Sick and Tired

I'm SO tired.  Jaemin had a terrible night last night.  He has a terrible cold and for him it causes reactive airway (basically asthma). So he barked all night, in my bed, on top of me and then puked snot several times.  TMI, I know.  I had a rag by my bedside so I could catch him every little bit.  About 4 in the morning I decided I was just going to take the kids to school and come back and sleep...yeah with 2 little kids.  Don't think so.  Not to mention the electrician was coming to look at an outlet where a plug blew last week and another guy was coming to cut down our dying oak. 

Instead of sleeping, I washed and folded 4 loads of laundry, nebulized and administered meds to one little boy, wrote out Christmas cards with the help of a 5 year old, finished wrapping presents that arrived today, cleaned the girls' room out and dusted.  Tonight, I'm just stopped up and tired.....again.  On a good night that poor boy doesn't sleep well, therefore, I don't sleep well.  On a bad night, well, it's just BAD!

Here's to a night of rest?  Hopefully?   Maybe?  One day?

Thankfulness Reminder #12

I'm sitting here watching the Hallmark movie 'November Christmas'.  While I don't think it's a true story, it could really be anyone's life.  I'm so thankful I don't have a child gravely ill and having to watch them go.  I always pray my children outlive me and Brian.  I pray they are held safe by God.  So when people ask why I wasn't scared when Cole had his first surgery or if I'm scared about the next, I'm really not right now.  I try very hard to remind myself that there are people in harder positions than we are in.  We're lucky to live where he can have treatment, we're lucky it's nothing worse.  We're lucky he's done better than they ever expected and the expectations of the previous surgical procedure.  As long as we're all together, I will be thankful for our health. and pray He keeps us together even longer.

Thankfulness Reminder #11

I'm a little late on this, but it's been busy.  We had a yummy Thanksgiving.  I enjoy the food more and more each year.  It's amazing that as you get older you start liking all of the stuff you thought was so gross when you were younger.  We had everything you could imagine at my aunts.  Everyone brings something to go with the turkey and ham and it's so good every time.

We did something different this year.  My uncle had everyone go around and say what they were thankful for.  I thought it was great to hear my kids say things.  I mean if I made them do that at home they wouldn't take it seriously, but there they did it because everyone else did.  They were thankful for family and life and that was so great to hear.  We're lucky.  Not a lot of families still celebrate holidays together anymore.  So many get separated by distance or feuds.  We still get together with my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandma; along with my sister, mom and stepdad.  The kids have this familiar placed tradition every year to run around with cousins, play with new babies, play games and cards, talk and eat together.

There is NO better tradition than this.  Family trumps everything in my mind and being together is important.

I'm SO done!

My Christmas shopping is complete.  I just started, literally, 2 weeks ago.  Didn't have a thing until then.  Now, I'm just waiting for everything to arrive.  What a relief to be done.  We way splurged this year.  The older kids each asked for slightly more expensive items, so we decided to get this this year; within reason and watching our dollars of course.  Every once in awhile it's okay and this is definitely something we NEVER do.  And though our budget is $100 or less per child we went a little over on the big ones.  The little ones help us average out and all the years past that we went under budget, so it's justified in my mind this year.  One thing I won't do is go into debt for Christmas.  Glad we save for it.  The kids even decorated the tree last night, so it's up too.  Here's the main picture we're using for our Christmas card this year.  This is our traditional pj/Christmas tree picture. 

5 little elves dancin' all around

5 Little Elves

Thankfulness Reminder #10

Thankful that I made a very stupid mistake on a Christmas present and it worked out to my advantage.  I ordered my new nephew (only niece or nephew on my side) his first Christmas presents and had them shipped to NY.  Well, right after that I ordered my kids a sand and water table.  I was super excited about getting this for Jaemin and Chelsi.  Great fun/outdoor activity  But, I failed to notice that it still had the NY shipping address on it and well, their gift was delivered to my brother's house.  It was too late to change the location by the time I noticed.  So, I called the store and they said I needed to go ahead and reorder without waiting for it to be returned so I could get the same discount I got last week (expired) and get it by Christmas.  So I did.  It ended up being on sale this week and I got the discount.  So, it wasn't too bad of a deal and the other one has been returned.  AND I've already got all the Christmas presents I have so far....wrapped!

Thankfulness Reminder #9

Simply, I now have some time to watch to of my gifts paint me some pretty pictures for my fridge and get to enjoy giving little man a scrub down after he, more or less, paints himself instead.