Christmas 2007

I am so late with everything. This post will be mostly Christmas pictures with captions so when I eventually turn my blogs into a scrapbook I will have these pictures.

Sweet Ainsley recieving a stuffed pig.

Christmas was great. Very busy though. Dan was on call and had to work right up thru Christmas Eve- late afternoon. Because he was on call we couldn't leave our general area and that meant it was just our family. It's been awhile since we did Christmas eve with just our family and it seemed a little lonely so we ended up getting together with some friends that don't have any family close by. We went over to Ryan and Emily P's house. They treated us to their Christmas Eve's tradition of won tons - crab Rangoon this time. They were unbelievable. We brought our tray of ring bologna, cheese, crackers and sweet/hot mustard. We had lots of fun eating and playing games. Dan's office had received a gift basket with lots of fancy items in it so Daniel brought home some caviar. Everybody (but me) tried it including all the kids. I'm not a fish fan and I'd had it before. The funniest thing was that the P's 2 year old daughter really liked it and had several crackers with caviar. Rich taste I guess. While the adults played some games the kids all decorated gingerbread houses. They did an awesome job and I wished I had taken pictures of them. We got home rather late and the kids opened the presents that they gave each other. Then it was off to bed for everyone.

Christmas morning we opened presents with just our own little family. Ainsley and Gregor both got bikes this year. Chase got an awesome medieval chess set with dragon heads at each corner of the board.

Chase tested his skills on as many people as he could find to play him on Christmas day. Here he is with Aunt Nantha.


Piper got the "Little People Nativity Set". She was very excited and as the people were being pulled from the box and handed to her she was screaming at Ainsley with all her intensity. She did NOT want Ainlsey to touch her new toy. Luckily later she was in the sharing mood and Ainsley and Curren received the lesson of Christ's birth and really enjoyed acting it out.

Because Daniel couldn't travel beyond a 15 miles radius from the hospital we hosted Christmas dinner at our house. It was a bustling place but I got a lot of help. Mom brought a cooked and sliced turkey and ham plus a the stuffing, a sweet potato casserole and huge chocolate cake. That meant I had easy stuff to prepare. I did a fruit salad, marshmallow salad, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls and a pumpkin pie. All in all we had our 6, my mom and dad, my brother, his wife and two boys, my grandparents and my aunt and her friend.

Here's Ainsley and Curren. They really get along well. They are exactly one year apart.

Brian and Stacy

Mom and her big Sis

Stacy and Slater

Piper and Papaw

We had a few performances since the boys have started music lessons. I think everyone really enjoyed it!! MacGregor started with 2 piano pieces.

Then Chase did a trombone piece followed by a piano piece. I was really surprised because I had been on the boys to practice something for that night and it had been a hassle to get them to do it. I was only asking Chase to do the trombone one but when he was finished he asked if he could do a piano one too. I was really shocked that he WANTED to perform in front of everyone more than he was asked. Who knew?

I also played a piano piece that I fell in love with this year. It was a beautiful arrangement of Silent Night and I was way more nervous than the boys and made more mistakes as well. I really don't like being in the spotlight. It's very uncomfortable.

As everyone else was packing up and getting ready to go home - Emily and Jeremy made it. They had packed up their moving truck and drove to Jeremy's sisters for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and then headed up to our house. They arrived around 7pm and we had fun playing games with them for awhile. They got moved into their apartment the next day.

Here are a few random pictures of the kids.

Here's Ainsley dressed in her "Rosella, Island Princess Barbie" dress up clothes complete with peacock feathers. She's holding a pet shop animals set she received as a gift from Aunt Nantha and Gloria.

Here's MacGregor playing with Piper's new book. Crazy guy! Oh and in the background you can see the TV with a fire on it. It was a TV station that played instrumental Christmas music and had a roaring fire. That's what they had on all day - it was called Yule Log. We loved it and everyone swore that it really did heat up the room!
Here's Piper with her new baby. She was so funny with this baby. She would hug it and pat it's back. My mom kept saying that she was too little to know how to pat a baby.

Here's Chase with some new Pjs. I just think he looks cute and look at those "bedroom" eyes!

On Christmas night Chase and MacGregor went home with my Mom and Dad to spend the night. They grabbed their new pjs and some new toys and had a great time. My dad even let them stay up til 1:30 AM watching their new Ratatouille movie. Bad Papaw!!

They went to my parents because the next day Tyler, Brigham's little boy, was coming to my mom's to do Christmas with her and my dad. My mom thought that Tyler would have more fun if the boys were there. He loves the big boys!

Christmas 2007 was wonderful!!

Funny Girl

I just have a few funny pictures of Piper. Here she's wearing some goofy mask. She found it at our friends house Christmas Eve.

Here she's wearing stickers from a sheet of stamps, you know the parts on the edges that surround the stamps. She was a bit confused by the whole thing.


Piper got a piggy bank for Christmas. I honestly didn't think she was ready to actually put coins in but my mom found a jar of change and showed her how to do it. Well those little fingers hold steady and can drop those coins right in. She LOVED it. She loves to take things in and out of baskets and buckets etc.. So putting all these coins in was heaven for Piper.

Cones and Concerts

Ainsley had a pre-school Christmas concert in December. We had to pick up some cookies for the cookie reception afterwards ( I couldn't make any because our kitchen was torn apart while they put in the new floor). While we were at the grocery store I remembered that we needed a box of ice cream cones for a project MacGregor was working on. His class was building models of a community and his assignment was the church. He decided that an ice cream cone would be a good steeple. It turned out awesome but I don't think we got any pictures :( So back to the grocery store - We purchased our items and headed to the car.

While in the car Ainsley decided she was hungry. Normally she eats before school. It starts at noon. But we were busy getting her hair done etc.. and had to run to the store that I just thought we'll have dessert first today and eat lunch when we get home. This day she didn't have regular school - just a 20 min concert followed by the cookie reception. But since she was already hungry I grabbed the box of ice cream cones and gave her one to snack on. I knew of course this wouldn't go over well with Piper so I gave her one too. I didn't figure she'd know what to do with it.

Piper looked at it for a long time. She watched Ainsley start to take bites out of the top. She started nibbling too. It turned out that ice cream cones are PERFECT snacks for infants/toddlers. They are crunchy - good teethers but don't crumble into a thousand pieces/crums like pretzels and certain crackers. Yet they are pliable and do get soft and dissolve with moisture but DO NOT turn into a messy paste like some teething cookies. It kept Piper busy for a really long time while we waited for the concert to start and it didn't make a huge mess!! 3 cheers for cones!

And Ainsley and her class did a great job doing their Christmas songs and chants. Her favorite was "Must be Santa" which she sang while bobbing her head from side to side with vigor. We put sponge rollers in her hair that morning after her bath but 2 and half hours wasn't enough time for the back to completely dry. The front looked cute though. And Daddy made it just in time!!

Interesting Choice

The Friday before Christmas I had a friend and my visiting teacher come over to help me bake, I had only done one kind of cookie. The three of us got 2 other cookies and a batch of fudge baked. Plus we had a great time visiting and enjoyed lunch together.

Meanwhile Ainsley played with my friend's little girl. She's 2 1/2 but she and Ainsley play really well together. They disappeared upstairs to Ainsley's room. I was a bit surprised because there really aren't many toys upstairs. They came downstairs dressed like this:

What an interesting choice! (considering we have princess dress up clothes) My friends little girl did NOT want to take off her bathing suit when it was time to go home. You just never know what kids will come up with!

Snowflakes

My mother goes to Curves, an exercise center for women. It's a strange place to learn how to make beautiful intricate looking snowflakes but that's just where she learned it. My kids spent last weekend at her house and she taught them how to make these beautiful creations. They each came home with one of their very own.

I thought they were so beautiful that I suspended them from our kitchen ceiling and we enjoy them all day long.

Pretty huh?

Unicorns

My little unicorn was so amazed by my big unicorn that she wouldn't look at the camera. It's amazing what a little soap and water can do!

For those of you who know what a cupie doll is - Doesn't Piper look just like a one? She really looked like that rubber dolly when she was standing up but I wasn't about to let her stand by herself in the slippery tub so I could get that perfect shot. You'll just have to picture it.

The Accident

I have eluded to the accident that Piper had on November 30th but I have yet to get to writing it down. I did actually start posting but Daniel had me stop putting up all the graphic pictures because we are in talks with the property insurance of the apartment complex where it happened over Piper's medical bills. Daniel doesn't want me to post anything to graphic just yet.

Emily came to find an apartment during the end of November. I was taking her around to see apartments and they often have leasing centers/club houses. We were waiting in this one and they had a kitchen with some candy, coffee, and a popcorn machine. Emily was filling out their guest card and I was holding Piper on my hip and scooping up some popcorn on a napkin. Piper started to squirm so I put her down. She walked around the couches and end tables scouting things out and then she started walking toward the gas fireplace. I saw her heading in that direction but I honestly didn't think it would be scalding hot. We have a gas fireplace at our house and it is on constantly. She plays near it and climbs up on the hearth etc... But ours has a mesh screen flush with the glass, like a window screen. You can't see it unless you are up close. This screen acts as a barrier so you can not touch the hot glass. At the apartment complex, the gas fireplace was on the floor with no hearth. I just assumed that it had a screen or tempered glass because how could you have a scalding hot piece of glass exposed on floor level in a public place? Anyway, I was about 10 feet away at the most, I said to her "Piper that might be hot" (thinking very warm, uncomfortable, NOT SCALDING) She approached the fireplace glass and put 2 fingers on it, realized it was hot, stepped back quickly and stumbled causing her to lean forward with both palms flat against the scalding glass. At this point I came running but the awful part was that she couldn't back herself off the glass. So for the 3 to 4 seconds that it took for me to grab her, her hands were pushed against the glass by her body weight. By the time I got to her everywhere on her hands (the whole palms and all the pads of her fingers) that had been against the glass was pure white.

We rushed her to the sink and put her hands in running water. I had Emily call Daniel at work and ask him what I should do. He said to wrap her hands in wet towels and get her to the ER. We did so and they gave her some heavy pain meds, tried to get her to soak them in water to no avail, lathered silvadene cream on them and bandaged them up. She had second degree burns all over her hands. She was really miserable for 2 weeks everytime we changed her bandages. The first night she had blisters 1 inch think on her palms and her little petite hands were fat as sausages. The next day the blisters had totally drained leaving saggy wrinkled skin. 2 days later we saw a wound care specialist and he cut off all the dead skin. This was the hardest on me. Poor Baby. I have pictures of each of these events but they are quite graphic and I will post them at a later date.

By the second or 3rd day she seemed to be fine when her hands were heavily wrapped. She could still play, help her daddy put up the Christmas tree;

and even hug her baby!!

I felt awful for poor little Piper and awful for Emily because she only had two days to look for apartments and here we were spending half a day in the ER. I just wanted to push rewind and not let her down or stay in the car or anything different that would have prevented what happened! Here's an interesting thing - The next day I drove Emily around and stayed in the car while Piper slept and the other kids watched movies (Dan had to work on Saturday of course). Emily told me there was a gas fireplace in one of the other leasing centers with exposed glass and she touched it and it WAS NOT hot. The glass had some black flecks in it - must be special heat tempered glass.

Poor Piper had 6 doctor visits in 3 weeks time. The first 4 visits were in the first week. She was also seeing her pediatrician because she had a fever for 5 days and we didn't know if it was from a virus or if the burns were infected (the biggest risk for burn victims). She even had to go to the lab and get blood taken. See her little band-aid? The Pediatrician gave her some augmentin to help what he thought was a sinus infection (since she had a yucky nose and fever). By the 3rd dose the augmentin caused her to break out in hives all over her body. We quit giving it to her after the 5th dose. The next day she had a horrible diaper rash caused again by the augmentin. Daniel said it was probably a yeast infection because the augmentin had killed all the bacteria in her system. It was true - her poop didn't smell for 2 days. I had never experienced that. I didn't even know her diaper was dirty til I'd go to change her for another reason and then I got a total surprise. I know this seems gross, but I could put my nose an inch away and not smell a thing. Amazing what bacteria can do.

So this poor little baby has been through alot!! After the 2nd visit with the wound specialist we only had to wrap her palms and not all her fingers as well. And yesterday we saw him again and she's still red and tender but we've stopped wrapping all together and he said we don't need to come back unless we notice something unusual.

Yeah!! She'll be able to unwrap her Christmas gifts. At first our Christmas tree was safe this year (which I had been totally worrying about) because she could only bat at the ornaments because she had no use of her fingers. But now she is constantly pulling off ornaments and carrying them around the house. The top of our tree is a bit ornament heavy and the bottom is pretty sparse now.

Thanks to all of you who kept her in your thoughts and prayers. I'll post the burn pics later after things get ironed out. We did tell the complex that we would like to see them put up some sort of barrier in front of that glass so it doesn't happen to anyone else. Even something like those heavy cast iron tri-fold screens. Were were told about a week ago that they have put up some sort of barrier.

Escape to New York

Right after Thanksgiving, Daniel came home saying one of his partners really wanted to go to a course being offered in NYC in December. Dan seemed like he'd like to go but didn't really know if that was a good idea. He'd been gone for 9 days in November and this would be a Saturday in December, which we all value our Saturdays in Dec a bit excessively.

I excitedly told him that he should go - we all should. We have the dearest of friends, David and Laura, that live just north of the city that we don't see nearly enough. For those of you unaware - David was my best friend in high school and my next door neighbor, Laura was my great friend from Spain that I did exchanges with all through high school and lucky for me they married so I get a two for one when I visit!

So we had a date (Dec 7-8) - it worked for them as well. Then with Piper's burned hands, sick kids and threatening weather it didn't look good at the beginning of the week. But the kids were reasonably well by Friday - and we braved some slush and snow but by the time we got to New Jersey the weather was fine. We left right after school on Friday and were able to visit some on Friday night.

On Saturday morning, Daniel hopped on a nearby train and headed into the city for his course and the rest of us just enjoyed visiting. David is always at the helm with electronics and so of course he has a Wii. The boys were in "little boy heaven" and couldn't stand to sit at the dinner table one extra minute because they had to get back to the Wii. We let them stay up until mid-night on Friday and Chase was awake at 6am ready to play again. I threatened him that he'd never play again if he didn't stop making noise and go back to sleep.

David and Laura have a little boy, Pau, that is one week older than Piper and a little girl, Amelie, about a year and a half younger than Ainsley. So our little ones were more than entertained as well. Ainsley and Amelie were the best of friends and had a great time!!!

You can create your own players on the Wii and so David created a Wii-me for each one of us. So when it was our turn we had a player that looked just like us. He kept looking at me when he was creating my character trying to get the right nose, right eyebrows in the right size and then he says, "Britt, I can't get the forehead big enough" - you know you have a close relationship when someone can say that to you, be serious about it and yet it doesn't hurt your feeling a bit. He then said, "Ha - I just moved your face down toward your chin and now the forehead looks right" He's lucky we go way back!

Mostly the boys played the Wii but Laura, David and myself joined in for a few games of bowling. You hold the controller and make the movements of the sport you are playing. I thought, no problem I can do this and I rolled my best ball with my best follow thru. David asked, "How did you DO that? I've never seen the ball roll soo slow!" It was rolling about an inch every 10 seconds and then the pins would fall one by one. I guess I'm not the best Wii bowler but my form looks good.

Daniel returned about 3pm. We visited for a while and then Laura treated us to some of her gourmet cooking. I am serious - she is a gourmet cook and pastry chef. We lucked out because she had hosted the dinner for her "Gourmet Club" the night before. So she had fixed extra knowing we were coming. Yummy!! I told her I want to take the train up sometime with just the baby and I want her to teach me some specific recipes of hers that I love. These are recipes that I have to learn by watching. She couldn't just read them over the phone!

We left around 6pm, got caught in a little traffic in the city but were home by 9:30pm to tuck the kids in bed and get ready for church the next day. It really wasn't that much work and it was totally worth the effort.

I am so glad we made the trip and we'll have to do it again soon.