Our Christmas

Well here it is...two days past Christmas already!! I can't believe how fast time flies...it's kinda sad to see the Christmas holidays pass so quickly.
Like I mentioned in previous posts, we stayed home this year and didn't have any family around...which for many of you would be normal but not for us! But anyway...our Christmas day turned out very nicely. We had some friends over for the day. We made dinner together...two turkeys!! We both had tons left over. It's kinda funny how alike our families are. Most of the time when we have company over I forget to make dessert. So this time I made sure I picked up a pumpkin and apple pie on Christmas Eve. I chuckled to myself when I told Louise that I had picked up a couple pies for dessert because she had a similar reaction to what mine would have been...oh yeah--dessert!?! I think we all enjoyed the day. We ate dinner fairly early..if I remember right! We played a game of charades altogether. There were enough of us to make 3 teams. It was alot of fun. These friends are about as close to family as we could ever get. After dinner, Randal headed up to the hospital to visit his mom. While he was gone Louise knitted, Steve napped for an hour or two on the lazy boy(sounds like family,hey?!), the girls made cookies, some of the kids played nintendo, some played on the computer and some of the others just played. (we have 8 kids between us.) All in all it was a relaxing, enjoyable day. I really enjoyed the wonderful family atmosphere. I hope you all had a great Christmas.

We wish you a

MERRY CHRISTMAS

And a happy New Year!

DONE!!

I finished my Christmas shopping!! I shopped for all four kids in two evenings...about 4 hours! I did it with wish lists in hand and the cash in my pocket! The best way to avoid over shopping! If you don't have a debit card in your pocket to fall back on this really helps you stay within budget when you see something that you "know they would love" but is way over budget! It's not as fun but it is a good way to keep yourself(myself) from overspending. Anyway...now we just need to wrap it all up. I told Randal that I did the hunting and gathering of the gifts and now it's time for him to do the wrapping of the gifts. :D I'm sure we'll do it together.
I'd like to do a little bit of baking since we'll be staying home. I usually do a little bit to take with us but not alot because we (my siblings) all bring something with us when we all get together. We will definitely miss everyone this year...and Auntie Shanda and Uncle Craig's deep fried crispy turkey! And then there are all those yummy goodies that Auntie Shanda makes....she's always trying new things and we get to enjoy them!! Great Grandma's tarts...Auntie Tracie's tarts....okay okay...enough....I'm starting to drool. I think maybe tomorrow I'll make some butter tarts!! Well have a great Sunday....the last before Christmas! I can hardly believe that it's the 22nd of December! The year has flown by!
Happy Sunday!!
:) Heather

Grandma's surgery.

I just wanted to let you know that Grandma's surgery seems to have been successful. I don't really know any details yet. Thanks again for praying ladies! And I'm off to finish my Christmas shopping! I started last night and took a fair chunk out of it! Have a great Friday!!

Please pray for Grandma.

Randal's mom is going in for a major surgery tomorrow(Dec 20th). Please pray that the Lord will have those dr.s hands in His while they are doing the surgery. We don't know the time yet.
Thanks so much!

Here's Grandma.

Christmas -scroll for pictures

Okay...I'll start off on a light note. I think we caught the culprit in the kitchen. I came out to the kitchen yesterday morning and found a mouse in the mousetrap in front of the dishwasher....the bad part---it was alive and caught by the back foot in the trap! I went in and woke up Randal to get rid of the dead mouse for me. {I just realized after 2 days that I typed "DEAD" mouse..it wasn't dead, it was alive...that's why I was getting him to come get rid of it!!!} He used gloves so it couldn't reach around and bite him. Janelle heard me wake up Randal and came out to see the critter. She trailed Randal into the washroom, as he carried the mouse to the toilet....hmmm not a good thing...she cried loudly as the silly mouse swam round and round and round......oh dear....she cried for quite some time. We sat on the couch for quite awhile as I explained the downside of having mice in the house....I think it eventually sunk in when I told her that a boy died in our town from having a mouse in his room that carried the Hantavirus. So I'm hoping that this was the ONLY mouse. It was not the kind of mouse that carries that virus, thank the Lord for that!
Onto other news not so light. My mother in law has been back in the hospital for the last week. As you may have read previously, she had surgery about a month ago to clean out blood clots in her legs. She has now had 16 surgeries on her legs for this reason! The dr decided to do some tests to see why the legs keep clotting up. He's decided that the legs are in bad enough shape that they need to be amputated, but she doesn't want to do this so he's come up with a couple of options for more artery bypasses. She has alot of artificial arteries in her lower abdomen/legs. He's decided to go with the less risky of the two options, which is grafting into the main artery that goes down the arm. Then he'll run a line down her right side under the skin, to her bypass in the lower abdomen. The objective is to increase blood pressure to her legs so that the clots will hopefully stop happening. I guess part of the reason that she keeps clotting up is that the blood flow is too light to her legs. So we're really hoping that this will do the trick.
If you can believe this....I haven't started Christmas shopping yet!!! I'm in a bit of a panic now. I get payed on the 20th...and that cheque is dedicated to Christmas. I popped into Walmart today and the lineups were insane!!! I was thinking that I could just go and get my shopping done in one day....hmmmm I sure hope this works out.
We were supposed to be going away for Christmas this year....We go to my family's Christmas get together every 2 years....so I'm quite saddened that we can't go this year with my mil in hospital. I guess we could go really but I just can't see leaving her here all alone for Christmas.
Nonetheless we will miss seeing everyone. It doesn't happen often that we see everyone at once anymore. Our kids are getting older now and starting to have jobs. Family get togethers are difficult to coordinate with so many new schedules to add to the mix! Anyway...You all have a super awesome Christmas!! Hug your loved ones! :D
Love Heather

This was taken on the drive up to visit Grandma at the hospital today.





Missy having dinner with Grandma at said hospital.



Close up of our Christmas tree. It looks like we'll be postponing our Christmas trip so I decided to get the tree decorated since we'll be here! It looks really pretty but the camera is very old and takes terrible pictures with the flash....everything looks awful. I'll have to try it out in daylight to see if it works better.

more....



a weird picture of the tree....I tried to take it without the flash but the shutter stays open for a long time and apparently I moved!

EEEEEEEEEK!! We have MICE!!!

I opened the cupboard to get the flour out for pancakes and all of a sudden realized that there were mouse droppings all over the bottom shelf of the pantry cupboard!! NOOO! I HATE mice! I started opening drawers and cupboards and realized that it's EVERYWHERE!!! Even on the corner of the countertop! I left some clean dishes to dry on a tea towel beside the sink...I guess he was a thirsty mouse..cuz there was mouse poo on the tea towel. :( We've lived here for 17 months and have not had any mice before this..I'm thinking that someone left the door open one too many times.
Well I'm off to eat pancakes then get the kitchen de-mouse pooped!!
Have a great day/night.
:D
Heather
okay maybe the big grin isn't quite accurate~ :~\

Update....

It's been a long 3 weeks! Randal had surgery on Nov. 16th, friday. [The disk between the 4th and 5th vertebrae ruptured INTO the spinal canal!! This caused him to lose control of his legs. They wouldn't hold him up and he ended up falling all over the place.]The following Tuesday he was mistakenly sent home! He called me from the hospital with the names of two drugs he needed a prescription for...he wasn't certain of how to spell them. I found this very odd that they'd send him home without prescriptions! He was told to go home and call outpatient services. We couldn't even find anything by that name! So called the rehab centre at the hospital. They sent someone over twice. Then after having him home for almost a week I was feeling quite at loose ends as to what should be happening with him. I was concerned about the incision and dressing on his back. He had 20 staples! It didn't look pretty...If I'd thought of it I'd have grossed you all out and taken pictures. :D
So I took him in to see our dr. on Monday, after him being home for 6 days. Our doctor was surprised to see him. He asked why Randal wasn't in the rehab unit at the hospital. Randal told him that the nurse had said that the hospital he was supposed to transfer to was full and that he should go home. Dr. was very surprised! He showed us the letter he had gotten from our neurosurgeon, saying that he'd arranged a bed for him in the rehab unit and that he'd been transferred there!! He quickly left the room and went out to make some calls. He came back in after speaking to the neurologist and the rehab unit. He said that yes they still wanted him in there but now there really were no beds, so go home and wait for them to call. Our dr. seemed very stressed and upset about this mixup! He said you hear about people dying because of medical mixups in hospitals but this was the first time he'd seen such a stupid mistake. They finally called on Thursday afternoon and I took him up there. He stayed until today. Six days with a 24 hr pass over the weekend.
My mom was here for 2 weeks and 1 day throughout this time. It was so nice to have her here. I don't really like staying alone with the kids but do on occasion, if I have to. I didn't ask her to come because I don't like to ask her to do things. She's quite busy with what she has going on at home there and in their church. But she came. So it was great having her here. She took over the cooking, the laundry, schooling Janelle and many other tasks! (I was her assistant :D )
It was so wonderful..We got alot of work done around here too. We sorted out the kids clothes and got rid of the stuff that no longer fits anyone....a huge job to tackle! Another job that she helped me with was grocery shopping...I really don't care for this task. So it was very cool to have someone help me with it.
We also switched two of the girls rooms. We got paint to do their rooms too. We also picked out some inexpensive blinds for the living room windows. There are 5 3x5 windows and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with them other than the white blinds.
We did alot of different things, including hospital visits, all the while doing the everyday stuff...It has been exhausting.
There is still a bunch of stuff to finish up before we can start our Christmas decorating. Courtenay put up our prelit artificial tree on the weekend. We're debating getting a real live tree that's extra tall...our ceiling is about 10 ft. So we'll have to see how that works out.
Anyway.. that's the long and the short of it. We've just been plugging away here, bit by bit getting things done.
Randal will now have to see a physiotherapist for awhile, privately. We just found out that our health plan doesn't cover this...well I shouldn't say that they don't cover it...they cover $8 of each visit. Each visit is between $50 and $65! But we serve a big God who takes care of his children! He will work this out..even when things seem impossible...they aren't..not with God!
Oh...I almost forgot! His Mom is doing well too. She had a bloodclot that wasn't too big...which is a first! She usually waits until she is going crazy with pain before she goes in and by then the clot is huge. One time she went in with a clot that went from her knee down to her foot! So this was great to catch it before it grew. She's driving and back to herself!

THANK YOU all for your prayer~ I so very much appreciated it!