Merry Christmas, y'all

Last night, Jim and I had our first (non-relative) babysitter ever!! (Thanks, Tracey and Shane! We owe you.) We had a wonderful night out. We went to dinner and a holiday party. We were practically giddy with excitement. Jim and I spent a lot of time laughing, so I am sooo glad we got out.

Blissfully, we are staying home this Christmas. My parents are coming for a week, and we can't wait. Then Jim's family will come for a visit, too. This will be the second Christmas morning in our own home since we've been married, and now that Eve is 3 and has become interested in Santa it should be lots of fun. I plan on making tons of my grandmother's recipes for cookies and crispelli's and the like. I'll be making Archie's peanut crunch, and caramel corn and basically be gaining 50 pounds. Good times.

g-tube surgery scheduled...

for January 5th.

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

I know it's been a while since I've updated this. I've been traveling a lot for work. Because it's also the end of the semester, it makes for a very busy life. I'll start with some pictures and then fill you in on the happenings.
Here are two pictures from Thanksgiving. We went to Grammie and Papa's house. Uncle Scott was there, too. When we arrived, Josie turned into a crazy dog and ran laps around the house. She was literally bouncing off the furniture. It took until the next day for her to really calm down and chill out. Of course, she jumped right up on the couch as if she owned it. I should have gotten a picture because she usually managed to have a couch pillow under her head.

Eve got to wear her Thanksgiving hat that she made at school.

Here are some pictures of Eve and Josie snuggling at home. Can you believe these two? Really.

We are all doing fine. We put up our Christmas tree and I have started writing Christmas cards (slowly). I've got a ton of grading to do, and one more trip to take. I'll certainly be happy when the semester is over.

We went to the GI doc the day before Thanksgiving. Really nice guy. So, I have to schedule the feeding tube surgery for Eve. We're hoping for sometime in January. She'll have to stay in the Children's Hospital of Atlanta for a couple of days. She'll have what's called a G-tube. It will allow us to supplement her food so we can be sure she gets what she needs. It will also massively help at home and at school. She takes so long to eat (not because she's dilly dallying, but because it's a long process for her), that at school they have to move on to the next activity. At home it just takes forever. With the g-tube we can set a limit on dinnertime (say 20-30 minutes of eating) and if we think she needs more food, or if she only ate rice, we can supplement through the tube. The other major help will be with making sure she's hydrated - especially during an illness. That will help us keep her out of the ER. I'll let you know when we have this thing scheduled. I was actually supposed to call last week, but went out of town and when I returned, the office was closed. I left a message and should speak with someone on Monday.