Our Life Lessons: End of 2017 - Surgery, Christmas, and New Year's Eve

We listen to books in the car all the time. Over the past year, we have listened to books about all kinds of topics. I picked a book for me instead of the boys called "The Wright Brothers" by David McCullough. Hurricane would say repeatedly that he wasn't listening to the book because he thought it wasn't interesting. When we finished the book, Hurricane said, "Well that was a good book except for the parts I didn't listen to." We laughed really hard.

Sweetheart and I have started to workout in the morning. I have been sore and went to get acupuncture. I did it the day of the boys' class parties. I was really sore from the cupping that the acupuncturist did. That was a mistake on my part.

The 3rd grade has 3 classrooms. As parents we arranged to have 3 different activities- one for each of the classrooms. The activities were making an ornament snowman filled with shredded paper that they put a face on and a gumdrop star in one room, games and trivia in another room, and in the third room they played Dance Dance revolution and made Christmas trail mix. The children had a lot of fun. Let me tell you that shredded paper will clog a vacuum cleaner really quickly. We had to unclog it twice.

The 5th Grade made 2 crafts. They made a string star in one room and a marshmallow pyramid that was a competition to build the tallest one. After the craft and competition, they played Minute to Win It games. The favorite game was to take an Oreo from the forehead to your mouth using only your facial muscles. They would laugh and laugh.

Sweetheart went to his annual check up and was told he had a deviated septum. (Total Side Note: I think that we should continue to call them well child check ups. It's the same concept.) He followed up with a specialist who confirmed that his left nostril was mostly blocked and scheduled surgery for the end of the year.

His logic was to recover on his time off between Christmas and New Year's Day. Ironically his sister had the same surgery the day before which gave him insight into what would happen. When he woke up from the surgery, he said he could breath through his left nostril. He did what the doctor said to do and recovered over the week. He did remarkably well.

The evening of the surgery a family in our ward hosted a Talent Show. The boys are taking piano from the son of the family. This was their Winter Recital. They did a good job. I had to run back and forth to help Sweetheart change his bandages and attend the recital. At the end Hurricane played a melody of songs on the recorder. The Bishop brought them home as I had to step out to help Sweetheart again.

On Christmas Eve we went to a lunch at the DeMonbrun's home and then attended church. The boys wanted to go to bed early that night and were so excited for the 3 Kings to come.

They made a nativity with Legos.

We have a rule that no one can leave their room until 7 am. Hurricane started screaming at 6:10 am. The boys came downstairs, and we opened gifts.

We were invited to breakfast at the Eckert's home. Omelets and sweet rolls were delicious. We came home to rest for a bit. We were invited for supper at a ward member's home. We felt very blessed. I came exhausted that night.

With Sweetheart's surgery preparation, he had to have allergy testing to rule out the option of allergy treatment. We learned that Sweetheart is allergic to nuts, a latex panel (latex, bananas, avocados, kiwis), wheat, corn, and most of the native trees and grasses. We are really glad that we put in wood flooring in our bedroom. Sweetheart asked the boys and I to have allergy testing done. We all went for a blood draw, and everyone did well until Hurricane had to have his blood drawn 3 times. He tried so hard to be brave.

Sweetheart got to play games with friends a few times over the break. He was so thrilled.

New Year's Eve was spent with the Eckert family. We had food, played games, and welcomed in a NYC Midnight.