We had a wonderful Christmas. I was able to pull off the best Christmas present for Geoff, and it was actually a surprise. I put together cash to pay for the gift a little at a time so that he did not know how much I was spending, then took the cash to my mom, who ordered the iPod Touch 16g. I had it shipped to my office so that it never entered the house. When he would ask what he was getting for Christmas I told him that it was something electronic, but he probably wouldn’t like it, since I never seem to get the right stuff. He was surprised and thrilled when he opened it, and has not put it down since.

Aegwyn loved her Handy Manny and Cars toys, but was especially thrilled over her baby doll that took a paci. The boys liked their new games, and all of the other hundreds of gifts that they received. Graeme just liked playing with the paper and boxes.

And as for me, I absolutely love my WiiFit. I am trying to use it daily, whenever I can get the Wii away from the kids that is. I however, never want to see Christmas food and party food again.

First of all, why do men have to be so stubborn and pigheaded? Geoff is sick, I think it is pneumonia. His symptoms are almost exactly like what I had. He is miserable, but will he go to the doctor? or let anyone help him? NO!

The guys at work heard me on the phone with him today, and they all agreed that this was usualy behavior. Why? If you are sick and miserable why not do what you can to fix it? I just don’t get it.

I never thought that I was one of those people… you know the ones that hire a Nanny to come in take care of the babies. Well, as it turns out, I am one of those people. We officially hired a Nanny today. I have been having some issues with daycare, and Geoff is trying to work, and neither are going well.

Our daycare has always been wonderful, I have known the people that own and run it for years, but lately I have not been happy. Graeme is not getting his breathing treatments like he needs them, and there have been a few days where he has only had 1 bottle all day.

We decided to look into hiring someone to come to the house to watch Graeme and Aegwyn, and I lucked out. I found someone who will work for about the same amount that I am paying daycare, plus she will help with the housework.

So, as it turns out, I am one of those people that I used to make fun of. But as I see it, having the kids at home keeps them from being around all of the sick kids that parents insist on bringing to daycare, lets Geoff and I monitor more closely what the kids are doing, gives us some help on keeping the house up, will help us run errands, and isn’t costing us anything extra.

The new Nanny came by this afternoon to meet the kids, and I was mildly surprised that Aegwyn liked her from the very begining. I think she will work out very well for us.

Things have been so crazy lately. I started a new job, which I LOVE!!!! The company is fantastic, the people are great, and the job itself is amazing. It has been so long since I actually enjoyed going to work, and had fun while I was there. What is the job you ask, I am the Office Manager for a major governmental construction company beginning a new project on the arsenal. We have just started with the construction phase, and I am so excited.

We have also begun basketball season, which unfortunately with Graeme and Aegwyn, we have only been to one game.

I am very proud of myself, I have almost completed my Christmas shopping. I have had my tree up since last Sunday, and all of my presents are wrapped. We, as in Micah, Noah and I, are getting ready to start baking cookies. Noah has requested sugar cookies and snickerdoodles, Geoff has requested white chocolate macadamia and mint chocolate, and I want peanut butter and chocolate. Who wins? Everyone, by the time we are through making cookies I will probably have 10 dozen cookies… hopefully those will last us until next weekend:)

The last week has been awful. We decided to go to B’ham to visit the in-laws last Monday. All was good until Tuesday night, and Graeme was up all night and started running a fever. By Wednesday morning his temp was up to 102 and he was having trouble breathing and the breathing treatments weren’t working. We called the doctors and they said to take him to the ER.  We loaded up and took him to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham. They did chest x-rays and said he had pneumonia which was aggrevating his asthma, so they admitted him. We were in the hospital until Friday afternoon, which by that time I was sick and didn’t feel like making the drive home. We ended up staying until Sunday afternoon.

We arrived home at 5:30. Walked in the house, started down the hallway, and heard water running. This is when we noticed that there was water seeping up through the cracks in the wood flooring. Our ac unit had backed up and flooded, soaking the hallway, the living room, and parts of Aegwyn’s bedroom.

I have spent all of the time since then on the phone with contractors and the insurance company making arrangement to get it fixed.

I just packed up the kids and Geoff and sent them back to B’ham so they wouldn’t be here when the clean-up crew sprayed the mold stuff and ripped up the flooring. This week is going to be awful.

So I promised to start writing parenting advise and lessons learned, and here is the first of many.

All parents out there know how expensive children are, especially clothes. I know a lot of parents who insist on buying name brand clothes for their young children, and they pay retail prices for new items. I have discovered the most wonderful way to shop. I have 5 children and can’t afford to pay retail prices to buy the clothes that I like. We have consignment sales here locally that offer a wonderful way to buy name brand without paying mall prices. Kids Market comes here twice a year, in the spring and then again in the fall. I have worked out a wonderful system for this sale that allows me to spend without costing me a fortune. I always put my childrens outgrown clothes in the sale, and then buy their “new” ones during the contributors sales. I usually can make back everything that I spend.

You can find wonderful bargains on everything from clothing, furniture, books and toys. 2 years ago when I was pregnant with Aegwyn we bought her bedding set (comforter, bed ruffle, bumper pad, lamp shade, valance, light plate cover, and a mobile). I found some price stickers on a few of the items and I am guessing based on those that this set retailed for around $600. I paid $60, and the set looked brand new.

I also have a local consignment store that I shop in between sales.

There is no shame in buying gently used items, it is simply smart parenting. If you don’t live in our local area just start searching and I am sure that you will find similar sales either through churches or other groups. My mother-in-law lives in Birmingham and she has half a dozen or more of these sales that she attends every spring and fall.

Everyone here except me is sick. Graeme started with a runny nose a few days ago which has now developed into a horrible cough. Geoff started with a sore throat last night, which is now a full blown summer cold (I think he has already gone through an entire box of tissues). Aegwyn had been doing good until today. She is five days off antibiotics and the runny nose started fast and furious this morning. Luckily we had an appointment with the allergy doctor today, but nothing he tested for showed any significant allergic reaction to indicate that is what is causing this recurring infection. We have to go get blood work tomorrow and then back to the allergist next week for further testing. In the meantime though he did put her on a nasal spray that hopefully will help.

As I said earlier I am a bit upset about not having anything to do, and what does any good southern girl do when she is upset? I cook.

We ran to the mall for a few minutes this afternoon, because I won a gift basket from Benefits at Belks for my birthday. Then we went to the local farmers market. I loaded up on fresh green beans, green tomatoes, and okra. I have spent the rest of the afternoon breaking beans, which for those of you who have never tried it, is very relaxing. I also cut up all the okra. I have enough for dinner tonight and I put a bag of each in the freezer for later (good grief I am “puttin’ up veggies, ya’ll). Guess I am more like my Nannie than I thought.

Anyway my cooking will begin tonight, I am making fried green tomatoes and fried okra, probably some cornbread, and not sure on the meat yet. Tomorrow I plan on getting up and putting a pot of beans on the stove to cook all day for dinner tomorrow.

I am debating on baking a cake, or some cookies, or some other kind of sweet yummy, but I also have a fresh cut watermelon chilling in the fridge, so I may wait on baking until that is gone.

Cooking is so therapeutic, I feel better already and all I have done is the prep work.

EDIT: ended up cooking fried green tomatoes, corn bread, boiled cabbage, corn, and herb baked chicken. And I have to add that I love my little southern belle in training–she went straight for the boiled cabbage and ate almost every bite.

It has been a very hectic week. Aegwyn has been sick again. We went to the pediatricians Monday, and of course the only thing they wanted to do was to stick her back on antibiotics. She has been going through this for over 5 months, and each time they just prescribe the antibiotics. She gets better while she takes them, then within a few days starts all over. This time I put my foot down, and demanded that they actually do their job and try to find out why she is staying sick. The doctor said the only thing she could do was to give her medicine and if we wanted we could make an appointment with the ENT. So, ok, why do we even go the pediatrician? They can’t or won’t order any tests. They never really give you an answer as to what is wrong with your child. Anyway, we took her the ENT yesterday, and he is sending us to see an allergy doctor. He was aggrevated that the pediatrician sent us to him to get the appointment, seeing as she was more than capable of picking up the phone to make the appointment with the allergy specialist. We have an appointment in a couple of weeks to get her tested for allergies, we have had to take her out of daycare because the doctor said that her allergies are causing her immune system to be weakened.

I am kind of glad that she will be getting some quality daddy time, but I am very sad to take her away from her friend at daycare. They are so cute. Now we have to find some activities that daddy can take her on to help keep her active and learning. Right now the only thing we have in mind for sure is gymnastics.

We spent about half the day yesterday catching up on some cleaning, and hopefully will get the rest done today. I bought one of those little 3 drawer carts the other day to put in our bathroom since we have no vanity, no drawers, and no where to store anything. I spent about 2 hours yesterday cleaning up and organizing our bathroom (and no it wasn’t that dirty, just very cluttered). Geoff and I have a small half bath in our bedroom, and as I said it has no vanity, just a wall mounted sink (which we will be changing sometime in the near future). We have lived in this house 1 1/2 years and I still had a box of bathroom stuff just pushed under the sink. Whenever I needed something out of it I just dug through until I found it. The shelves above our toilet were a mess with everything just kind of shoved in, and the corner in the bathroom had become home for a suitcase. I had not intended for this to become its new home, but when we moved in I had packed some stuff in the suitcase and when we were unpacking and having a baby and dealing with life in general, no one ever moved it. Anyway, my make-up is now organized in a fashion where I can easily find anything I need, and it’s not overflowing into Geoff’s stuff. All of the miscellaneous bottles of stuff are neatly put away. And best of all, the suitcase is being moved to a closet. I am so proud of my organized bathroom, now I just wish the rest of the house would follow.