Merry Christmas

Due to crazy weather and the Forest Grove Post Office (which, by the way, I love going to because everyone knows everyone there!) being short on post card stamps, I still have a pile of cards that will be mailed out soon.  Until then, here it is in all of its digitalness.  I hope you all enjoy your family this Christmas as much as we are enjoying ours.  I was thinking today about how great of a Christmas Season it has been so far and my next thought was that it wouldn't have been without all of you.  Each of you has made an impact on us (either large or small) that has made this past year, in all of its trials, a little easier.  Without all of our friends and our family, this Christmas would have been a lot more stressful and sticky ucky.  Thank you to all of you for everything you have done for us.  We appreciate all of the acts of kindness that have come our way during what could have been a very dark time for us and instead was full of blessings.  We have felt every prayer that was offered and feel very blessed to have all of you as our friends.  Thank you!

Stroke scare

Disclaimer: Angela, do NOT pass this on :)  No need to worry the folks, eh?

So.  Last night we had a little "get together" with the paramedics.  They seem like very nice people and we enjoyed chatting and all, but I think we will avoid all future get togethers with their type of people. Before I get into the thick of it, we thought Chris was having a stroke, but it turned out to be a panic attack.  A little scary for Chris (and the whole family!), as his biggest fear right now is...having another stroke.  

They think this could have been from all of that playing in the snow and sledding, which I think makes a lot of sense.  Basically, he was sitting on the couch and all of a sudden he was going tingly and hyperventilating.  Yikes.  Tingly sensation.  Stroke?  Tingly sensation on his face, eye stinging.  Stroke?  Right arm can't move.  Stroke?  Leg twitching.  Stroke?  It turns out that these are also common with panic attacks, but the main difference is that his right side couldn't move because it was stiff and tight (panic attack) and not because it was weak (stroke).  Horrible, horrible experience, but all is well now.  We know now how to identify this, we are having Chris take it easy (no more sledding, honey!) and all of our great neighbors dotingly shoveled our driveway today and brought us a nice, sodium free lunch.   I am hopeful that this won't happen again simply because now we know the early signs and know that when we see those signs, Chris needs to cool it and relax.  Whew.  I am so not ready for him to have another stroke.  And kudos to the Forest Grove FD paramedics that made it up our very steep and snowy hill in about 5 minutes.  Did I tell you that our total count for snow is 26 inches now?  Yep, they did a great job getting here fast through a whole heck of a lot of snow and getting Chris back to normal.  Whew.  Breathe, Sarah.  

Thank you, Lilly

I feel so blessed right now.  My sweet little Lilly Lu.  Let me start by saying that I love nursing my babies.  It is wonderful in so many forms, but the thing I don't like is that my babies never let me just rock them to sleep.  If I am holding them when they are tired, they want food.  Tonight, for the 2nd time this week, Lilly has slowly drifted to sleep in my arms without nursing and I must say it is different.  I don't know why (maybe because it is so rare), it was such a sweet moment.  Sitting in the quiet glow of the Christmas tree, with Lilly stroking my face (she loves this), slowly closing her eyes.  This moment was priceless.  I felt time slow and I sucked every bit out of this moment that might never happen again.  Thank you, my oh so sweet Lilly Lu.  As if she isn't the sweetest thing ever when she is up and at 'em (and boy is she-standing by herself, crawling all over the place!), she is 20 times cuter when she is drifting off to dreamland.  Now I am extra jealous of Chris, who has always gotten to experience this with all of the girls and extra sad for him as he can't experience it with Lilly.  I cried right along side him after his stroke as he lamented his not being able to hold his daughters, but I feel it even more right now.  Feeling that extreme joy tonight reminded me just how much it must hurt him to not be able to rock her to sleep.  Lilly, you are such a blessing to us. 

 

Today, I might have started something bad.  We'll have to see how it plays out.  Elise is always either playing in Thomas land or pretending to be a doggy.  We can get her to do many things that she would not do otherwise if we start playing doggy with her, so today I used it to my advantage a few times.  To get her dressed, I talked about getting the baby doggy dressed in her pants and shirt.  To wash her face, I pretended like I was a mommy doggy, cleaning her baby. (No, I did NOT lick her face)  To get her OUT of the room with the sleeping Lilly (yes, Lilly actually slept today!), I got on my knees and called baby doggy to follow me.  Yes, all well and good.  Except that now Elise expects me to crawl on my hands and knees at times that I don't need any specific behavior to be her mommy doggy.  You see, the joy of having 6 kids is that this is normally something that the big sisters do with her.  They are sort of her play friends that are always at her disposal.    I have now been drawn into that category and, as much fun as it was, she expects me to jump in and join her no matter what task is at hand. (nursing, cooking, etc)  Once again, it was lots of fun, but once I start getting holes in the knees of all of my pants, will it still be fun?  Luckily, Lilly is quite the crawler, so we try to get her to follow Mommy Doggy, too.  If you come to our house and see my crawling through the house, you will know that baby doggy wanted me to come out and play.

Snowed in and loving it

I must say that nothing is better than slowing it down a little, having to stay home and just enjoying the family.  I guess I might not feel like this a week from now, but so far, I'm loving it. Chris commented on my foresight in going grocery shopping, to which I replied, "Yep!  We have enough hot cocoa for the week!"  Who needs veggies, right? Things that were o my list: Gloves for Elise and Rachel, Gingerbread House Kits, Sleds, Hot Cocoa....and a few other, more practical items.  We are getting a ton of snow up here in the hills.  I don't think I've ever had so much snow for such an extended period of time before.  Fun, fun, fun.  (until we need to go somewhere, I guess)

I think that one of the best things about homeschooling is that it is flexible.  We aren't limited by this snowy craziness, the kids can hurry through their school so they can go sledding and they aren't driving me crazy being home....because they are always home.  And when I say hurrying through school, I mean it.  Autumn is my schooler that likes to drag her feet a bit, but she has been getting done by 10 am the past few days!  One more reason to love the snow, right?

*Update: 12 inches and counting.  Definitely more snow that we got in Beaverton

Silly boys! Trains are for girls!

Yeah!  I just finished Elise's Christmas present and unlike all of my other projects that I want to show you, I can actually post this one.  I don't think my sweet Elise will be lurking on my blog (Unlike the rest of my family) to find out what she is getting under the tree.  Elise loves Thomas.  This all started on a trip to Lia's house, hanging out with her cousin, James, who is one train obsessed kid.  Little did I know that she would soon pass him up on the Train Maniac scale.  Thomas is the coolest thing since sliced bread to little Elise and we can pretty much get her to do anything if we tie Thomas into it.  (Or Percy, or Harold....)  The problem comes up when we try to find Thomas gear that it all is very masculine.  I am alright with buying trains galore, but potty training would be a lot easier if I could get my hands on some Thomas panties. After coming across some Thomas material at Goodwill, I decided to embark on making her a cute little messenger bag and matching zippered pouch to tote all of her Thomas gear in.  Oh, and of course to make it a little girlier than the typical Thomas bags.  Here it is!  Now I just need to make 9 more presents.  How many days until Christmas again?  Uh oh....

The bad news today?  Chloe was looking on Pottery Barn Kids today with me and when she saw the kitchen set, she said "We don't need one of those.  We have one out in the garage that Grandma got when she was here!"  Yep, you guessed it.  I had tried to plan ahead on a group item from a very jolly feller.  Now I am in a little bit of a jam.  Yikes.  At least she said something because I would have hated for her to find out (if you know what I mean) quite this early.  The rush to fix this one should be interesting.  And in the mean time, what do I do with this other...item?  We give our girls 2 gifts for Christmas: the predicatable matching pj's and one other small handmade item.  I hate to ruin that by throwing this bigger item out there since I can no longer "help" a certain feller with his delivery.  Hmmmm.  Do you like my code?

On a side note, I think I need to stop blogging so late.  It makes for crazy talk.

Baby love and other Kangness

Not my baby, but still just as sweet.  These are from a family that I "shot" today. :)

One week old babies remind me of just how much Lilly has grown up.  Sigh.  It is so sad that it goes by so quickly, no matter how much you try to slow it down.  The little feet.  The cute little sneezes.  Yes, Lilly is so much fun right now with her giggling, clapping and standing up all of the time.  Still, a newborn baby is a different sort of  priceless and, no, I am not going to go do anything crazy!  (that was for Chris and my mom....didn't want to freak them out or anything)

On to other life updates:  Elise has slept in her dog house for almost a week now.  (A blanket over the table in her room)  Why do we buy our children beds?  It has made bed time so much easier.  Instead of lots of crying, I simply ask if doggy wants a "backpack ride" and my two year old doggy hops on, barking all the way, saying something about mommy doggy.  Just a few "woofs" later and she is off to doggy dream land.  It works like a dream! Rachel deserves all the credit for this one as she started it.  What a fabulous big sister, I tell ya!  

We are on tooth fairy watch at our house, too.  Chloe has two wiggly teeth and Hannah has her first wiggly tooth.  I have offered to pull out any teeth in exchange for an extended bed time, which has pretty much only made Hannah want me to pull out her tooth every night right around....bed time.  No, I am not a mean tooth pulling mom normally.  They just have these other teeth coming in that are in slightly nightmarish places and I am hoping that this might save us a few bucks on braces down the road.  I know....keep dreaming, girl.  I have a tooth fairy elf now (who finally figured it all out last year) who keeps me in check so I don't forget to deliver any "packages" when these said teeth do finally fall out.  She reminds me that night and will sneak into my room in the morning (after I forget) and sneak everything to...where it needs to be.  Hey, I don't call her my secretary for nothing!  Us moms don't have quite the memory that we used to and with Rachel being such a young spry, she makes up for the memory that I lost. (it did all start with her!)

Sister Power

Chris update:  Chris has been back to work for a week and a half now.  He kind of went all out and returned to his normal work week.  I think it has been very theraputic for him to return to work and feel a little more useful. (Although I sure do miss his tutoring help with the girls)  He said that he was able to type at 15 wpm with 100% accuracy yesterday, which I consider huge since a month ago it was 3 wpm with 60% accuracy.  Since he was the fasted typer in town before, he still has a while until he is back to what he considers normal, but I think 500% improvement is pretty darn good.

I had such a sweet sister moment last night with Rachel and Autumn that I just had to share.  Since I grew up with my 3 sisters and plenty of chic bonding, I love seeing the same with my little girls. (Don't get me wrong.  There was plenty of fighting, too!)  Last night I went into Rachel and Autumn's room at 10:30, doing my laundry fairy duties.  They were sleeping in one bed, all cuddly and cute.  As I went to set down their clothes, Rachel jumps up and says "What are you doing snooping around our room?" They both broke out in that uncontrollable silly girly giggling.  :)