Back to Reality

After a couple of 60* days this past week, God chose to remind us that technically this is still winter by dealing us a pretty decent snow storm yesterday. I think we ended up with 6" or 7" of snow. Seriously, it was about 50* on Thursday, and then a snow storm on Friday. That's the Midwest for ya. Needless to say, we did not have our usual Friday afternoon lunch with Chris yesterday, which was a bummer. But, Daddy made up for it when he got home by taking the kids out for some fun in the snow!

Add this to the list of things I never thought I'd hear my child say...

We were picking things up in Kaylee's room the other night just before bedtime. She was putting away tiny foam crafting stickers that she had been playing with when I heard the dreaded words. No, not "I just puked." Although those are definitely up there. They are the other words that strike fear into the heart of any mother. "I JUST GOT IT STUCK IN MY NOSE!" Are you kidding me? Chris said he saw her do it, but he thought she was just picking her nose. Nice.

As I assume my natural freaking out position (includes wide eyes, flailing hands, and a shrill voice), Chris tries to calm the also-freaking-out child. I pull myself together and look in her nose. I can see it. It's orange, and I think I can get it with tweezers. Chris asks Kaylee to blow her nose to see if it will come out, and of course, she sniffs in instead. It's not that she doesn't know how to blow her nose. It was just instinct, I think. At that point, the foreign object is sucked into oblivion and no longer visible to the naked eye. I'm getting nervous again. By the way, she's screaming in pain pretty much this whole time.

I go call Urgent Care, and as I suspected, they tell me that I need to take her to the Children's ER where they are "more equipped to handle that sort of thing." Sheesh. After hanging up, Kaylee says, "Hey, it's gone! I'm OK, Mom." Hmmm... what does one do now? We decided to do nothing. I consulted a nurse friend the next day who agreed with my suspicion that she probably ended up swallowing it without even realizing it.

Our new favorite saying around here: We never ever put anything in our nose, right? Right.

Trying to get caught up...

OK, finally something you guys actually want to look at: pictures of the fam. For starters, does anyone see a pattern in the gifts Chris got me for Christmas this year? He says he honestly didn't realize that every single item was red. And he says he's colorblind. Hmmm... Oh, and I have no idea why my camera decided to date stamp everything 1/1/2003. These were definitely taken this Christmas. Trust me.

The kids had fun opening presents, and they got lots of good stuff!

Another Year Has Come and Gone...

Boy, the time sure does fly. It doesn't seem possible that it's been seven years since that relatively warm Kansas afternoon when Chris and I said our forevers to one another. There was dancing, food, fireworks, and lots of fun and laughter with our family and friends. It still feels like yesterday. Happy anniversary, honey! I love you more today than I did then. And back then, I didn't think that was even possible.

Yeah, yeah. I know.

Wow. Obviously my New Year's resolution wasn't to blog more often. Perhaps it should have been. But that's neither here nor there. It is now nearing the middle of January, and most of you have probably assumed by now that my computer crashed again or that we were all abducted by aliens. Neither is true, and for that we are thankful. To be honest, I just haven't been in the mood. That's all there is to it.

We are all alive and well, and we have had three great Christmas celebrations since my last report. I will post pictures of those soon. You have your doubts about that, and those doubts are understandable. I'll prove you all wrong. Watch me.

Back it up a bit...

While at my parents' house for Thanksgiving, we had a bridal shower for my sister, Marla, who is getting married in April. Have I mentioned that it's in Myrtle Beach? I'm pretty sure I have, but I wanted to throw that out there again. Considering the cold rain falling in O. today, a trip to the beach sounds pretty good. Anyway, I wanted to post a few pictures from that day. We had a great time!

My mom made this cake. Seriously, she's really good.

A nice portrait of the women of the family.

Kaylee and Great-Grandma playing in her room.

Props to my friend Julie for the pictures. She's really good too.

Time is scarce...

Wow. I am so far behind on this blogging thing. How in the world do people keep up with these things during the holidays? We just seem to be crazy busy right now. Christmas shopping will hopefully be finished tonight, except for stocking stuff. Then we have things going on at church the next four nights in a row. Weeks like these make me wish we lived a little closer than 20 minutes from church. At least gas is only $1.49/gallon today. I suppose what you really come to this blog to see are the pictures, not to hear me ramble about our busy schedule. So, here you go: