Family at Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

"Stuck...stuck...STUUUUUCCCCKKKK!"

Happy Christmas Eve Eve

When Christmas comes around we have plenty of decorations for the house left over from our wedding. We have several frosted glass snowflake bowls, vases, and candle holders. This bowl has some of the ornaments that I made to hand out at our wedding. They are full of detail: our names, the wedding date, snowflakes, and a bow on top! However, we forgot the small detail of how to hand them out to people at the wedding. Therefore, they sat in a box in the corner of the reception!

This is one of our favorite ornaments. It means a lot to me to get it out each year and turn it to the new year. It makes me think, "Wow! 4 Christmases together!" But at the same time, the window can go all the way past 75 years!

Making Progress!

We are currently getting tons of rain on top of the mountain of ice that we got today. Traveling is definitely not fun right now. Surprisingly I had a busy day at work. I think people decided to brave the roads because they had to go shopping anyway, why not stop at the dentist?! I am looking forward to having several days off and seeing family and friends!

Yummy

Craig thought it would be fun to make some Christmas cookies. However, we don't have any cute cookie cutters, so we just made round cookies. Craig made the icing and was going to leave it white until I suggested food coloring!! After 50 drops of red food coloring, the icing was still pink, so we gave up. (The pink in the middle of the cookie above is as close to red as we got!) It went well with the minty green. Only one cookie got the special three-color treatment! All that matters is that the cookies were delicious!

BP

120/80...That is Craig's new blood pressure! Yay! Craig went back to his family doctor and they are pleased with how he has responded to the medication.

We cleaned Craig's incision Sunday night and it was a bit dramatic. There was some dead skin and some smells and some overall grossness. I wasn't prepared for how I would react since I deal with blood and icky smells everyday. This was different because it was someone I love! Anyway, after I got over being a little sick to my stomach, I helped him clean it as much as I could. I think it looks like it is healing like it supposed to. I took pictures but decided not to post them. You're welcome!

We ordered our last Christmas gift over the Internet last night. I am definitely behind this year on being prepared. Since I have to do all the shopping, Craig is supposed to do the wrapping...however, nothing is wrapped yet! Hope everyone is more successful at being ready for Christmas than I am!

Presents!

Each year my Aunt and Uncle give us a Christmas ornament. They are always something unique, different, or meaningful in some way. One of the most beautiful ornaments we have is a very delicate snowflake that they gave us the year that we got married that went along with our snowflake themed wedding. This year I was warned that this ornament would make me chuckle. I opened the box and found a pea! This is a running joke that has to do with my Aunt not being very fond of peas. I love it! We also received a BEAUTIFUL Christmas card that my Aunt made. She is so talented and has been making her own cards for many years. She designed and created our wedding invitations.

We also received paperwhite narcissus bulbs! They are sitting in the kitchen window because they need a lot of light. They are supposed to bloom in 4 to 6 weeks, so they have a lot of growing to do!

Craig's appointment this week went well with him coming home in an air cast. This gives him some freedom to take it off for a few minutes at a time. He still can't apply any weight to his ankle, even with the cast on. We will re-do the dressing on his incision on Sunday. He made it through his finals and is not really sure what to do with himself. I tried to get a picture, but this is all the cooperation I got.

Yuck

I am totally grossed out! We had a mouse! Yuck! I found my apple on the kitchen table had been nibbled on. We put out traps and within a couple hours the mouse had been caught!

I have an irrational fear of mice. Some people are afraid of spiders or snakes, but for me it is mice. I had a bad experience when I was younger where I actually stepped on a dead one with my bare foot. I am on top of furniture and screaming whenever I see them. So even though the greedy, grimy, nasty thing has been caught, I am still paranoid. I know it has friends. Tonight when I was doing the dishes the static in my pajama pants made me think that a mouse was touching me.

(The only reason I took the above picture is because Craig didn't believe me when I told him that a mouse had gotten on the table and eaten our apple. He said, "You probably just dropped the apple." So I took the picture and showed it to him while he was sitting safely on the couch!)

Once I feel like the house is de-moused and de-germed maybe I will get the Christmas decorations out!

Getting around

Craig has been taking advantage of rides from public safety in their golf cart to get to class. Even though he can drive and has a handicap tag for the car, it is still a long walk, sometimes including steps. Craig has 4 finals this week, one per day.

He has another appointment with the surgeon Tuesday the 9th. So we'll see how well things are healing.

We were able to attend the Terre Haute Symphony Saturday night. It was a great Christmas concert!

Ankle Update

Craig had his follow-up appointment today with his surgeon. It went well and he got a full cast put on - a lovely shade of blue. He will go back next week to get the stitches out. The surgeon was pleased with the healing so far. He had two pins and one plate placed during his surgery. The surgeon said there were small parts of the bone that had crumbled, but they were in the correct place for healing! Wow! Not to mention all the torn ligaments that have to heal too. Right after Craig fell, his description of his ankle was, "floppy." Now I guess I understand why.

Thanks for everyone's prayers!