Merry Christmas 2013

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." ~ Isaiah 9:6

Christmas break with a side of strep

Thursday morning R2 woke up saying his throat hurt and he knew it was strep. And because I'm not one to panic, I told him it was probably because he slept with his mouth open and his throat got dry. I sprayed his throat with Cloraseptic throat spray and sent him to school.

By one o'clock I received a text message from his teacher telling me that he had been complaining of his throat all day but he did play at recess. Go figure. So I sent her a message back saying I was on my way to pick him up and take him to the doctor. I then called his pediatrician to make an appointment because I really didn't want a sick baby over the Christmas break. It was then that I really panicked because the very nice receptionist said there were no more afternoon appointments. I would have to call back in the morning to schedule a sick appointment or I could use the walk in clinic they offer at 7:45AM. 

It seems the flu has hit our area and all five, yes five, doctors in the practice were booked. 

I told the receptionist I would call back in the morning and make an appointment. She told me I could go to the emergency room if it got to bad during the night. Ummm, thanks but no thanks, I think I'll take my chances and wait till morning. 

I got to school and went in to get R2 and that is when I knew he was really sick. He was asleep in class. He teacher felt so bad for him she gave him a peppermint and told him to go put his head down. The next thing she knew he was snoring. 

So I got him home and checked to see if he had fever, which he had none. Then he tells me his stomach hurts worse than his throat. Not even two minutes later his running to the bathroom to throw up. Poor baby. He then went to lay on the couch where he promptly fell back asleep for the next 3 hours. 

So Friday morning at 8:30 when the doctors office opens I call and make him an appointment. The first opening our doctor had was at 11:00. I grabbed that appointment up so fast it would make two people fighting over a Play Station 4 at Christmas time look like a so motion replay. 

We get to Dr. H's office and R2 tells him he has self diagnosed himself with strep. And then Dr. H asks him how does he know it's strep? R2 tell him because he has all of the same symptoms as the last time he had strep only this time they are much worse. Dr. H said well lets swab your throat and check it out. So the nurse swabs his throat and fifteen minutes later we have the official diagnosis, it's strep.

Dr. H said he should come work with him because he's so smart. R2 told him he could only perform this type of diagnosis on himself. And then told him he didn't want a shot either. 

A after a few rounds of antibiotics and three days later he's feeling much better. So much better he said that Santa could come and not be scared he was going to get sick when he stopped by our house. 

Come on Santa, bring on the presents!

It's Coming On Christmas

Well Christmas is next week. Hard to believe that it's almost here and the year is almost over.

I finished the school semester two weeks ago and have just been trying to catch my breath. I made all A's. GO ME!

Then last weekend we had our annual Christmas musical and Taste of Christmas celebration at church. It was a wild three days. Some how or another Beth roped me into being the head of the Taste of Christmas committee with her a few years back. Let me just say that we've nailed the art of prep and set up for the two day event down to a science.

I also messed up my knee at Thanksgiving. I have no idea what I've done other than the fact that it keeps going out every so often and then during our Taste of Christmas event, it popped. Like a painful pop. But I'm being the hard headed woman I am, I'm dealing with the pain and waiting till the Christmas break to go see the doctor. Nothing says Merry Christmas more like a trip to the doctor.

This weekend we are having Christmas with my side of the family. My dad said he ordered a chicken nugget tray from Chik-fil-a. Oh how he knows my weakness for a good chicken nugget with some Chik-fil-a sauce for dipping.

Sunday we have some last minute shopping to do. And by last minute I mean finish getting my niece and nephew their gifts as we are having Christmas with Hubs side of the family on Monday. Yes I have become the Christmas procrastinator. You can talk to my husband about that art, he's perfected it. Love you Hubs!

Hopefully after that we can all just relax and enjoy our time off together. I'm even thinking about a little day trip with family. That is unless the procrastinator that has developed in me keeps putting that trip off.

Black Friday Came In Like A Lamb.

Another Thanksgiving week is in the books. I'm kind of glad because from last Sunday till Tuesday it was cold, windy, and rainy. I can handle the cold and windy but I do not like rainy in that mixture. I know we need the rain, it makes the flowers pretty and makes things grow, but it's cold and rainy means wet and no one ever said they liked being wet and cold at the same time, unless they just shot a twelve point buck after sitting most of the day in a deer stand. But by Wednesday the sun came out and dried up all the rain and the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again, sorry lost my train of thought. 

Moving on.

The girls and I, meaning Beth, Alex, and I, had our annual Black Friday shopping day. We left my house at 6:00AM. Yep you read that right, 6:00AM. And headed straight to Target where we promptly got in line at Starbucks. After a jolt of caffeine we made our way around the store with the shopping cart and I kept throwing things in the cart and crossing items off my list. After two hours we were done and on our way to the mall. 

Once at the mall, we took in the sights as we went. And no it wasn't the Christmas decorations that had our attention it was the people watching and the lack of good deals. We went from store to store to store, feeling like we just kept missing the sale or the great deal on the new boots we wanted. Something felt off so to say. But we kept pushing through and shopped. 

About five hours later we felt the need to some nourishment and headed straight for one of our favorite Mexican food restaurants where we devoured two baskets of chips and some hot sauce quicker than you can say bless your heart! Once our food had digested a bit we took off again before we realized that sitting for an extended period of time after shopping for an extended period of time makes one feel lazy.  

After going into a few more stores, again we kept felt like we were missing the deals. The last store on our trip was Lowe's. We had a minor kitchen issue on Thanksgiving with a pipe under the sink and we ended up having to pull out everything that was under there and we needed some new shelf paper so I could line the bottom of the cabinet. And while I was in there Hubs sends me a text message telling me pre-lit trees were on sale. So the three of did what any proper shopping person would do, we headed straight for the trees. And that's when the sale angles finally opened their good deals jar. There right in front of me were the last two pre-lit trees that would look great in my living room. And because they were on sale and the price was right, Alex picked up one of the boxes and loaded it into the shopping cart. I was so excited about the sale price I almost forgot to get the shelf paper, which wasn't on sale, but it should have been on sale because everything should be on sale on Black Friday. 

And that was how we ended our twelve hour shopping trip with a great deal and some Chik-fil-a for dinner.