Oops!

 Matt was cutting a banana and accidentally cut open his finger. It was bleeding really bad and looked quite deep from what I could tell so I took him to the insta-care up the road debating the whole time whether it was necessary or not.

 We got there and checked-in. Matt wanted to go play with the toys and so we headed over to the middle of the room and Matt started playing toys. Well, this one kid kept getting in his face and playing right next to him. After a few minutes the Mom says, "Has your kid been throwing up too?" I said, "No, has yours?" Mom says, "Oh yeah he and his sister have been throwing up all day long!" I intermediately grabbed Matthew and took him to the bathroom to wash his hands. Who just lets their kids play with other kids when they have been throwing up?? Seriously!! The kids was obviously fine and did not need to be there in my humble opinion! Anyway, me and another Mom with a well child quarantined a room and kept the sick kids out.

 After a while a nurse came and looked at Matthew's finger and said she felt like we should stay and have it looked at so we did.

Matt and the CNA that checked him out.

 After an hour and a half we made it to triage. By that time Matt's finger had stopped bleeding and it didn't look as bad as it did before. The two nurses were really awesome and told me they couldn't recommend that I leave but that if he was their child they would go. Enough said and I was out of there!!! Still waiting for the bill....which I hope they never send. :)

After we came home to lots of love and nice notes for Matthew. The next few days his finger would bleed pretty bad when we changed the band-aid and I second guessed myself but in the end it healed very nicely.

Thanksgiving Day helper....I think that is her 3rd outfit that day!

Breaking Dawn

Annette, me, Jenny, and Shanda

Me and my friends went to the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn. We have gone to all the other ones together and didn't want to break tradition. It was a lot of fun to pretend we were a bunch of teenage girls again but I was so tired the next day. I had to teach preschool the next morning and thankfully the kids were great that day. 

We Brought Christmas to Life...

 Yesterday Brinley begged and begged to put the Christmas stuff up and finally we gave in after we finished all our other projects and cleaned the house. It was a lot of fun seeing the kids sooo excited! We listened to Christmas music that Brian's family band used to play around Christmas time at all the concerts they used to do. "Bringing Christmas to life" as Matt put it was so special. It also brought back a lot of strong memories of being with Brian's family and all the traditions we used to have partly because we are away (cutting down fresh Christmas trees from the forest) and partly because his family will never be that way again. It was a bitter sweet feeling.

 Brinley was very excited about everything! This year we are actually staying home for the first time which will be fun and different. In the 9 years we have been married we have never done our own Christmas. I am actually really excited to do our own thing and be able to focus on just our kids and making the day special for them.

 Our beautiful fake tree...I have to admit though that it was so nice to not have to string a bazillion lights on the tree and get sap all over my hands! It took a whole 5 minutes only because we got the middle section of the tree on bottom and had to switch it around.

We have a ton of nativity sets. I think at one point Brian wanted to collect them.... Anyways we found a creative place to put one of the larger sets and each of the kids took a turn putting a few pieces up.

And for Christmas we got ourselves an early present...a new camera! Hopefully it takes better pictures than the one we have now. At this point ANYTHING we get is an upgrade!