Wecome to the next few years...

Landon got ear tubes put in last week. They'll be in for the next few years, until his ears grow bigger and they fall out (or something like that). He can bathe by himself in treated water and go in swimming pools without wearing ear plugs but if he bathes with his siblings or goes in the hot tub or swimming in a lake, he has to wear ear plugs to keep bacteria out of his tubes.

How do you keep ear plugs in a one-year-old's ears?

You use an Ear Band-It, of course...Are you disturbed by this picture, too? The thing makes him look cross-eyed and smoosh-faced.

Oh well. Hopefully it works.

8th Annual Christmas-Costume Party

This is NOT another "tacky sweater" party. Oh no. A lot of the people who come wear sweaters that they would actually wear out in public and I certainly don't want to offend anyone by calling their clothes tacky.

Instead it's a party where you can wear your beautiful festive sweaters or think outside the box and come up with a Christmas-themed costume. And eat from a chocolate fountain.


Here are some of this year's best:

Mr. Peppermint:

A gift to God:

Christmas Sweater Gigi & Sugar Plum Princess Emma


A gift to Lee (and Lee):(this was great because Billie couldn't move her arms in the box so she had to drink from a straw and have her husband hand feed her the whole night!)
The winners: Reindeer Family
Rudolph, Dancer, Vixen & Prancer

aaand, of course, Grandpa Vern dressed as Santa:


George & Father John
Christmas Tree & her boy!

If you didn't make it this year, you should next year. For realz.

Empathy

My kids have had a whole slew of health issues this year.

I'm not really sure why but between the three of them, there has been multiple cases of pink eye, lots of double ear infections, some random rashes, a broken foot, a stitched up chin, and ear surgery.

Unfortunately for my kids, I have never personally experienced any of these issues so I can have sympathy for them, just not empathy.

I could tell Grady that I felt bad that he had to wear a cast, but I couldn't speak from experience and explain to him that it wouldn't hurt when they sawed it off his leg. And I can assure Emma that she'll still be beautiful with a little scar on her chin, but I couldn't really understand why the stitches itched so bad. And poor little Landon- I have no idea what ear infections feel like and why they kept him up at night so I could only give him some Motrin and pray that he could go back to sleep.

Since I'm a mom, you'd better believe that I'd willingly take on any of these ailments just so my kids wouldn't have to go through them, but for whatever reason, that's not the way things work, and my heart gets broken for them each time.

Well, folks, FINALLY this week, I was able to have some empathy for one of my kids:

I don't know what it feels like to have your ear drums cut open and to have tubes inserted. And I don't know what it feels like to wake up from general anesthesia in the arms of a strange lady. Heck, I don' t even know what Tylenol with Codine makes your head feel like.But I DO know why Landon was crying when I took this picture. I know how he felt when we put this little hospital gown on him. I understand what it felt like to have his diaper hanging out the back of his gown for all the world to see. (At least he got to wear cute little diapers with his gown and not stuffed mesh underwear- right ladies?!). I know how drafty and stiff and uncomfortable those gowns can be. And to Landon I can honestly, empathetically say that I hope he never has to go through that again!

Christmas Cards

Well, here we are, well into December and we finally attempted to get a decent family picture for Christmas cards.

Sure, we have some great pics that our dear friend Dan Ramming took of us, but those were way back in May and since Landon has changed so much since then, I thought we should try for a more current picture.

So this morning, I dressed my family in coordinated-ish outfits (except for Emma because she owns NOTHING neutral), grabbed our camera, the tripod, and headed off to the beach to take some pictures of ourselves. Aaaaaaand that's when the problems started.

Problem 1: We don't live near the beach so we have to drive for over an hour with Emma asking every two minutes, "Are we there yet?" and Landon missing his morning nap because we're in the car and he has way too much fun in the car to fall asleep.

Problem 2: Once we got to the beach, our kids wanted to play in the sand and waves and not sit still for pictures. And we were using the self-timer on the camera so we had a lot of sitting still to do.
Problem 3: We didn't have anyone behind the camera to get Landon's attention so in most of the shots, he's looking/lunging at the sand.
Eventually, we gave up attempting to look like a pulled together, sane, happy family who can sit still for more than .5 seconds.

Fortunately, once we let them loose we got some great shots of them playing so even though our Christmas card pics will be a bit unpolished, we now have some great photos to hang up around the house.
Does anyone with that fancy photo editing software want to edit them for us?

It's that time again.....

click on the picture to make it bigger and better.

and if you're thinking that this would be an awesome party to come to but you're not really sure if the invitation is for you, well, it is. you should come.