A day late and a dollar short

Well I am one day late to remind everyone about buddy check 9 day, yesterday. I hope that everyone remembers to do their monthly self breast exam and know your body so month to month you will spot any changes. Remember early detection is K-E-Y!

Being out of work already sucks, but I have still kept busy running the kids around and keeping up with the house. At least I feel like I have enough time to get those things done now. Hopefully my work will have enough work to bring me back at least for part of my hours by the end of the month, otherwise I will be looking for other work.

I have also kept busy this last week looking into nursing school more. I registered for school at the local community college but not sure that I will actually be taking a class this semester or not. Jon and I have talked a lot about which direction to go as far as just a 2 year nursing program or trying to get my BSN (bachelors of science in nursing) from UNC. I am still not sure what direction I will end up going since all the 2 year nursing schools have such a long wait list. Either way I have a long road ahead, but excited the more information I get about it.

Olivia is a girl scout this year and they did a kick off for the cookie sales last night at a local pool with all the girl scouts in town. She had a blast swimming with her friends. Hopefully she will enjoy selling cookies and if anyone is interested in buying some let me know and we will come by.

Last night I was laying in bed doing my usual stressing-out-about-everything-that-came-to-my-mind instead of sleeping. I just cannot turn my brain off, especially when I am stressed out about anything (not having a job). So laying in bed and I heard the door bell ring at 12:40am. WHAT?!? Of course I am freaking out waking up Jon and convincing him I just heard the door bell and to get out of bed to answer it. So we both got dressed and went to the door to find a policy officer. Great........what now?!? Apparently some punk drove down the street in our neighborhood and bashed in windows of all the cars in the street. Of course both of us were like, "which car", since we park both of the cars we have outside. The officer said the white pick up windshield. Jon immediately said "SWEET!" The officer laughed and said that is the first reaction like that I have had. Since we just forked out a bunch of money to fix my back window I was holding my breath that it wasn't that one again. Not that it was a good thing that it was the truck, but at least is was a work truck and we don't have to pay to get it fixed. The good thing is that a guy at the end of the street apparently heard all this happening and jumped in his car and chased the punk down so they arrested the jerk for it. It was kinda scary though getting pulled out of bed by the doorbell, it is never a good thing at 1 in the morning.

That's our excitement for today. Hopefully next week will be really boring. I can't handle anymore stress. My sister Toni is coming with her son Jack this next week. I am excited to be able to have some time to hang out and visit with her.

Life....

I am settling down from the manic of the holiday season. I have been doing regular physical therapy visits about twice a week trying to keep the scar tissue from causing problems with the implant again and also keeping my arm and shoulder range of motion in good shape. I am sore pretty much all the time still which isn't horrible but a bit on the annoying side at this point. I am still having this issue with my ribs that has been persistent since before surgery. My physical therapist and surgeon are both now thinking the issue is radiation damage to the muscles or cartilage between my ribs on the right side. Basically my ribs are much closer together on that side so when I breathe deeply, sneeze or cough it is painful. I have been doing these deep breathing exercises from my physical therapist for the past week and although it doesn't seem a ton better it hasn't gotten any worse. I suppose it is just going to be stretching and exercising those muscles from here on out to keep them loose and that stupid, dumb radiation from damaging further that whole part of my body. sheesh already!
The other big news around here is that I was laid off today. That sucks, big time. I am not too sure yet what I am going to do about work. I am still wishing that I could get my school stuff going and am going to see what I might be able to work out with starting school and working somewhere else. I am still pretty much in shock since it just happened this morning. They are just not busy enough to keep everyone busy during the work day. My manager said that they will probably pick back up in a month or so, but until then I should just wait to hear from them that I can start working part time from home again. Hopefully something will work out. I am going to go sit on the couch and be depressed.

Christmas

Our Christmas morning in Pictures. The kids had a great Christmas!



For lunch and the afternoon we went to my parent's house. My mom made beautiful quilts for all the kids beds. They turned out beautifully.



We had fun hanging out with my brothers Mason and Ethan and his family and my sister Heather and her kiddos.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas eve I spent the morning with my mom helping her tie quilts. She made all her grand kids quilts or quillows (quilts that fold into pillows) for Christmas. I was supposed to help her tie them on Tuesday but had this accident with my car.

I was out doing the last of my Christmas shopping late on Monday night and got out to my car in the parking lot and loaded the lute in the back. When I closed the back door of the Excursion the back window (the biggest most expensive one in the car) just shattered on impact. WHAT!?!? I just stood there like an idiot wanting to burst out in tears and yell some swear words but since there was a crowd around me and glass all over me I didn't think a crazy, Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation, outburst was probably not the way to go. Of course it was only 9 degrees outside so after trying to wipe the glass off of me and the car I froze my butt off the whole way home. I called Jon before I even got out of the parking lot and was crying so hard I couldn't talk. He thought I was in a car accident and was asking me what happened over and over. I am such a dumb girl.... :-( So after spending 45 min outside the house at 11pm cleaning up the mess we both froze our butts off the rest of the night. I am pretty sure freezing to death would not be the fun way to go out.

I had a fun morning with my mom just visiting and tying the quilt. I wish my other sisters would have been there to hang out and visit. I really missed having all of us together for Christmas this year.

For the afternoon and evening we went over to Jon's parents house and celebrated with them.

We had ham and spent the time visiting and enjoying each other's company. Of course the presents are always a big hit with the kids.....

And the grown ups too....(I hope)

Jon and got Vern a pretty cool train book and his mom a digital picture calendar of the kiddos. Click Here if you want to check it out. It was a big hit with both grandmas and hopefully with John and Clara too!

We did all the fun stuff with the kids on Christmas eve, writing Santa a note and putting out snacks. It was fun to see how excited they were about it.

This is the first year we have done Christmas morning with just our kids and us. I took some pictures of the the "set up" before we went to bed.

I had seen these neat pin boards at the pottery barn kids over Thanksgiving and thought I could do a pretty good home-made one for the kids myself instead of selling my first born to buy one from PBK. I think they turned out really cute. I also bought these huge push pins and glued some cute buttons on the end of them. Not bad for someone who isn't very crafty! It will be nice for them to hang some of their school projects on them and look at them for awhile instead of just tossing them in the trash or looking at them on the counter for a few days after they bring them home.

Christmas with Uncle John and Aunt Clara

Jon's Aunt and Uncle came down the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with us since they were going out of town for the holidays. They came up from Denver for the evening to visit, open presents and take us out for dinner. John's parents were also able to meet up with us and hang out. The kids were all excited about the goodies they brought.

We went to the Texas Roadhouse for dinner and the kids all sat on the saddle. Giddy Up!

Alex was either sick or super tired because she ended up laying down on my lap and sleeping the whole way through dinner. Miss O sat by her aunt and had a ball. They have always had a special connection and she loves spending time with Aunt Clara.

We had a great time and wish that we were able to see them more often.

Kids Christmas Programs

So much for updating while recovering from surgery. I have been going 100 miles an hour over the holidays, like everyone else I am sure!

Olivia had her Christmas program the first part of December. The kids were so cute! I didn't really manage to get very many good pictures of Olivia but here she is trying to find us in the crowd and decide what the heck those bright lights are.

The first night that the kids slept in their new rooms we came down in the morning to find Olivia and Cody sleeping together. I had to snap a picture.

Cody and Alex also had a Christmas program with preschool. They did a nativity play at the beginning. Cody was the king and Alex was an angel. They all look like aliens because my red eye didn't work too well in the program.

Here they are during the singing portion of the program.And the group picture at the end.

They all did a great job and Jon and I loved watching them perform.