Liquid Time

We went to Wal-Mart with all three of the kids the other night to pick up some stuff for Billy's uncle. Olivia and Parker were tired and hungry, so they were a little restless. Natalie still has to go to the bathroom extremely frequently. (She started medications again this past week, but they aren't really helping. She goes back in another week, and she will most likely have to do further testing with the urologist after that.) When Natalie has to go potty, of course Olivia has to go.

Anyway, when I have the girls with me at Wal-Mart, half of my time is spent in the bathroom (seriously). At one point, we had gone about 4 minutes since returning from the bathroom, and Natalie had to go again. It's so frustrating to keep getting interrupted from the task at hand to go through the whole bathroom routine that we just went through minutes before.

Moving to the top of my list of pet peeves is this:

The stupid automatic water faucets at the sinks in Wal-Mart. They never stay on, even if you don't move. They never come back on when you put your hand in front of the sensor to get it to restart. I'll decide how much and when I need the water...thank you.

You Can't Catch Me....

I purchased a gingerbread house kit before Christmas, with the intention of putting it together with the kids on Christmas Eve. Because everyone got sick around Christmas, and we were busy Christmas Eve with sick Olivia and getting ready for the party, we didn't get to do the gingerbread house.

We put it together today. I had Billy help them, mostly, while I did the dishes and watched. Then, I got called in to hold the roof together for awhile after it caved in from the weight of the candies. I should have taken a picture of the mess after we told them they could tear it apart and eat it. You can probably imagine what it looked like - maybe. Just take the mental picture you have and multiply the mess a couple of times and maybe you've got it.

Anyway, the kids had fun with it.

Natalie's Man.

Olivia's Tree.

Parker's Man. He's always so serious and careful when he's designing and creating.

80's Slang

The three of us girls went into Nat's room earlier to get ready for reading books. (Olivia reads with us in Nat's room most of the time.) As Natalie was picking out her PJ's, she handed me something and said, "Put that over there for me, would ya, Pal?...That's what they used to say in the 80's." I started cracking up. Billy was gone to play poker, so I didn't have anyone to tell. I always forget little funny things she says if I don't tell someone right away. I had to call my mom and tell her before I read the bedtime stories. It was just too funny how Nat said it. She's always so serious about stuff.

Halfway to 60

I never got to blog about my birthday last Sunday. I don't have much to say.

Nothing terrible happened. I think I'm okay with the number now.

Billy and I went out to dinner Saturday night. My best friend sent me 25 white roses and some gorgeous deep purple tulips (both my favorites). I got some nice cards to remind me what number I've reached. My mom made me a cake with the "3" and "0" on it.

I tried to take care of some shopping stuff Sunday night - trying to enjoy some time with a friend and no kids - but I kept receiving calls telling me I was needed at home. I had to cut the shopping trip short and didn't get to take care of what I really needed.

I had so much stuff that I had planned to have accomplished before this birthday. I'll be very busy trying to catch it all up during this year.

Happy birthday to me anyway.

That's about all I have to say about that.

The lovely roses my friend sent. (I put them on the mantel under the canvas just for the pic so you could see the winter display canvas of Nat. I'll have a different one up in the spring.)

After they opened so beautifully. (I could have fresh white roses in my house every day forever and not get tired of them.)

The tulips. (I put them on the writing desk just for the pic so you could see some of my camera collection.)

Good Morning

I don't have time to get the photos off my camera and catch you up on things here, so I'll just post a couple pics from a few weeks ago of the girls in their pink church coats. A short blog with a couple pics is better than nothing, right?

They were not in a picture-taking mood. They were very hyper, so don't judge the photos on quality. It's just silly girls in cute coats.

Oh, today is a good day. Olivia got to go with her Papa this morning to take Natalie to school, and Miss O will get to hang out with Papa for a while after that. So, it's just Parker here with me, and he went back to sleep. I've got to go get some things done while I have the chance. I'll write and post more pics tonight, hopefully.

Santa

I didn't get any good pics of the kids with Santa. I took them to see the Santa at the bank. Before they changed when we got home, I tried to get a couple of pics of them still in their Christmas clothes, but they were too wound up. I got a couple of Nat that are okay.

Parker was skeptical of Santa. He kept turning to look at him and then having his serious, thinking look.

Parker was way too busy with a phone call, so he couldn't pose for a portrait.
The conversation got a little heated.

Olivia's short hair.

Gifted

I didn't get to finish catching up on blogging yesterday, so this is a little out of order.

The kids got so much for Christmas. I won't go into detail about everything right now, because I don't have time.

Basically, we did the Christmas Eve party at our house, and it turned out really well. Billy made a perfect ham, and we had a lot of other good stuff. The kids got hundreds of presents from the grandparents and some aunts/uncles.

Olivia was sick all day, so I was cleaning up her messes while I was trying to get ready for the party. Everything was pretty much last minute, but it turned out fine. The next day, Nat and Parker were sick. The day after that, Billy and I were sick.

Christmas morning, the kids opened all of the gifts from Santa and us. We had a good morning. We did the presents in the family room with the blue and silver tree, but we left the stockings in the living room with the gold tree. The tree in the living room was really lovely this year. We put up the other tree in the family room on Christmas Eve, and I didn't do all of the decor that I usually do on the silver tree. It was simple and pretty.

We had Christmas lunch at Billy's parents, and we were supposed to have dinner at my mom and dad's and open some more presents and then go do our annual Christmas light viewing out of town, but Natalie was sick so we didn't do it.

Living Room. It was MUCH more beautiful in person.

Family Room.

Santa's Plate.

Santa's Letter. He wrote a full page this year.

Can you hear me now?

Natalie has been having a hard time hearing for a while now. Since she always has ear infections, we were pretty sure that's what was causing it most of the time. Lately, it's been really bad. She hardly hears anything we say until we are really close to her and talking really loudly. We were getting worried about it, so I took her to see the specialist this past week, and when they did the little graph test to see what her eardrums were like, it was a completely flat line instead of the big pointed wave up and then down that should have been there. Her hearing was really far below normal for both sides. She goes back next month, after trying to clear some of the fluid with one Mucinex a day. If the fluid doesn't clear enough by next month, she'll have to have tubes.