothorasic Surgeons and all, but still. Last time they still "bumped" something inside her and then she had lingering side effects. Which some kids spend a lifetime healing from, luckily for her, her chylothorax cleared up in a few weeks of being on specialized formula.

Anyway, she was a trooper. Several fruit snacks, pretzels, apple juices, and lollipops later... along with a good bit of "Finding Nemo" the movie, she did great. Doc checked out her heart, her aorta repair, which looked great, no residual narrowing (yeah, copied that right from his report I read over his shoulder!) The subaortic membrane tissue grew at a consistant rate with her aorta so the percentage it's blocking is pretty close to what it was before.

So, another few months down the road, we'll see what he has to say then. Oh how I'm glad for good insurance;)