Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Decorating

Emma made really cute ornaments for each member of the family with their names. They were the first decorations we put up.






Katie was doing her angel wings imitation, but would only do it very quickly when I pulled out the camera. It was like a game to see if I could snap the picture quick enough. We had some good laughs over it.


The finished product

Emma was providing the holiday entertainment while wearing the Rudolph nose we picked up at the white elephant exchange over Thanksgiving. Which we had given Josh in the first place.

O Christmas Tree

We went to the Christmas tree farm to cut down our tree. Amazingly, we made it out without injury. Have I mentioned our theory that puberty kills brain cells? Let's just say that the morning was one of narrowly averted disasters, and Joe and I both were counting silently under our breath before speaking several times. All in good fun, right?


"The Tree"











Marine Corps Museum

Our final family activity took place on Saturday, Nov. 28 when we all visited the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico together. Our family and Dan and Tracy packed up and continued on home from there when we were done. Grammy, Josh, and Laura braved the I-95 traffic getting back to Williamsburg. The museum was far beyond what I had imagined. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it. I thought it would be a few guns and tanks that we would look at with my brother Dan the Marine explaining it to us. The exhibits were extensive and interactive, and really interesting even for non-military buffs. Exhibits covered each of the major wars and conflicts that the Marines have been involved in. The Korean War exhibit was in a room that was kept really cold. To enter the Vietnam exhibit, you walk through the body of an airplane and offload into the exhibit, which is kept very warm. We could have spent a lot more time than we did. The trick was finding eachother at the end of the day when it was time to leave.

Dan in the Korean War exhibit with the boys


We stationed Grammy in the lobby to catch people as they came out while others went back in to retrieve those who were still wandering around.


Emma never, ever runs out of energy. Ever. As we were leaving the museum she was doing so bouncing in circles on one foot gradually moving forward each time. She kept shouting, "Bounce with me, Aunt Laura!" Laura declined.





Sunday, December 27, 2009

the farm

The day after Thanksgiving, we went out to visit the farm where Josh and Laura live. It was really cold, and a little wet, but we still had fun exploring.


Playing in the massive magnolia tree


White Elephant

Laura has very kindly been helping Josh sort through his collection of "memorobilia" that he has collected over the years. He is ready to part with some of it. They divided up the treasures and wrapped them beautifully in Christmas paper, and we had a Chinese Auction style white elephant gift exchange. It provided the biggest laughs of the weekend. Thanks Josh and Laura!








Thanksgiving 2009 part 1

We traveled to Becky's mom's house in Virgina for Thanksgiving. All of us siblings and our families were there together. Dan and Tracy brought their chocolate lab puppy, Barley. Guess which of these two dogs (the other one is Grammy's dog Lacey) got the family mobbed while out for a walk on Duke of Gloucester St, with strangers taking her picture and even video? Hmmm...scroll down for the answer.





Sorry Lacey! But it is hard to compete with a puppy!

Emma's going to be as tall as Mimi before long.



There never was any doubt on who would win the game of Risk. (Dan)



Mimi's friend Bob joined us for dinner.

Wally and Carol with Grammy and Lacey


Lacey liked hanging out wherever the kids were.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Chrsitmas and I Hate Diabetes

I am so behind on updating...I still need to post about Thanksgiving, for crying out loud! I will upload todays photos and catch up on old posts here in the next day or two. We have had my mom here since Tuesday, and have been enjoying lots of sledding...until the rain today :(. But the snow should resume tomorrow. It has been nice staying home all day. Times like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are days that I wish diabetes would blend into the background as it does most days....it never goes away, but it is not usually front and center. Then yesterday and today happened. We changed Katie's pump site yesterday morning on schedule. The pump is what delivers her insulin, replacing the injections...one poke every three days, and then we just hit some buttons and she gets her insulin. It doesn't replace the finger pokes, though (8-10 per day)....anyway, every so often, a pump site is "bad"--it hits muscle or a blood vessel, or the little tube that goes into her gets kinked, and for any of these reasons, she won't absorb the insulin. We discover this b/c her blood sugar shoots high and won't come down. She feels lousy. Well, yesterday, we went through FOUR pump sites....finally in the evening, it seemed good. Whew! We still had a little wrapping left to do (actually, it was alot), and Joe gave the kids strict instructions not to get out of bed and come to our room. They were not to come past the stairs. Katie is sleeping in the basement at the moment because her room is the guestroom. This morning, she had a low blood sugar, but being the obedient daughter she is, she sat on the stairs calling for us. Oops! Well, we gave her a little sugar and got on with the gift opening. A few hours later, she was quite high...hmmm...what's up with that? No worries, though, b/c we know she is getting her insulin b/c she was low just an hour before. So we give her some more insulin and wait. Just before breakfast, with our decidedly not-low-carb Christmas morning cinnamond rolls, I checked her again, sure that her blood sugar had come down. Nope. She was now dangerously high (470), and I have no idea at all why this pump site failed. GRRRHHH! The poor kid. She said she would just rather just go back on shots for the day. She hates shots compared to the pump, and it totally bugs me that yesterday and today were the days that things went all wacky on her. She has been unbelievably good-natured through it all, though. I hate diabetes. In spite of all of that, we have had a very nice day at home with my mom and all six of us. Thanks to our wonderfully generous family, it was a great Christmas for the kids, and we are truly grateful. The quote of the day from Katie (being 11, her Christmas list has changed dramatically from just a few years ago...it included clothing, jewelry, accessories, room decorations, art supplies)...she said, "I didn't get any toys this year." I said, "Ummmm, that is because you didn't ask for any." She said, "Oh, yeah ."

Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

It's Hard Being Seven

Emma is the youngest member of our family, and has a delightful, energetic personality....most of the time. The flip side is that she also has the hardest time with her temper, earning her the most time in the "reflection room" (a room downstairs with nothing but empty boxes and packing paper). This afternoon, she was having a hard time after school, but didn't actually get sent to the reflection room. I did tell her to quit causing problems, though. She ran to her room and cried very loudly for effect for a bit, and then she came and found me and said that she knows why she spends so much time in the reflection room. I asked why that is, and she handed me this piece of paper.


In case you can't quite make it out, the label is "Mommy and Daddy's Hreht's" (i.e. "hearts)
As you can see, Joseph, Jacob and Katie each claim a pretty equal portion. Emma, however, just has a little piece carved out of the far left side. Well, there you have it.