Christmas preparations

This has been a week of busyness, preparing for Christmas and then the normalcy of life with kids. Joey had his holiday sing-a-long, of course he wouldn't smile for me, but still was absolutely adorable, as always.

This is the most of a smile I could get out of him, just typical Joey.

This past weekend we celebrated Christmas at my parents's house with my Dad's side of the family. We weren't expecting a huge turnout, just because the weather was so bitterly cold, boy were we wrong. Not only did all of my cousins come for the get together, but the oldest of the second cousins (19-20 boys) brought their girlfriends for the first time. We fed over 50 people, which is a lot of people to fit into my mom's house. It was cramped but fun. I love getting together with my extended family, it only happens a couple of time each year, but it is always a joy to see everyone.
My mom's kitchen was a very busy, popular place.

Here is a view of most of the kids, starting to open their presents.

Becca loves wearing her pretty Christmas dress, of course she also had to pose for me. She is just too willing to let me take her picture.


Many of you in blogger land know of our struggles to keep Becca's ears free from infection. We went to visit our ENT dept this past Mon, found lots of fluid behind both eardrums, and made plans to have tubes put into her ears. We also decided to have Becca's tonsils and adenoids removed at the same time. This led to our other big news of this week....Becca is scheduled for surgery for 12/26, that's right, the day after Christmas!!! The surgery dept had experienced a couple of cancellations and had room for us, might as well take it and get the procedure over with for her. Hopefully getting this done, draining the fluid out of her ears and allowing for better drainage in the future, will mean that she will no longer get ear infections and no longer risk damaging her hearing. I haven't explained everything to her yet, why stress her out and ruin her Christmas. She knows that we have to go back to the ear Dr after Christmas but has no clue what will be done. She has been to the Dr so many times in the last few months, has developed a very strong dislike of Drs and nurses right now, and will give us a huge fight if we tell her ahead of time what is going to take place. In the future we will have to modify some of our behaviors, to help prevent further infections. This will include wearing ear plugs while swimming and possibly even during her bathtime. Considering this is her favorite position during bathtime, ear plugs are stongly advised....



One last request of all of you during this holiday season, please say many prayers for our friend's family. I have asked this of you before and it is desperately needed again. Kendra's family has been told by her doctors that this will very likely be her last Christmas, that she will not live to see another. Kendra is only 5 years old, no child should have to hear that. Thankfully she is well enough to be home with her family during this time, hopefully they will be able to make many memories this year together. I was able to visit her today, she was in to my dept recieving some medications and then was going back home. My dept pulled together and "adopted" Kendra and her family for Christmas. We were able to donate enough money to get many presents for Kendra and her 3 sisters, along with a couple of things for her parents. I delivered them today to Kendra and her mom, I hope the family enjoys what we bought for them and it helps make their Christmas just a little bit merrier.
Here is Kendra and her mom today. Please pray for them.