Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a yucky day outside. It rained seriously all day. So much, in fact that my sister's property flooded so much that they had to evacuate their home on Christmas Eve. They had to load their horses up and take them to some friends land. The water thankfully never reached their house, but if you look at pictures, their house was seriously just sitting in the middle of a lake. So scary.

So, you get that there was lots of rain, right? So, I think we all were just in a funk all day. We didn't do all of our traditional Christmas Eve stuff. Looking back, I am pretty sad about this. We did get it together enough to go to a Christmas Eve service at a church we have been visiting. I did really miss FUMC that night, but it was good to be surrounded by my family. Before the service, we tried to get the perfect Christmas Eve pictures of the kiddos. Check them out:

Hope turned on the cheese to pose with the milk and cookies though!

And, as I went to bed, it looked liked Santa had come!


And now for randomness... Here is my new Santa for this year... doesn't that look like my kiddos on his lap?

Julia's Christmas Cotillion

Last weekend was Julia's Christmas Ball at Cotillion. She was getting ready at my mom's house, and I wanted to see her, of course! She was looking way too grown up! She is a beautiful girl, inside and out!

FANCY hair!

So Pretty!

So, I knew Hope would love to see Julia get all fancied up for the ball. And she did! She kept saying, "Is it a real ball? For real a real ball?" She just thought Julia was a princess. Which then became a problem. At about this point here, Hope is realizing that dressed up Julia is about to leave to go to the ball... and that Hope is NOT leaving to go to the ball... she would not smile for any pictures.

And this is what the car ride home looked like. I promised her that she could go to a ball when she grows up. She was not amused.

Love you, Julia T. So proud of you!

Noah vs. Hallmark

Doesn't this Christmas Countdown magnet set look so cute? That's what mom and I thought when we (she) purchased it for Hope a few weeks ago. She loved counting down the days till Disney World, so I knew she would love this too. While she was at school Thursday, I finally got it out and put it on the fridge. I put it up high on the freezer (we have the good ol freezer on top, fridge on bottom appliance) so that Noah couldn't reach it and eat the cookie magnets. Get one last look at the cute 11 inch by 8 inch heavy, sharp metal pan, because the cuteness is about to end...


I put the magnet set up around 3:30 that afternoon. At around 5:30 (only 2 HOURS later) I was cooking dinner (shocking, I know... focus people, focus) and Noah was following me around. As I was pulling things out of the fridge, Noah was pulling things out of the fridge as well. All the sudden, the baking pan from the magnet set fell and hit my poor sweet baby on the head. Blood was everywhere. It was so scary. John was out of town, and I couldn't decide if he needed to go to the Emergency room or not. The wound was deep, but only about a 1/2 inch long. I put pressure on my screaming baby's head while I called my parents to come over and give me a second opinion on the ER or not ER decision. By the time they came over, the bleeding had almost stopped, although he was still very very upset. He was flipping out when I tried to take pictures, so this is the best I got.

So, then I start trying to figure out what happened. Why did it fall? I look at the freezer and the magnets that were attached to the back of the pan were still on the freezer, while the pan was on the floor. The adhesive just completely came off. Now this is where the mommy gets mad. Furious actually. As I mom, I do everything I can to protect my children. However, I cannot protect them from failed adhesive. I did everything right. I put it up high so that he wouldn't choke on the little cookie magnets. And then there are the awful thoughts of what would have happened if he had looked up when it fell. It could have been his eye. No, it wasn't, but it could have been. The pan is so sharp, it just sliced right through his little head. So, fuming mommy wrote an email to Hallmark. Then furious mommy woke up and called Hallmark. I was on hold for TWENTY minutes before a representative answered my phone call. As I am telling her my story, her first question was "Now, why did you hang it on the fridge?" BECAUSE IT IS A MAGNET! She did become much nicer, but kept putting me on hold, we got disconnected, she had to ask so and so... It was the longest conversation in the history of the world. In the end, she did say she was very sorry. And I know, she probably really is. But, I am just so mad! It is a heavy pan. Those magnets were clearly not strong enough to hold it up. Anyway, this story is to be continued...I have to send back the product along with the story and pictures of the poor baby's head. It is nasty and bruised now, so I am going to try to get another pic of it tomorrow.

All this to say, please don't buy the cute cookie Christmas countdown magnet set from Hallmark. Thank you.

Croup. Crap.

Noah has Croup. It has not been fun. Hope had it when she was a baby, so I recognized the barking cough during the night. He just wasn't getting any better, so I took him in today, where it was confirmed. He has the croup. Crap. Every little thing, he gets it. I can't say this enough, but I am ALWAYS so thankful that it is just little things. And one of these days, he will have a rock solid immune system. He will have perfect attendance in Elementary School, right? Except when I take him out to go to Disney World. He started steroid treatments today, and I honestly don't know if this is because of the steroids or not, but the boy has the munchies. He would cry, grab my hand, pull me to the refrigerator, grab some cheese and eat it. Then, cry, grab my hand, fridge, grapes. Then, cry, hand, counter, cereal bar. It was crazy. He is a great eater anyway, but this was ridiculous. At dinner he would cry, and I would ask him if he was all done. His usual response to this is "Cheese?" And I usually give him a slice of cheese before I get him down. Tonight, however, he learned a new request. "Dip!" He wanted ketchup. He dipped everything in ketchup. even pineapples. eww. Hopefully now that he is being treated, he will get over it quickly. Mommy needs some sleep. For real.