Christmas Morning at Our House

We had our first at home Christmas today. Tony and I woke the kids up a little after 7 am. Koen and Eades sprang out of bed once we reminded them it was Christmas but Dougan and Brandis were still a little tired. We carried them downstairs and once Dougan opened his eyes and saw the presents he was wide away. Brandis woke up but he looked like he wasn't all there. Koen handed out the presents and then we started with the youngest to the oldest. Brandis went first and he took some warming up. He liked his toys a lot and they were both things that he really likes to play with. We got him a shape sorter and an Aqua-Doodle. Dougan got two games that he really liked from the hospital, Candy Land and Memory. We also got him some blocks. Eades got Batman Legos for the PS2. He's been wanting this for a long time so he was way excited. He also wanted an Iron Man so we got him one of those. We got Koen an awesome robot and some walkie-talkies. I got Tony The Christmas Sweater book and a book called My First Tagalog words that he can read to the Children. I also got him a vintage ND shirt. Tony got me the Wheel of Fortune boardgame and a surprise that is still coming in the mail. He also got the boardgame Sorry for the whole family.

It was so much fun and everybody was surprised with what they got. Tony made us a big breakfast of eggs, biscuits and gravy, bacon, and orange juice. We stuffed ourselves and then followed up with some candy. The rest of the morning we spent playing a lot. Tony works tonight so he and Brandis our sleeping and the older boys are still into playing so I am writing my Christmas blog.

Here are just some random photos.

Here's Koen looking dazed. I think he's camera shy and he knew dad was taking a picture.

I forgot to write about what we did last night. We read Luke 2 as usual and then we let the kids stay up to watch some Christmas movies on tv, as if they haven't seen enough this season already. We sent them to bed which wasn't too difficult and then we put the presents out and stuffed the stockings. This was also the first time we did stockings, and that was a lot of fun too. The boys got a lot of candy and I also got them each one piece of candy that was just for them. Brandis got a rice krispie treat, Dougan got candy bracelets, Eades got bubble gum, Koen got airheads, Tony got caramelo and I of course got myself twizzlers. It made it kind of special and fun.

I'm kind of sad that Tony has to work tonight but I know he has to. At least we have all day tomorrow to spend together. On Saturday we'll head over to Tony's mom's house to visit with his whole family. I'm kind of looking forward to it because I get to bake a pie to take. I love to make pies. It looks like it's time for me to start getting leftovers from this morning out for the boys to eat. I'm hoping they'll take naps afterward because they've had a lot of excitement today and so have I. Yes, a nap for me would be great too.

Christmas at the Bullock's

We are all in the Christmas spirit over here. We've decorated the sugar cookies, we've made the candy, we've carolled, we've drank the cocoa, and we decorated the Christmas tree. I love this season. One of my sisters wrote about their tree and I wanted to do the same. First we got the tree last year for free from a friend who is a Christmas fanatic. She heard we had high ceilings and she couldn't use it, plus she already had two trees up at her house. So we ended up with a beautiful 9' tree. I got some LED lights on clearance at a going out of business sale. So those go on first. I put them on sparingly and I would love to have twice as many, but for now, it's great. Then we wrapped it in a red beaded garland, resembling cranberries, and a silver one for fun. Then we put on some pine cone ornaments we picked up at a dollar store a few years ago. Next we added some cheap bows we picked up at Walmart. To top it off "literally" we put a big bow that we got from Aunt Rachel. That's it. I think it's wonderful. We just recently went to a friends house and theirs is covered in decorations. It was very nice. On the way home the boys asked why ours didn't look like that. Suddenly I realized our tree would not win any competitions but I like it just the same.

So far none of the boys have tried to pull it down on themselves. YEA!!! Sometimes Brandis

likes to take a bow or a pine cone off and walk around with it but they aren't breakable and we can just put them right back up. We did have candy canes on it before we put the bows, cones, and beads up but the boys ate the bottom half of the decorations so we took them off and went to non-edible ornaments. It seems to be a much better idea. So I don't have a picture of the whole family in matching outfits or anything to send out a family Christmas card but maybe I'll post pictures of us on Christmas morning. We got our kids presents this year, not because of any chastisements made from my earlier blog where I said we never did and got back some great feedback, but because the kids know that Santa doesn't give the presents and that we were just being cheapies. So we decided to start a new tradition and give them presents and we're even going to fill the stockings. Whoo hoo!

So Merry Christmas from us. I hope yours is joyful and full of peace.

Tag Ala Bookworm

1. Open the book closest to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment.
2. Turn to page 56...
3. Write out the fifth sentence, as well as the two to five sentences following.

The closest book to me is "The Christmas Sweater" by Glenn Beck.
"Try to sleep, and don't get up before daylight." She winked. "Christmas morning doesn't start until it's morning. She turned out the light as she left the room, and my night-light lit up brightly, reminding me that I wasn't quite a man just yet.

I was tired alright!!

So I just reread my blog and I saw some misspellings like weather instead of whether. But I was still really really tired. Oh, and I did make something yummy. We had taco soup. It was great!

Finals are kicking my butt!

I never really minded finals so much when I was younger, but this time around I'm totally stressed. I stayed up all night last night studying for my math final. I used to be able to pull all-nighters all the time in my younger days just like that. So by the time I was done studying, I had just enough time to get in the shower and wake the kids up for school, I didn't even have enough time for breakfast. Well, I did take a little munchy break at about 3 am for refueling so I was still good to go. I somehow managed to muddle through the exam and I hope I didn't screw up too bad. I at least had an answer down for everything, weather it was right or not, I'll have to wait to find out. Now I just have my computer class left. I don't have a final in there but I can retake all my labs to get 100%s on them. So, I'll go in for the next couple of days to work in the lab a little bit more. Then I'll be done for the semester. I know I'm taking a break this next semester to regroup and get ready for our new little bundle of joy.
Oh that's right, incase any don't already know, we are expecting our fifth in June. I don't know yet if we'll be blessed with another boy or if it's time for a girl. I think I'll post when I find out, and I really hope I can find out this time. I have up to this point lived through the suspense for 9 months with each of them.
So back to finals, when I got home, I had enough energy left to give the kids a bath, out on some lunch, and get Eades off the bus. After a bite to eat I snuggled up on the couch for a much needed nap. Apparently I didn't sleep long enough because my eyes are still burning, but Tony is sleeping before he goes to work tonight so I need to be up and bright eyed. I should start getting things ready to go to school tomorrow but I think I'll finish this blog up and then make something yummy for dinner and try to get the boys to go to bed early so I can go to bed early. If I can just hold on until Friday then all this finals business will be over. I am kind of afraid to see what kind of grades I'll get this semester. I wanted to get straight A's and I was doing pretty good up until half-way through the semester. Then I got really sick and then Dougan was in the hospital and the grades just went on a nice steady decline. So I hope I worked hard enough at the beginning to still come out decently. I really don't want B's but I guess I'll take them and if I have to take a C, fine, at least I made it to the end of the semester. So that's it, my first semester back in seven years, and I already need a break.

Enquiring Minds Want to Know

So we are home from the hospital. As I was waiting for the final dose of antibiotic and packing everything up I just couldn't believe that we had been at the hospital for three weeks. Everything is fine now and Dougan is doing great. In case there was any confusion about all this I will explain EVERYTHING. It all started on a Wed. night at church. We had just finished an awesome activity with the YW. I was cleaning up some of the mess when I heard Dougan crying. I ran to find him with the other leaders and the YW. They said he had fallen off a chair. So I hugged and kissed him and then he felt better. He acted as if nothing was wrong. We went home and got ready for bed and I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.
The next morning I got the kids ready for school and the baby-sitters. Dougan was limping so I figured he must have fallen worse than I thought. After I picked him up from the baby-sitters he was still limping. I kept checking him all day for swelling or bruising but there just wasn't any. On Friday morning Dougan was not able to walk as his knee was very swollen. Tony had just gotten home from work so we put Dougan on the couch with some ice packs and towels to help with swelling. I went to school as usual. When I got home the swelling had not gone down at all. We discussed what to do because we no longer had a family doctor as she had just moved to another state. So I called Mom and Dad to get their professional opinions. Dad said take him in, so I did.
At the ER we sat and sat for a very long time. Dougan got some x-rays and all the other things like weight, blood pressure and such. Finally it was our turn to see a doctor. It probably took 4 hours to see a doctor. I don't know exactly because they don't have clocks anywhere. So the x-ray showed no damage to bones or ligaments. They took a culture from his knee to do some lab work. The doctor was surprised that the sample they took was so clear. He expected it to be cloudy. Anyway after a couple of hours the labs were back and the doctor came in to tell us that the results were very strange. Dougan's white blood cell count was elevated but not nearly at the level it should have been for an infection. He said it was a mystery. He wanted to confer with a bone doctor before he sent us home. At 11:15 a nurse came in an told us Dougan could get dressed and the doctor would be in shortly to give us a prescription. I asked her what time it was and if I could use the phone to call my husband in case he was waiting up. I left a message of what I knew and that we would be home soon.
A couple of hours later the nurse came back in and said she was sorry but Dougan had to get undressed again because our doctor had gone home and the doctor on duty now wanted to look at Dougan. He came in a little while later and checked him out and told us to just sit tight. An hour or so later he came in and told us we were being admitted and going into surgery at 5:30 am. They came to take us to the pediatric unit and I think the one taking us saw how exhausted I was. He asked me to sit on a wheel chair and hold Dougan so we could go up to peds. I had no problem with that. Once at peds they put an iv in Dougan and took us to his room. I looked at the clock and it was a little after 3 am. I couldn't believe it. We finally got to sleep at about 3:30 after the nurses gave us a rundown of what that morning would hold for us. I called Tony and left a message of what was happening at this point.
At 5 am we were woken up to head down to surgery. I sat in the physician's lounge until they were done and one of the doctors came and told me how well it went. Then I was told Dougan was awake and I could go see him. They wanted him to wake up so they kept taking to him. He was just crying because he was so tired. They took us back up to his room. There they wanted him to drink. Finally he woke up enough to drink and then they let us rest. We were woken up whenever a doctor or nurse had info for us. That day we pretty much just slept and waited for the results of the cultures they took from his knee.
From that point all the doctors were meeting together to decide what to do. They still could not find out exactly what started the infection but they knew it was something that was already in his body and because he had hurt his knee it just settled there. They all agreed to put him on antibiotics and one said he needed to stay in the hospital for four weeks. Of course we freaked out a little. It was really hard that first week trying to figure out who would stay at the hospital with Dougan and who would stay with the other kids at home and pick Koen and Eades up from school. Luckily family and friends were helpful and we somehow managed to juggled things for a week. Then the Barclays (some close friends of ours) came and picked up Koen, Eades, and Brandis and took them home with them. From then on the daily stress of bus schedules and someone having to be home nights with them was gone. I was able to just be with Dougan at the hospital.
It was hard to be away from the other three children but I knew they would be fine and I knew Dougan needed me. We were prepared for the remainder of the four weeks. Then a doctor joined in and said that in her and her colleague from Riley's opinions Dougan would only have to be there for three weeks. So that was it. The day before Thanksgiving Tony went and picked up the boys from the Barclay's and they were able to come to the hospital to spend Thanksgiving with us. It was great to all be together. I was so happy to see the boys that morning as it had been two weeks since I had last seen them. I could tell how happy they were to be together. That Saturday we were discharged and we got to come home. It was great too because my parents came from Nevada to celebrate a Thanksgiving/Christmas with us. It was a real home-coming party. And Dougan literally partied like a rock star because his present from Gram and Granddad was this awesome guitar that he just loves.
I know this will be a Thanksgiving that I will never forget. How grateful I was to be with my family, and to have Dougan be alright. It turns out that if Dougan had not fallen off that chair and hurt his knee a little we would have never known that he had an infection in his little body. He had no fever, no diarrhea, nothing that would have given us a clue. The doctors told Tony that if the infection did not attack his knee it would have attacked something else and we probably would have never known until the damage had been done. The infection could have destroyed a bone, a joint, or even an organ. So we saw what a blessing it was and now Dougan can make a 100% recovery. So that's it. That's the story. Dougan has a check-up on Friday and he'll meet with the surgeon in three months. We hope that all will be well. And if there is something still wrong that they will find it so we can fix it. But for now he's running and dancing around as usual. We thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and we thank our Heavenly Father for the blessings he continuously showers upon us.