A recap

I find sometimes its easier to remember what's going on in our lives with a summary list; so these are some of the things going on.

• Cooper goes in for surgery to put tubes in his ears on Wednesday morning at 6:30 am; we are supposed to be done by 9--I am hoping he comes out of anesthia really easily!
• Cooper has been sleeping much better and we are back to sort of our normal sleeping pattern--back in the crib.  He is going to sleep much better and generally sleeping longer at night.  Some nights he is sleeping all night; others he is up.  I'm taking it as baby steps and its getting better.
• He is acting and playing much better since he has been without an ear infection and is just a super busy boy. 
• Miss Paige is just getting too big and growing up too fast.  I didn't know at the age of 6 we would have BFF necklaces, such playground/friend drama of this person did this. . ., such a desire to sing at the top of her lungs all the time, and such a general grown up awareness of what's going on.  She's all ears and anything that is said, she's going to absorb and question.
• Cowboy has a birthday this week and is old on Thursday! 
• So with a surgery, a birthday, volleyball, girl scouts, homework and just trying to contain the chaos; we will have a busy week. 

Christmas

Christmas is pretty easy to sum up this year. . .a sort of long weekend with lots of family, presents, and a tired family.  Cooper's ears made it a challenge but he tried to have fun.  This is the two of them opening up one of their joint presents--they both loved the panels and chute for the bulls and horses.  It caused squeals from both.  I think its been 10 days since Christmas and we are still recovering as we finally got the tree down, the glitter vacuumed up, and most of the mess put away.  Oh the toys, what fun and what a pain :)

New Year's Resolution. . .to sleep!

So Cooper is finally feeling better and now we have a new problem--to break all the bad sleep habits we developed in the month of December, including. . .sleeping in Mom & Dad's bed.  Those who know me are shocked that I allow this.  Cooper is our second child and only he has spent time in our bed.  With Paige I had the fear that she would never get out if we let her in, so the poor kid knows its okay to climb in during the morning hours and cuddle and watch cartoons, and that's it.  I gave in about week 2 or 3 with Cooper in December and realized I could not sleep in the rocker in his room anymore and brought him in.  We have a king size bed, should be room for one small boy.  WRONG!  It worked well for a day or two and then he started moving and rolling sideways, etc.  I realized we created a monster.  Friday night I decided he could tough it out in his crib as he was feeling better and infection was gone.  He screamed and broke the crib latch on the side that drops down so it won't stay up; and he was going to bail over.  Sigh.  Next day the toddle race car bed came out.  Moderate success with sleeping until 4am, and then a mom cuddle.   A few days later and Ryan or I are sleeping on the floor beside the toddler bed.  Not a solution.  So I had a momentary temper tantrum last night and put his crib mattress back in his crib, tied up the side railing with a dishtowel (it was 3am) and let him cry for 20 minutes and then enjoyed 3.5 hours of sleep.  I just hope it only takes a few days of him screaming to realize this used to be the normal routine and he likes his bed :)

Poor Cooper

Poor little Cooper. . .and his ears.  Since December 3rd, he has been battling a double ear infection.  He has been fortunate and this is only his 2nd one of the year; but its a big one.  He has had two different prescriptions, one shot of Rosephrin, and now that none of that is working, we are onto the sequence of 3 daily shots of Rosephrin.  I'm told this will make him better but its sure not fun having him get the shots.  He got the first one on Wed midmorning and Wed. night he had a fever higher than he was supposed to--thankfully the Motrin got it down.  But we are at home again hanging out today and he got his second shot, and we are waiting to see if a fever develops this afternoon.  I'm hoping he and Mom each get a really long nap this afternoon.   3 plus weeks of not sleeping is starting to wear down this lady.  Tubes are scheduled for January 16th--hopefully we can stay healthy until then and can get all this yuck behind us!

Helper elves

The good weather allowed us to get lights on the house and the kiddos and I got the tree decorated and ready to go today.  Bless Ryan who spent Friday night getting my prelit tree to be 100% lit instead of 75%, and who handled outside light duty.

Thanksgiving

My mom just can't keep a secret.  Doesn't matter if its related to a Christmas gift or a piece of information.  So it was no surprise to me to learn that the recipients of the Christmas aprons became Thanksgiving aprons because she had them done and couldn't wait.  She'd been working hard on them and sewing like crazy to get them done; and then the next thing we know everyone is wearing their aprons and running around.  They look good, Mom--upside down cupcakes and all :)

Christmas Cards past

I am going through old pictures and I have saved Christmas cards we gave received since we have been married.  I feel old as the first few years we received cards from single couples with vacation photos, and now they are family pictures with like 4 kids per family!  I am keeping them by year with the letters and such by punching a hole in the corner and running a ribbon through them to make a grouping with our photo card on top.   Luckily I have a card from each year I have done a photo card.  I'm going to store them with our Christmas decorations and keep them in a basket to look at for fun best the new cards.  It'd fun to see how so many people have changed.