Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

For your present, I'm putting up a blog post. Yes, the first one since October. So much for blogging more!

It's been an insane few months though. We're mostly settled into the new house, except that Tom and I have decided to rearrange the bedrooms. It'll have to wait till after our company has gone though, so we'll do that sometime in January most likely.

We have Nana and Aunt Kris (one of the girls' Godmothers) staying over for the holidays which is so nice. That also let Tom and I attend the holiday party for my new job, which included an overnight hotel stay. It was so wonderful to get away for a little while. That was the first time we'd ever both been away from the girls overnight. They did just fine too.

November was the month of sick. We'd been going through a progression of various colds, and all three kids had ear infections along with the girls needing breathing treatments. But the big stuff came the weekend before Thanksgiving. Nicky came down with a 24 hour stomach bug. Of course we didn't know it would be only 24 hours at the time, and he rapidly dehydrated from throwing up so much (and the other end too of course) so he ended up in the ER with an IV. Poor boy. Then Lily and I got it Monday, and Tom got it Tuesday. It really was a 24 hour thing though, and no one had it as badly as Nicky had, so that was good at least.

Thanksgiving was a bit subdued, and I can recommend the stomach flu to anyone wanting to avoid overindulging. I didn't get to have as much of anything as I would have normally. That's probably a good thing.

We had my Dad (Grandpa Buz), Grandma Gwen, Aunt Janice and Uncle Frank all over for Thanksgiving. Probably not the best of hosts, but they really enjoyed the kids, and that's the most important thing! Nicky got to go out to Yorktown and the Norfolk museum where he got to visit the Battleship Wisconsin. We all went through the Botanical Gardens holiday light show too. That was the most sight seeing we'd done since arriving!

December 5th we had a nice visit from Aunt Liz and her new fiance (although they made it official after they left) Michael. It was wonderful to see her and meet Michael, and we wish them much happiness! They're supposed to be moving up somewhere in either GA, NC or VA, so we'll see where they land. As long as it's closer than FL!

Then on Dec 9th we welcomed Nana and Aunt Kris for the holidays. They'll be here till after New Year's Day, so we have a nice long visit from them. We actually moved the rooms around so that Kris and Donna can have the downstairs and the kids and To and I are all upstairs. It is what gave us the idea of moving Nicky downstairs permanently (at least till all the kids are able to be upstairs. Nicky will like it, Tom and I will have more room upstairs, kind of turning it into a Master Suite, and I think it will be much easier to get Nicky to bed downstairs. Oh, and clean his room. It's a mess up there, and I just don't have the time or energy to think about it. Having it down here will make it much more likely that I stay on top of that.

So it's been busy. Most everyone is well right now though. Tom still has a cough and poor Nana actually had the stomach flu hit her yesterday (same 24 hour thing though, she's ok now.)

I'm trying to get my computer out more and step away from the iphone once in a while. But it's hard! I love my phone! It does just about everything I want except blogging, paying bills and email. It technically does email, but my home email is getting so out of hand with spam I'm seriously considering starting a new one and consigning this one to be a full time spam collector.

Enough about me. On to the fun stuff!

Both girls are walking completely. They're growing so fast and they're so cute! They talk up a storm, even though I'm sure most folks wouldn't understand them yet. But they have a much higher vocab than Nicky did at this age. They were about 24lbs at their 18 month visit in November with about a 6oz difference between them. They're still so close to identical that Tom mixed them up last night.

Nicky is learning all sorts of things at school. He's progressing well academically, but still struggling with focus and attention. He's being reassessed here in VA so we'll have a meeting, hopefully soon, to go over those results. We all suspect Gifted/ADD or Gifted/LD. Either way, school is a struggle, and yet still a joy and I'd like to keep it a joy for as long as possible!

One problem that has cropped up lately though is that he's apparently got two boys in his class who are calling him names and verbally bullying him. Not violence yet, but bothering Nicky enough to get him mad. And then the boys think it's funny to get Nicky mad. Nicky is so good about not reacting with hitting, however he's turned his anger inwards and has started hitting, scratching and choking himself according to his teachers. This is really upsetting and it came out about the bullies when I asked him what was going on. I've talked extensively with his teacher and we'll see what happens over the next week or so. She was calling their parents though, and that makes me suspect that she wasn't surprised to have complaints about these particular students.

Anyway, sorry for the brain dump, but I needed to get that off my chest. And hey, what better way than to put it out there for the entire world to see?

Also, specifically for my mom, Grammie, I have uploaded a TON of movies, all from November (still have to do Sept and Oct) from my phone to Photobucket. They're in the 2011 November folder for now. Enjoy Grammie! We love you!