Time gets away from you!

I can't believe the last time I blogged was in October. Where did the time go? Now, to try to get caught up on everything that's happened in the last two month. Yikes! The kids are both continuing in swimming lessons. They are still in the same class, so that's been going well. If only Abby would learn to listen better!

We went back home for Thanksgiving. We were able to see almost everyone in one trip, so that was nice. Tyler and Dani made it up as well. Dad's Parkinson's is progressing a lot, so it's really difficult to see him struggle so much.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, I was able to head back and get together with a good friend for a shopping day. It was a ton of fun! I need to take those "mommy-days" more often! Most of the shopping was Christmas presents.....and the credit card company ended up calling me the next day to make sure I was the one that made all the charges. I guess I did pretty well!

This month has been full of baking, making, etc. The kids really like to make Christmas cookies, so we made sure that we made plenty! We even made gingerbread men this year.

I got my Christmas shopping pretty much done by the first week of December, so it's been a lot less stressful figuring out how to have the time to get that done. Everything is wrapped and hidden. :) I think I may have even been able to keep things hidden from Brent. (I may have set things a certain way to make sure I'd know if anything was moved.)

This past weekend, we had our first blizzard of the season. We got about 9 inches of snow on top of .20 inch of ice. I was so glad I didn't work! Brent had National Guard and still had to go out in it. They shut down the metro buses and most businesses were closed. The interstates were closed at different points (once for the storm and once for a 7 car pile-up).

This next weekend, we are going back home again for Christmas with my side of the family. We're going to attempt to go to Mom and Dad's church again. Last time we were there, Caleb had a huge panic attack. He's come a long way since then, though, so we want to try again.

I work on Christmas Day this year, and it's my weekend to work. I can't complain. This is the first Christmas I've had to work since I started working at the hospital 9 1/2 years ago. I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have low census and I can come home early on Sunday the 26th. We're planning on going down to Brent's parents' house Monday the 27th for Christmas with them....it would be nice to head out the night before. I have the most seniority of anyone working that day, and I have vacation time saved, so here's to hoping! It's the one time that I wouldn't feel guilty about being in charge and sending myself home. Even better....getting called off completely would be great!

Well, I think I've gotten up to speed on things. I know I've missed a lot of good stories in the middle of all this, but I am really going to try better. I need to just set a day every week that I use for blogging time. Please look through the pictures I posted in the other posts to get picture updates!