Hiatus

Merry Christmas!!

I just realized it's been a really long time since I've updated. I apologize to the two people who regularly check out my site (mom and my husband). But in my defense, it has been a fairly busy time of the year. Between my family and Scott's, we have 3 birthdays to celebrate in December, along with the cookie baking, present buying, and all things Christmas. To top it off, Attley is still going through chemo and we're trying out new pain relief drugs to help with his back hip. More on that later.

So, all in all, we've had a great December. Like I said, we filled up two weekends with family birthdays. Its great to see everyone but those events sure are hectic. On my side, we generally get together at my brother, Scott's house. Along with his family of 8, there's us with 4, my brother Jon and his girlfriend Liz, my parents and then Scott's wife, Marie, usually has her side at the parties too, which contributes another 10 people. Its always crazy but the foods always good and we have a good time. Scott's side is considerably smaller, but this year, our neice, McKenna, had her 2nd birthday at Chucky Cheese. Nuff said.

We had some good news this December. Attley went in for his 3rd round of chemo. Before his chemo administration they x-rayed his lungs. All clear! That means that the chemo is working and is at the very least keeping the cancer at bay, but hopefully its eradicating it all together. We also found a new drug to help with the pain in his hip. It doesn't just mask the pain like the Tramadol he was on, but it fights inflammation too which is what he really needs. We've been keeping a close eye on him because his liver doesn't handle the anti-inflammatories too well. But usually we see bad signs of it by now and so far he's been doing great.

Christmas was great. The girls are at a great age for presents and this is the first year that I think Cate actually understood the whole Santa thing AND the whole Jesus thing. I tried really hard to emphasize that the reason for Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. When I was a kid I always thought it was a cool coincidence that Jesus had a birthday on Christmas. So I wanted her to get it right from the start. Anyway, the girls got some fun presents. I didn't do too badly myself either!! Scott is a notorius grumpy gift giver. He hounds me for weeks asking me what I want and when I tell him what I actually want he calls it lame and won't accept it. He is also, however, fairly clever about making me think he got me something stupid and then he comes out with a really good gift. This year was no exception. You'd think I'd learn by now, but I totally got fed up with the whole thing again this year, totally expecting a super lame-o present. But the Schwake pulled through with a super cool Ipod Nano! Totally unexpected and super fun. We spent all of Boxing day loading it up. Its great!

So, here we are a couple of days after Christmas. The original plan was that we were both going to take the entire week off. I'm keeping to the plan but unfortunately Scott had to work today and, from the looks of it, will be pulling an all-nighter tonight to get something to a client by tomorrow at noon. We had decided a while ago that we would put the girls in daycare today so that we could get some stuff done or just hang out together alone. I could have kept them home considering Scott wouldn't be home but I decided to take advantage of it. I dropped them off this morning at Jamie's and went to the gym for a great workout. I haven't done that in ages. I was planning on going home after that and getting the house cleaned up. But it didn't take long for me to say "Screw that!". I decided to go to a matinee. I had a great time watching "Dreamgirls". It was a great movie. I had a ball!

Tomorrow, I'm going to take Clarebear to Jamie's and Cate and I are going to go to the "Happy Feet" matinee. It will be Cate's first theater movie. I hope she likes it. I'm just looking forward to having a "date" with my little girl.

All right I've blabbed enough. I'll try to post a little more often.

Happy New Year!!

Life in the fast lane

Does time go faster around the holidays?? It sure seems so. Thanksgiving has come and gone and we're already well into the Christmas season. I feel like the last couple of weeks happened in the wink of an eye. Part of that is that I've been traveling a bit. We went to Waterloo for the Thanksgiving weekend which was fun and went by fast. Then there were a couple of evening events that I had to go to that week. And after that, I flew out on Sunday for a couple of days in Louisville, KY for work. I got back Wed night and am taking a minute to unwind before cranking up for the Christmas season of parties, shopping and cookie baking.

Tonight is our first Christmas party at the Staffords house. They always have a fun party with lots of food. I'm looking forward to it. Saturday we have two parties, one at my new friend, Becky's house and one right next door at the Kjesbo's. Becky's parties (from pictures I've seen) look like they could get a little rowdy! But alas, we told mom we'd be home around 9:00 so that she could head back home (she has to work in the morning). After she leaves either we'll go to the Kjesbo's and bring out monitors (they should work - close range) or else one of us will stay home.

I also have about 1/2 of my Christmas shopping done so far. I'd like to get out this weekend and shop a little bit, but I don't know if it will happen. Sunday we have family birthday parties at my brother, Scott's house.

Before I know it, Monday will be here and we'll be one more week closer to Christmas! It just zooms.

Enough of me ranting about time going too fast. The girls are doing good and getting more fun everyday. Scott had the single parenting duties while I was in hillbilly country. He's such a good dad. He got a kick out of Cate one night when he said something to her and she responded with, "Okay Dad, whatever you say." She's not even 3 yet!! Clare is cruising right along. She has the walking thing mastered and is working on running and jumping. She also is working hard at talking. She is really starting to imitate sounds and rhythems of words. She tries hard and I swear I'm starting to understand some of her jibberish. She really likes singing along with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. When you start the song she sounds something like, "kinko kinko da da da" and when you get to the "..up above the world so high.." she goes, "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba!" right in rhythem with it. Too cute! Here she is in the buff, her favorite state of being.


Both of them are having a hard time understanding that its really cold out. They both want to play at the park and on the slides. So I bundle them up and we go out there but they're both done and too cold after about 5 minutes. I'm sure we'll all have a bunch more fun once it actually snows outside.

We've got our tree up and all our lights. Scott channelled a little bit of Clark Griswald this year and went a little crazy with the lights. Well, crazy for Schwake, that is. Last year, he chastised me for buying more Christmas lights and made me take them back. This year he took 2 or 3 trips to Home Depot, Menards, Target and the CBC just to find the right kinds of lights. And he still wasnt' completely satisfied. But I think it looks really nice and festive.

Well, my time is about up. Clare is waking up from her nap and Cate has been down for about an hour tossing and turning - I think she won't be having a nap today. I can hear her on the monitor calling to Clare, "Be quiet clare." Now she's singing to her. No rest for the weary (that would be me).

Cate and I made a gingerbread house today. Well, I made it and decorated it and Cate ate candies and sprinkles. It was fun and easy since I bought a kit that already had the cookies in their correct shapes. Someday, though I want to buy the forms to make one from scratch. Maybe it can be a new holiday tradition.

Attley is doing really good. We take him in next Tuesday for his 3rd round of chemo. They will take x-rays of his lungs this time to see if they are still clear. If tumors have formed, then they won't do any more chemo since it obviously wouldn't be working. We're praying for clear lungs. I hope we have our big black mutt around for a long time.

Well that's it for this edition of the blog. Enjoy the holiday. Remember why we have it. Jesus was born and he came to take away our sin so we could be worthy to be in God's presence someday. How could we not celebrate that!!