It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

The past few weeks have been an emotional roller coaster. With Patrice's mom going from sick to a breathing tube and ventilator in the ICU (on Thanksgiving day) to her now being home but still no word on what is actually wrong with her lungs. We are grateful that she is home this week, even though she is hooked to an oxygen tank...she has a doctors apt next Wednesday where we hope to have some answers and a starting point to her recovery.

This weekend has been a little bit of a band-aid in our family time. We have spent so much time running here and there, from hospital to work to karate. We finally had some time to actually spend doing fun family things. Friday night we went to the Zoo with our really great friends Mer, Summer, and Cam. We walked around in the bitter cold looking at all the amazing lights. Saturday morning we got up and went to the Festival of Trees, a wonderful tradition that we have done three years running now. Walking around and looking at all the trees, enjoying the goodies, Tristan getting his finger nails painted (which he picked over calling the Christmas Elf on the phone to put in his Christmas requests. "I will call the Elves next year k Heidi? I want my nails painted"), and continuing to get into the holiday spirit. Afterward we went to pick out our Christmas tree. We all fell in love with the same one as we walked around the lot. We went home quickly, and started to pull out all the decorations. The lights went on quickly, the ornaments not as quick, at first my O.C.D. kicked in and every ornament that Tristan put on the tree I wanted to move to a more "appropriate" spot. But after a few minutes I put myself in check and realized it's just a tree. And beside that, I can move them later after he goes to bed. HA HA HA...I am proud to say I have not moved a single ornament. :)
After Patrice put the Mickey Mouse on the top of the tree, her and I ran downstairs to put a few of the bins away...next thing we know, Tristan is at the top of the stairs yelling down "we have a problem here...Mom, we have a problem!" We started up the stairs as he burst into tears, "what's wrong?" Patrice says to him...as we go up the stairs to find the Christmas tree toppled over in the middle of the room, water gushing out of the tree stand all over my laminate floor, and Mickey Mouse glass ornaments shattered all over the floor. "Heidi's favorite ornament is broken, it's going to be a horrible Christmas" cry's Tristan. I give him a little hug, and tell him it's going to be okay. We put him up on the couch and proceed to clean up the mess. Had the water not been gushing out on the floor I would have stopped to take a photo, but I wanted to get that cleaned up first. So the photos attached are of the tree decorated and standing. :) After we got the tree back to normal, the train on the track, the dogs settled down, and Tristan in his pj's we settled in for our first showing (of many) of the movie A Christmas Story. It's one of my favorites, that one and Elf I could watch over and over, and I do! This morning we got up, wrapped a ton of presents, cooked some bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns, listened to Christmas music, and wrapped more presents. I had to work today but prior to leaving Tristan and I worked on riding his bike without training wheels. Let me just say, this accomplishment will be HUGE, when he finally rides alone! Can't hardly wait!!!

Well, I think that catches everyone up for now. TTFN