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!