Birthdays, Holidays, and Not So Fun Days

Hello again friends and family.  Anyone interested in a long overdue update from our clan?

I haven't touched the keys on my computer for about two months.  A lot has gone on since my last post and not much time to sit down and write about it.  Jeff lost his second grandpa in 6 months back in November.  His family has been grieving on both sides and I have hated it, especially for his mom and dad.  I had the honor of watching them all come together and get through the holidays with such grace. Loss is hard.

Also in the "not so fun days" category would be the stomach bug that ran through all the bio kids once, and Ella actually three times.  She had a long list of weird health issues (I'll spare you the details) for about two weeks. The events of December resulted in roughly 5 trips to the doctor. One morning, when Ella was sick for a third time, she was laying on a pallet in the living room just looking at the Christmas tree.  She said, "maybe next Cwistmas I won't be sick, Mommy."  Ugh.  Toward the end of her whole ordeal she was crying one night I just started crying too.  I didn't know how to help.  I HATE not knowing how to help.  All that I had left was to join her in her tears.  I don't know that a three year old finds any comfort in that, so thankfully Jeff stepped in.  We still don't really know what caused some strange things to happen in her little body but she seems to be doing great now.  We will just blame it on a "virus."  That is what everything is that you can't diagnose in kids.  I guess I can live with that.  I'm just glad that it wasn't any of the terminal illnesses I found doing online research which seemed to fit her symptoms.  I'm well aware it's bad idea to do that, but I wanted answers and no one had any.  The real fallout from it all is that I am now in a state of paranoia.  Any weird look on one of the kid's faces makes me want to hunker down, prepare for the worst, and cancel all plans.  In the span of 24 hours I thought Avery was coming down with strep, then pink eye, and I thought L had a stomach bug.  Crazy much?  Nothing turned out to be wrong with either one of them upon my waiting a few hours and CHILLING OUT.  At least I'm aware of my problem.

On to happier events...

We celebrated Ella's third birthday with family back in November.  She is a big Doc McStuffins fan.  However, I tried to kill two birds with one stone by purchasing the Doc MsStuffins costume for her to wear on Halloween, which would also double as a birthday gift/something fun to wear at her party.  On Halloween she wouldn't have anything to do with it.  I was frustrated with her and planned to take it back the next day to get my money back (thank you very much, sassy pants).  Before I could get it returned she begged me to keep it for her party.  So, in short,  I lost...then I thought I was going to win..then I lost again.  I let her keep it only because it was her birthday and it was going to be so dang cute.

See what I mean?

If you live near Jefferson City allow me to recommend my friends, the Barbs, for all your cookie needs.
They blew my expectations out of the water with these.  

I may have these events out of order, but Micah also had a big event in November.  He received the "Respectful" award for his class in the first quarter.  We are so proud of him.  It was actually the second year in a row that he received this award.  This award means more to us than a perfect grade card.  You would assume that nothing in the world cause us to forget about the special assembly where he was going to receive this honor.  Right?  RIGHT?  Except that is precisely what we did.  Jeff dropped him off at school just minutes before the assembly was going to start and saw the grandpa of one of Micah's friends walking in...didn't register.  I was at home just doing something that I don't even remember.  Only when my sweet friend, Sarah, sent me a text that afternoon did it hit me.  Her daughter received the same award for her class so, naturally, like a good mother she went.  She said, "I saw Micah get his award today!" Mother guilt.  How could I forget?!  I asked her questions to try and feel out his level of disappointment before we picked him up at the end of the day.  I don't know if it was already decided that Jeff would pick him up or if I threw him under the bus, but anyway, Jeff picked him up.  Not surprising, he was hurt that we didn't come.  We quickly rebounded from our failure and celebrated his achievement by going to his favorite restaurant, McDonald's (don't judge uber healthy friends).  Our sins were forgiven.

Jeff and I celebrated 10 years of wedded bliss in November, which I gushed over in my last post.  We struggled to find a good time to get away because of the uncertainty with his grandpa.  So, one night we decided to just go on a date until we could really get away.  Bri came over and freed us up to leave for a nice evening alone.  We get in the car and I point out that it sounds weird.  Jeff says, "yeah, it's sounded that way for a while.  I'm pretty sure it's the belt.  I think it will be fine."  I wasn't as sure.  Half way down our street he offers to go back so we can take the van...but let it be known...I said no.  I take responsibility for that.  For, you know, trusting his judgement about it.  I kid.  I kid. ;) We found out 10 miles north of town that it apparently wasn't "fine" though.

"Hold it up proudly!"  It was a good thing he's so cute. :)

Thankfully, we were able to drive it back to a shop to leave it there for the night.  Our good friend, Joe Banderman, drove in from another town and picked us up like kids that needed a chaperone.  He was our hero and gave us a lift back to the house.  We got in our other sweet ride, a 2002 Honda Odyssey minivan (don't be jealous) for our second attempt at a night on the town.  We drove to our next choice for dinner.  It was closed.  For our third attempt we went to  Long Horn which is about 3 miles from our house.  In the end, after I had a bad attitude for about 30 minutes, I was thankful that we weren't in a wreck or stranded anywhere.  The food was good and we connected.  We'll call that a win.  We ended up getting to have a terrific weekend getaway to Kansas City a couple weeks later.  We had live jazz, Ethiopian food, a great hotel, super kind people everywhere we went, a movie we really wanted to see, lots of rest, and a little shopping.  I was so grateful for that time away.  We hadn't been away together since we added L to the family and we needed it.

We went back to the Cheesecake Factory where we had our first date 11 years ago.

We love getting to see Lonnie McFadden at The Phoenix.  He is amazingly talented.

I will wrap up this post with a few pictures and just say that I can look back over these last couple of months with sincere gratitude.  We have much to be thankful for and the pictures prove it.

We celebrated Jeff's 33rd birthday!

The kids were more helpful this year putting up the tree.  It felt like a milestone in parenting.  They had a lot of fun remembering ornaments from years gone by too.  It was a surprisingly pleasant time.

A little Charlie Brown makes everyone feel better.

Jeff is now the official cinnamon roll maker for family gatherings on my side.  He can pretty much do everything better than me.  If I didn't reap the benefits of this, I might hate his guts for it.  ;)

I regret how few pictures I took during Christmas celebrations with family, but this picture is a reminder of how special it was getting to celebrate L's first Christmas with her.  Both sides of our family loved on her like she was born into the family.  That meant more to us than they may ever know.

Micah lost his first tooth!  I remember what a big deal it was when a tooth finally came in and now 6 years later we are celebrating that it came out.  I have mixed emotions about how fast time is passing.

 

For Micah's 7th birthday we had a double birthday party with some good friends at the ARC in Columbia.  I will share more pictures from the day when I can somehow get them from the thoughtful mom who actually brought her camera to the party (thanks Rachel!).  I think Micah would say that this was THE BEST birthday ever.  It was a fun day!

Thanks for hanging in there to the end.  I would resolve to have more frequent posts in the new year, but we all know how resolutions usually go...and I hate feeling defeated. What I actually need is for someone to magically grant me 48 hours in the day.  I could get so much done.  Until that happens, I hope you will enjoy sporadic updates from the Carson family in 2015. :)