Alas, I have been woefully neglectful of my blog. But now, Downton Abbey is over--although I have refused to watch the season finale so all is right in the world and I can pretend what happened, didn't happen. But here are the most recent updates in my life. I am probably going to be extra wordy, so feel free to skim.

Last Monday I had to have a tongue biopsy. I had a white spot on my tongue for a few years and the dentist decided it was time to get it removed and biopsied by an oral surgeon. Unfortunately the only oral surgeon in our network couldn't get me in for 2 weeks (felt like longer). In the meantime, I googled the white spot, which led me to believe I was going to die of cancer, so I made plans for Bill's future wife. I had a couple of requirements and threatened him that I would haunt him if he didn't fulfill them. First, she needed to love Jesus, secondly she could not have any of her own children. I didn't want my kids playing second fiddle to her kids. Thirdly, Bill would have to get "fixed" if you know what I mean. That way they couldn't have babies together and my kids, once again, wouldn't be second fiddle. Bill never really agreed to any of these--mostly because he said something along the lines of "don't be ridiculous, it's not cancer." Thank goodness one of us has a glass that's half full. Mine is half empty, with a small leak at the bottom...Fortunately I was very good at hiding the crazy while we were dating :)

Anyway, it wasn't cancer, or anything bad for that matter. However, I did have it removed, and it was pretty painful. It didn't help the the numbing needle was like 6 inches long and I had to watch Bill make squinty horrified faces while they injected my tongue. Then the head resident talked the intern through cutting it off and stitching it and I kept hearing things like "move it over a little bit," or "ah, let's just split the difference" or "that's good enough, I think." and lastly "we were going to give you antibiotics but decided it wasn't necessary." I was pretty sure I was going to leave with a staph infection. (This was the same hospital that nearly killed my dad a year ago.) I honestly think it was worse than labor because it was just a constant pain that didn't go away. They gave me narcotics, but those just made me loopy and nauseous. You have no idea how useful your tongue is until it has stitches in it. It was hard to even drink water. I thought it might end up being a good diet, but alas, I managed to recover and eat normally within a few days.

The other exciting thing that has been going on in our lives is that our mini van kicked the bucket. I have loved this van. I believe Jesus gave us this van when we really needed it. I mean, I never thought we would've been able to afford a mini van, especially such a nice one, but this one was sold to us for a real steal. It served us well for about 6 years (it was 5 years old when we bought it). Then,about 2 weeks ago it started to overheat. Bill tried a few things to fix it, but alas, we discovered the repairs would be more than it was worth. So for a week I was only able to drive to school and back until we could go looking for a new one.

The thought of buying a van gave me great anxiety. I knew God would provide us something, but the thought of haggling with the sales people was stressing me out. The last time we bought from a dealership, we felt a bit like we got hosed. So we researched so that we would be ready. We talked to Leslie's husband Jon who is a wealth of knowledge about mini-vans, and we prayed about it. The night before we went shopping, Liam prayed "that mama and papa will find a van that isn't real 'spensive, and that it has 9 cup holders."  Um...okay.  We went to the dealership that had the van we had looked at online. We test drove it and then began negotiations. I explained to the salesman that we had a max we were willing to spend out the door, and that we had other options to explore otherwise. I wanted to be upfront and honest because I honestly didn't think they would give it to us for that amount. After about 2 hours of him "checking with the manager" and asking if we could do more, and the manager coming back and asking if we could go up even $500, we held firm. We knew we could always come back. Finally they gave it to us! Victory! We transferred our car seats into the new van and I remembered to count the cupholders. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Bummer. That would've been really cool. Then...I spotted the other 2! There were 9 CUP HOLDERS! I am not sure what big plans Liam has for the 9 cup holders, but I love when God answers the prayers of children in such an obvious way.

Excuse the quality of these pictures...the batteries in both my DSLR and my point and shoot needed to be charged. I am awesome at organization! 

The Original Four together again

The Fabulous Four have been reunited at Rainbow Bridge tonight. We will miss you Finchy! And our hearts go out to Jenna, Ryan, Noah, and Juli. There is no love like a dog's love.

Chili (Jenna's dog, Fred T (mom and dad's dog), and Leia (our dog) have been waiting to be reunited with their brother/nephew/cousin 

Farewell to the happiest dog I've ever met

The rest of Advent...in a nutshell

I got hopelessly behind during Advent, and I thought I might catch up after Christmas, but alas, Bill got me a Kindle Fire along with Amazon Prime and I spent two weeks glued to Downton Abbey. I may have traveled from room to room (including the bathroom) with my Fire watching to see what was going to happen to my beloved characters. I am, in a word, obsessed. I even found a website that has the entire 3rd season posted, but I am refraining from watching it. Instead, I am watching it week by week now on PBS, for fear that I will have nothing to look forward to once it's over. I am not being at all dramatic.

Anyway, I need to post what we did for the last 8 days of Advent so that next year, when I am planning what to do, I can go back and check.

Day 18

I had read some ideas about having your kids go shopping with grandma and grandpa for presents for mom and dad, and had initially thought that would be a great idea. Bill and I would get a date night, and the kids would enjoy picking stuff out. But then I thought, really, Bill and I don't need more stuff. And we didn't really have time to plan a date night. So...we decided to take the money we were going to give them to buy us stuff, and have them use it to pick out some things from the World Vision catalog. They each had $10 and could combine it or each pick something out. They looked through everything and agreed to get bunnies which apparently are great because they reproduce so quickly and can be used for food or sold in market. They also picked soccer balls because they wanted the kids to have something fun to play with.

Day 19 was Bill's office Christmas party, and I worked during the day. So the kidlets went to Grandma Casey's house and watched a Christmas movie and had a special dinner. I don't remember what movie they watched, or what they ate. It was a month ago...I'm lucky I remember that's what they did :)

Day 20
We did this last year as well. We took them to Baskin Robbins for ice cream before dinner. Somehow it was slightly less magical. I think it was really cold, the kids and I were all exhausted and kind of crabby and my camera battery wasn't charged. Here's the short version of what happened. They all got vanilla, Brendan and Liam were done in about 5 minutes. (they didn't finish) Rori savored her two scoops while the boys whined they wanted to go home. Rori ate hers, then wanted to finish Brendan's. We let her have a bit more until we couldn't take the whining any more and then went home.

Day 21
 My mom had found a website that had golden tickets for a homemade Polar Express. I personally hate that movie, it's kind of creepy and long. But I loved the idea. Bill was our conductor. They had to get in their pajamas and were given a golden ticket (Grandma Hoo Hoo printed them for us, so they thought they were real). We picked them up milkshakes and drove around to look at Christmas lights. My friend Leslie had told me about this awesome house that had amazing lights set to music. It was in a gated community and they told you what station to tune your radio to. It was seriously amazing! I think they only do it every other year, so I think we have a plan for 2014!

Day 22

Christmas cookie day! This day was our annual cookie decorating with the family. Between my mom and I, we cut out 175 or so, give or take a few, cookies to be frosted. The kids love decorating the cookies, however, I think we may have made a few too many, as they started dropping like flies when there were about 25 left. Only Rori made it to the finish.

We may have had a few Star Wars cookies...

Day 23

AHHHHHHH!!!! I don't remember. Let's say we watched a Christmas movie and ate pizza. Note to self, next year, don't wait a month after Christmas to remember what you did.