3 birthdays and Christmas

Christmas and 3 birthdays within 4 days of each other? I can't decide if this is a blessing or a curse. On the down side, it's very overwhelming financially, you get lots of presents and then nothing for a whole year, all of your friends are out of town for your party. You get "combined" Christmas and Birthday presents. Your birthday presents are all wrapped in Christmas paper,no pool parties, you are so sick of treats, that a birthday cake doesn't sound so appealing. On the up side, you get lots of presents, there is usually family around to celebrate with you, there is a lot of chocolate left over from santa to sneak from your kids' stockings, I get to watch those sappy Christmas movies that always make me cry, no school...and it IS the best time of the year...right? So what do you think, a blessing or a curse??

Tougher than nails

Malia had a minor surgery on Monday. She went to the periodontist for a
soft tissue graft. Basically the gum tissue below her two bottom front teeth was very thin, so they sliced off a piece of her gum on the upper part of her mouth (sounds gruesome, but that's pretty much how it happened) and grafted it on top of the thin tissue below her bottom teeth. The whole surgery took about an hour and she was sooo scared. I kept telling her to just keep her eyes closed and think about fun things. Afterwards she told me that she watched the whole thing. I have a friend who had this procedure done and she said it was very painful, so I was expecting the worst. The doctors said to keep her drugged for the next few days. But she woke up the following morning and said it didn't hurt very badly. She hasn't taken any medication since. She must have a high tolerance for pain. She was such a trooper and never complained once. She was back at school today and is doing great.

Halloween happenings

Every year the kids' school has one fundraiser. It's a jog-a-thon and if they raise a certain amount of money they get to go to an "after dark party." The kids have gone every year until this one. We knew they probably wouldn't be raising enough to go and they were pretty bummed. So we told them we would take them bowling and have our own after dark party. We found a great pizza place called "Christo's" in Salem that makes fabulous pizza, the real stuff! We ate there and then headed to the bowling alley. The kids loved bowling and I have to admit that I came in third behind my 5 year old. (But he used the bumpers way more than I did!) Still embarrassing.

I'm realizing this morning what a lame parent I am, as I sat down to post some pictures from Halloween and realized that we have NO pictures of Cole in his ninja costume and in Malia's pictures she's not wearing her snow queen crown and cape that I spent half a day handsewing Sparkly ice crystals too. The crown makes the costume! I'm going to make them put their costumes on today for a "pretend it's still Halloween photoshoot." We had a great Halloween, I was so glad it was on Saturday this year. We invited a bunch of families over for a wild dinner and wild it was...about 50 people all together. (most of them kids)Luckily it wasn't raining so we could send some kids outside. We had plenty of fun food and had a great time hanging out. My friend Ann made these caramel dipped marshmallows that were AMAZING. I've added the recipe to www.domesticdittodiva.blogspot.com. Luckily I took a spinning class in the morning because I had my share of these little treats! After we ate half the people left for the church trunk or treat, while the rest of us went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. We feel so blessed to have such great friends here...