Slaving away on dinner

When Elise saw this picture, she got so excited!  "Daddy squishy!  Mommy squishy, too?" (As she squished my face.  Normally when she squeezes your cheeks, she says "I find Nemo!", not understanding the irony of her statement.)


Today was a day full of slaving away in the kitchen, planning and carrying out the perfect gourmet dinner for our family and some friends.  Okay, so there wasn't any slaving away, but there was enjoying dinner with friends. (dinner that they brought over, I might add!)  An old friend of Chris' from work wanted to bring over pizza and let the kids all play together, but our little dinner has been delayed between our last minute trip to Las Vegas and being snowed in for the Christmas holidays.  Finally, no emergencies or acts of God prevented our get together tonight and it was so much fun!   I still feel a little wrong about having someone come to my house and have them bring me dinner instead of the other way around, but I must admit that it was pretty nice.  I am so grateful for good friends.  They are such a blessing to us to be surrounded by such a great support system of family and friends.  What would we do without all of you?

I included some pictures of my sweet husband because he NEVER lets me take pictures of him.  He only let his guard down this time because I was playing with my camera.  So I basically tricked him into thinking they would all be deleted at a later date. (which they will.  At a much later date.)  I look at Chris and am so overwhelmed with respect for how he has handled life the last few months.  I am not sure that I would be up to the task and that I would have shown the determination that he has through it all.  Sometimes we will "reminesce" through the hospital stay and talk about the events simply because it is still a little foggy to him.  Everytime we  start talking about all of the different things that took place during those very crazy 3 weeks, I find myself very overwhelmed.  It kind of amazes me that we made it through something that, even now, seems so distant.  I find myself just thinking again about how grateful I am that we felt so bouyed up by all of the prayers that were being said in our behalf because I remember not feeling nearly as stressed out as I should have.  I am thankful for that peace that we felt and the ability that we were given to carry on and adapt to this trial as it came at us.  I am so grateful for this man who has risen to the occasion and has definitely made quite a few gallons of lemonade out of his lemons.  (And to top that all off, he kicked me out of the house today and cleaned the house with the kids!)