Daddy's Girls

When I was googling the spelling of sayonara I learned something interesting.  I knew it meant goodbye but it has a finality to it.  As in, you never want to see it again.  That's kind of the way I feel about this year.  I can say with certainty that this is the hardest year we've had since we got married.  Part of me wants to not print this blog book and pretend this year never happened.  I know a lot of people feel this way for lots of different reasons but it's been a tough one for our family.  We've seen 4 surgeries between us.  I had a hysterectomy over the summer and Matt has had his wisdom teeth out, knee surgery (which had him on crutches and in pain for months before) and then of course the diagnosis of a heart condition and heart surgery that caused stress and worry the whole 2nd half of the year.  On top of health issues, we also had the months long process of having our house on the market.  Only to end up taking it off...

The last few years we have spent our Christmas Eve with all of our family and then spent Christmas Day at home.  As nice as that is, with all that we have had going on the last several months, we decided that this year we wanted to spend the whole Christmas surrounded by family.  It fell on a weekend so we went up to the camp on Thursday and Yaya and the Dallas group got up there on Friday. (Josh and Hailey alternate and it was their year to spend with her side- they did come for lunch Christmas Day though) The cousins always have the best time and the adults do too. Friday was spent playing and having typical deer camp fun    Saturday was Christmas Eve.  We had Capn's famous gumbo but Matt also spent a lot of the afternoon stuffing boudin into a whole duck and then it in to a whole chicken. Delicious! And then of course we also had to make treats for Santa, open presents and read our stories.  I read the Christmas sto...

We've been really enjoying the first few days of the school Christmas break.  We went to the deer camp on Sunday and spent a couple of nights mostly relaxing but also getting ready for Christmas.  And then we came back Tuesday in time to meet up with Tiffany, Aubrey, and Olivia to see the lights at Christmas in Roseland and go to dinner.  I wish I could see it through the girls' eyes.  We've gone several years in a row and it's pretty much becoming the same old thing to me.  But Lilli and (especially) Katie were full of oohs and aahs.  It definitely makes it worth it!   And it's a milestone day in Matt's recovery.  He was finally released to drive so was able to take off on his own.  He (like most people I guess) didn't like having to rely on someone else to get anywhere or get anything he needed.  He went to work for the first time in almost 4 weeks I love him for many reasons but reason #4581255 is because he ...

We've been busy little elves the last few days getting ready for Christmas. It started with Lilli's class Christmas party on Thursday.  I'm room Mom so it was just me and one other Mom that planned it.  Luckily it wasn't too involved.  We just made some snacks and ordered a craft from Oriental Trading but the 1st graders loved it! My favorite part of kids school parties is the homemade crafts they bring home. I pack them up with the decorations and I love pulling them out and putting them up each year and seeing how much they've grown. Then Friday we met Yaya at the mall for our annual Santa picture and dinner at Piccadilly.  The girls were so cute and so excited to see Santa.  All Katie asked for was a real horse.  I don't think Santa is going to be able to fulfill that wish but hopefully she'll be happy with what he does bring. Saturday morning we got up and went to Vivian to spend some more time with Yaya.  Her house is always so be...

Matt has honestly been pretty miserable up until today.  He's had a severe burning pain in his chest and pain when he takes deep breaths from the pericarditis.  We went to his local cardiologist on Monday and he prescribed him a steroid pack that he started yesterday.  And now he's FINALLY feeling better.  Today marks two weeks since the surgery and I think it may be the longest two weeks of my life.  It seems life forever ago that we went to see him in the ICU for the first time.  He's still got a ways to go until he's made a full recovery, but at least he (and me!) can see a light at the end of the tunnel.  He's been following doctor's orders.  Even when he's hurting he's gotten up and walked everyday The one positive thing (for me at least) is that by 4 weeks he's supposed to be walking 30 minutes a day.  I've always wanted to take walks together as a family. He's still sleeping in the recliner because it's too painful to lay fla...