I'm still here

I noticed the other day that it's been quite a while since I last blogged.  The finger incident, which I still haven't been able to bring myself to type out the whole story of my hospital misadventure, Christmas, moving two kids into one bedroom, the birth of my first nephew and a snow storm have just left me in a seemingly endless state of neglecting the blog.  Honestly, after my hospital stay, I've just had a hard time wanting to do anything.  I'm certainly in a bit of a funk but I'm trying my best to get out of it.

I've healed up nicely from my injury and infection.  My finger is still a bit sore but I'm thankfully able to to normal household tasks again.  I had about a ten day break from changing diapers.  I suppose that was probably the silver lining in this whole miserable situation.  That, and me not being able to wash sippy cups.  I really dislike cleaning sippy cups.

Our Christmas was quite nice.  We sat in the front row of chairs for Christmas Eve Mass in the parish school cafegymitorium.  That meant I finally got to take pictures and even some videos of Ellie singing in the children's choir, and I even snapped a few pictures of Madeline altar serving.  Katie was surprisingly well behaved considering she spent an hour before Mass trying to sit with Ellie and the rest of the choir.  We sat with friends at Mass which also made it a more enjoyable experience.

Despite the smaller piles of Christmas gifts, I still feel like the kids got way too much for Christmas.  We give the kids four gifts each (three from us and one from St. Nick) and a stocking.  Once you add in gifts from other family members, though, the piles seem to take on a life of their own.  Fortunately we didn't have anyone crying that she had too many gifts to open this year.  So that was a welcome change.

On December 28th my nephew, Miles, was born.  He weighed 9lbs, 7oz!  That's practically a two month old if you ask me!  Funny thing is, when we got to meet him a few days after he was born he didn't seem like he was a big baby, he seemed very newborn like to me, but that might just be because I'm used to carrying a 24lb toddler all the time.  Katie is quite taken with her new little cousin and kept calling him "my baby" and making this cute little sound as she admired him.  It was the cutest thing.  She was certainly eager to hold him and she has Bryan and I more than a little concerned about how we're going to manage having a 2 1/2 year old who wants to play mommy and a newborn.  I think we're really going to have our work cut out for us.

The past week and a half has been one of transition with regards to the kids' bedrooms.  Madeline and Ellie are now the proud owners of a beautiful bunk bed and are sharing a room.  We're still working on making Madeline's old room a shared space.  I still have to merge their closets and we have more than a few items that need to find new places somewhere else in the house.  We're getting there.

Ellie's old room is about to become Katie's big girl room.  I'm planning to pain the blue room a nice cheery pink.  I'm also trying to decide whether or not I really want to refinish Madeline's old armoire.  Right now it's a honey pine color.  I'd like to paint it white so it matches Ellie's old headboard which I like better than Madeline's old bed which used to be my bed.  So I have a bit of work to do.  I just need to find the energy so I can do it.

I've decided to keep the pretty light aqua blue walls that are in the nursery for the new baby.  The bedding I selected has some aqua in it and I think the wall help to make the aqua accents on the bedding pop.   I have most of the decorative items I will need to have the little guy's nursery just the way I want it.  I'm looking forward to decorating the nursery.  I'm hopeful that I will have the nursery set up by the end of February.

Madeline is back to playing soccer again.  I think she had about six weeks off.  She's playing indoor soccer for the next two or three months and doing training with her travel team one night a week.  Most of her indoor games are at the same time I teach on Sunday morning so I think I may only make it to one or two of her games.  Bryan's not coaching for indoor soccer so he's getting to see what it's like to manage a toddler on the sidelines.

So as you can probably tell from my hodge podge update, we've been a bit busy around here.  There's certainly a lot going on and I don't foresee things slowing down anytime soon.  I'm going to do my best to update the blog a bit more frequently.  I've got loads of pictures to upload so perhaps that will be a catalyst for me to do a bit more blogging.

I also want to wish you all a belated Merry Christmas (nothing like waiting until the 12th day of Christmas to wish you a Merry Christmas, right?) and a happy and healthy 2014!

Fewer Gifts Means More Thought

Last year I told Bryan that starting with this Christmas (2012) the girls would now get just three gifts from us instead of an undetermined number.  It gets overwhelming year after year to see way too many gifts piled up under and next to the tree on Christmas Eve.   We decided that three gifts makes perfect sense since Jesus was presented with three gifts by the wise men.

For about three years I have been cutting back on what I buy for the girls and every year I find myself on Christmas Eve taking a few of the presents I had brought for the girls and setting them aside for later because there was simply too much under the tree once gifts from my parents, my brother and other family members were added to the mix.  It seems like the more the girls get the less interested they are in any of what they got.  I'm convinced that it can't be a good thing to have so many gifts that you whine about having to open all of them.

I experimented with the stockings last year.  Instead of testing the strength of the sock hooks I use to hang our stockings on the mantle, I decided at the lat minute that each of the girls would get the following in their stocking: 1 candy or treat item, 1 toy, book or DVD, 1 faith based item, 1 candy cane and a $5 gift card to Target.  I was concerned that the girls would be disappointed that the stockings weren't filled to the brim, but instead they were quite content with what they received and actually played with the things they received.  Going forward I'll be sticking with this five item stocking stuffer list.

The three Christmas gifts idea seems easy when you think about it--just buy three gifts and you're done, but I'm finding that it requires me to put more thought into what I'm buying.  Rather than just buy several things each of the girls wants, I have to stop and think about what I should buy and whether or not what I select will be the best choice.  I have determined that each of the girls will get one gift that kind of skirts the three gifts idea a bit.  They will all get a package with several books as one of their gifts.  The girls love to read [Katie just likes to chew on them and tear pages] so I know they'll be happy with a box of books.  I am now down to my last gift pick for Madeline and Ellie.  It's just a matter of picking that final item.  Oh, and as much as I hate doing it, each of the girls will get one small $10 or less item from Santa which will likely be a book or a small toy.  I can't express how much I dislike the Santa farce.

So overall, I'm finding that what I thought would be so easy is a bit more difficult than I had imagined.  I do feel a lot better knowing that I'm almost done shopping for the girls and I already have most of what I purchased wrapped.  I suspect this three gift limit will get easier over the years as I get used to buying them less.