Holiday Greeting

The holidays are a busy time for everyone and it's no exception with our family. I've been able to send out a few Christmas cards to friends and family who live out of town, but I don't think there are enough hours in the day to allow me to send one to everyone as I would like. I hope those of you who read my annual holiday update here (with a few minor edits) instead of on paper will chalk it up as a contribution to "go green" and save trees...

Greetings From Our Family!

Our family has been blessed this year with good health and fortune on both the home and job fronts. Dave has continued to be very busily employed with BASF, and although we’d all like to reduce the amount of time he has to spend on work, we are very happy he continues to have a great job he enjoys. I am still very much involved with our children as a stay-at-home-mom, and our first full year as parents of two little ones has been both a challenge and a delight.

Lauren has gone from a 13lb baby last Christmas to a 22lb, 14-month-old toddler this Christmas. We celebrated her baptism in March and her 1st birthday in October. She began walking at 10 months (and can really move now), has 8 teeth (and loves to eat – especially cheese), and has begun to say a few words (especially “Dada”, but not “Mama” nearly enough). She loves music, books, Mickey Mouse, being outside, and playing with her big brother. It’s so wonderful to see the two of them interact so well together.

In April, Mason turned 3, stopped taking naps, and completed potty training all at the same time. He has really become our little engineer. He loves watching “New Yankee Workshop” on PBS and “How It’s Made” on the Science Channel. He constantly wants to know how things work or where they come from and can spend hours working with tools and building forts out of the sofa cushions. He’s really enjoying going to preschool three days a week and will start going four days with the beginning of the new year. I’m constantly amazed at how much he knows. Vocabulary, reading, math – he’s definitely one smart kid.

Although traveling with two kids has proven to be quite an undertaking, we’ve made a few trips this year. We joined my family at a cabin in Pigeon Forge, TN early this year, made a couple more trips to visit both Dave’s and my parents in Florida, and met my parents in North Myrtle Beach twice. We also made a couple weekend vacations as a family of four to Raleigh and Lake Lure, NC. For the first time, we celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving at home this year, but will join all of our family for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

We’ve certainly had a wonderful year, and we hope your home has been as blessed as ours. We wish you a joyous holiday season and a happy new year.

With Love,
Karen, David, Mason, and Lauren

Recap

I've not been in the blogging mood lately, and honestly, I'm still not really in the mood, but since the kids are in bed, Dave's working, there's nothing on TV, and the cold that I have is preventing me from doing anything productive, I thought I'd post a quick recap of the past couple of weeks...

Dave did a lot of traveling in November. He had a couple of multiple-day work trips as well as a fun trip out to Seattle for a friend's wedding (which I mentioned rather jealously in my last post), so I was on my own with the kids a lot. Let me tell you, I love these kids, but this single parenting thing is one tough job. Major props to all of you reading this who do it on their own.

Mason had a couple of additional ear infections. He had his first one the previous month and I guess he just never really got rid of it. Mason has never really been sick, and has never had any antibiotics, but after round three of this, Dr. Smoak gave us some antibiotic ear drops (which we preferred over oral ones) and it seemed to do the trick. I hope it doesn't come back, because as much as it's a pain for me, I know it's 10 times worse for poor Mason.

My parents came to visit for a few days and while they were here to watch the kids, I went to the dentist. I hate going to the dentist, and this time was no exception. I was told I have not one but TWO cavities that need to be taken care of sooner than later. I haven't had any cavities since I got my braces taken off back when I was a kid. Since I haven't really done anything different where my teeth are concerned, this is yet another thing I blame on having babies (along with my straightened hair, wider hips, and red "beauty" spots that have popped up all over).

And speaking of the dentist, I took Mason for his first visit. I was ready for a fight, but he did much better than I expected. And unlike his mother, he got a very good report on his teeth. He did get a comment about a misaligned bite and possible orthodontics down the road, but since he is my child, I'm not surprised.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at home for the second year in a row. Last year we were home due to the 1 month old baby we didn't want to travel with, so Dave's family came here. This year, we had no visitors since we're planning knocking out visits to both sets of parents in one shot over Christmas. So instead, we invited our very nice across-the-street neighbors over for dinner and had a great time. When you can't be with family for holidays, it's so nice to have friends with whom you can celebrate. Mason was in heaven since the family includes a baby. Mason has told me many times lately he wants to be a baby doctor when he grows up and he's all about "taking care" of little babies, singing to them, and playing with them. I have a hard time getting him to keep any kind of distance from babies.

Finely, for the past few days, I've been battling a cold. It started as just a runny nose just like the one Lauren had for several days last week, but now it's progressed to the watery eyes, sneezing, and cough that won't quit - especially at night. I never get enough sleep at night as it is, but this cough is throwing me over the edge. Mason woke me up at 3am last night when he wanted water after what I suspect was a bad dream. Since I moved out of bed, I was up coughing for the next hour. I finally settled down and felt like I could sleep when Lauren woke up at 4:30. I settled her down to sleep pretty quickly, but I was up again until about 5:15. I had just gotten to sleep when Lauren was back up at her usual 5:30 wake up call.

Maybe one of these days, I'll be back in the mood to do a better job of keeping up with this blog, and I might even throw in a picture or two. I suspect though it won't be until I get some sleep in, some of the piled up dishes done, or the sickness over with. I'm afraid to think how long that will be.