1. Hannah was "Star of the Week" in her classroom a few weeks back. She and I worked on her poster that she got to display in her classroom. It was supposed to show all about her life and her favorite things. She included her siblings, parents, grandparents, pets and house. Those are some of my favorite things too! Leah has her turn to be Star of the Week in January.
2. Today is the 43rd day of my mom's hospital stay. Update: Her chest xrays show that the pneumonia is still there, but is getting better. She had a tracheotomy done last week that is connected to a ventilator which helps her breathe. She cannot talk with the trach, but her lungs are getting a break from working so hard and she doesn't have the bipap mask on her face all of the time. In addition, she had a peg tube inserted in her stomach so she can receive nutrition/medicine directly into her stomach. This gets the feeding tube out of her nose which we are all so grateful for. She is doing physical therapy every day, but is very, very weak. She can barely stand on her own without support. All in all, she is making progress, but we recognize the long road still ahead. At some point she will probably move out of the hospital and into a rehabilitation center before eventually coming home.
3. This is a weird Christmas season for us. With my mom not around as she usually is, it just seems like a dark cloud is hanging over us. Just a little bit. I am determined to not let is ruin the holiday, though. We have our tree up, the stockings are hanging over the fireplace, and we've taken the kids to go look at Christmas lights. So we will open a few presents at the hospital this year-- it's not the end of the world.
4. Speaking of Christmas, our church has embraced something called "Advent Conspiracy". The theme of advent conspiracy is
Worship Fully
Spend Less
Give More
Love Freely
With this in mind, we have been rethinking how we "do" Christmas. We've cut back on the amount of gifts we are giving our kids. And instead are looking at things like adopting a Compassion International Child or looking through the World Vision catalog to purchase a year's worth of medical care for a child in a third world country. I want our girls to know that in order to help others, we sometimes cut back on what we do for ourselves. And that everyone is VALUABLE! For more on Advent Conspiracy, go to http://www.adventconspiracy.org/.
5. Hannah and Leah turn 6 this coming Thursday. SIX!!!! Oh my. We actually celebrated their birthday back on the weekend of December 3-5 when we took them to Great Wolf Lodge in Dallas for the weekend. We went with Mike's parents and our good friend,s and we had such a great time. Sometimes when I see Lucas running around looking at everything with awe, I can picture two little girls with thick, black hair toddling around with the same expression. They continue to be such a joy!
That's it for now! Have a wonderful Tuesday!
