busy, busy, busy

That pretty much describes our days. They've been filled with school, projects, doctors appointments, Christmas shopping and preschooler/toddler tantrums.

First, the bad. Jack, Anna Scott and I have all been to the doctor in the past month (some a couple of times). Anna Scott had her first ear infection since the placement of her tubes and will be done with antibiotics in a couple of days. They are now referring us to the only local pediatric ENT to have her tubes re-evaluated. Unfortunately, his first opening isn't until the end of March. I may call around and see if I can find anything sooner.

I never mentioned it before, but Jack experienced some problems with an intermittent drooping eyelid back at the beginning of the Fall and it resulted in repeated trips to a pediatric opthalmologist. He ultimately never found anything wrong. We had to go back last week because it recurred again one morning and I wanted him to see it while his eyelid was drooping. We go back for a recheck in February.

I swear, all we've done is go to the doctor since we moved here. Good thing we can practically walk to the medical center from our house. Seems like we may need it :)

On a lighter note, this has been the first year that I have really bought Christmas presents for the kids. I think I had way too much fun. See, we never bought much for the kids because they were so little and the grandparents had it all covered. I feel like Jack is old enough to know when his Mommy and Daddy don't buy him anything, so I bought several a few presents for each child. Santa and I e-mail back and forth and he has informed me that he will be visiting us during Christmas in Florida, but will also be leaving a big gift at our home in Hershey. We will be traveling to Florida next week and I'm excited to see most of my family, since I haven't seen them since June. It will be 20 degrees warmer there, too :) (Just kidding....of COURSE I want to see everybody.)

Speaking of the weather, we will be under a winter storm warning this weekend. They are currently predicting between 6 and 12 inches of snow for us. I've already hit up the grocery store and hope that we're prepared to stay in all weekend. I know I have plenty of work to keep me busy as long as my husband can keep the kids out of my hair.

This Christmas season has been drastically different for me. Christmas presents have taken precedence while holiday decorating, baking and cooking barely exist. We put up a cheap tree and have only decorated it with the "kid-friendly" ornaments. It doesn't even have a tree skirt on it. It makes me a little sad, but it's hard to pull out everything when we'll be in Florida for Christmas and putting our decorations up shortly after we return. Not to mention the fact that it's hard to feel settled in a house that you're only going to live in for 1 year.

My Christmas presents are a little more involved this year. Since I have an embroidery machine I feel the need to slap a monogram on everything. So, I have mostly personalized or made every one's gifts. I had to start a long time ago in order to get it done before Christmas. No last minute shopping for me! Most of my present projects are done....minus a couple of teacher gifts.


I mentioned snow earlier, but I never actually blogged about our first snow. We had about 2 to 3 inches of snow a few weeks ago and we got to go outside and play in it for a while. Here are some highlights:

Annie accidentally got snow in her mouth and I made the mistake of telling her she could eat it. She took that very literally...

Burly Ben found his inner child and started pelting us with snowballs.

Using the wagon as a "snow" table.

Annie used a shovel as a spoon.

The sand table top was a make-shift sled. The snow was much too powdery to actually slide down the hill, so Ben pulled them down.

They loved it! Hopefully we'll be able to try out our new sleds on Sunday. I'll take plenty of pictures!