Holidays! (Picture Heavy)

Christmas has come and gone. We've had a lot of rain so my pain levels have been fairly high. No pain crisis though, which is good. I managed to purchase Christmas presents and stay within my budget this year! Wahooo!! I didn't think that was possible, specially when I have a little one to buy for (my 2 yr old niece).


She had an absolute blast opening all her presents. She was a bit confused and overwhelmed by them also but she quickly got into the hang of ripping the paper off of each package. She then spent the day playing with her new toys. One of the things we purchased was a fake kitchen, dishes and play food for her. Since then she has cooked and "fed" her Mommy and me many times. She loves the plastic pizza slice and pretends to eat it. She also loves the plastic chocolate chip cookies and pretends to eat them just like Cookie Monster on Sesame Street, complete with all the growling type noises he makes. It always makes me laugh!
 

Here is Bridgette and her Mommy decorating the tree on the 23rd!

Here Bridgette is getting ready to put the Angel on top of the tree!

Here we are putting it up there with Mommy and Ahma (Aunt Missy)'s help!

Here she is ripping her presents open with Mommy behind her!

Here is my son Kyle opening the items needed for Xbox live! (Finally he said!) lol

Last but not least:
 

My daughter Sam opnening her presents!

My DH bought me a very nice perfume and a pretty bracelet that says Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never ends. He is very sweet! I managed to finally get him a book that he did not already have and he enjoyed reading it! We tend to focus on the kids before ourselves.
 
On Sunday the 27th I cooked a Christmas turkey dinner. We did it on Sunday because DH was going to be visiting his children on Christmas afternoon and my brother had to work Saturday, so Sunday was the first day everyone would be home. The dinner came out wonderful and everyone enjoyed it! I was hurting pretty good by the time it was done, but it was definitely worth it and I was very happy that I made it through cooking the whole meal. Specially since I did not manage to cook the whole Thanksgiving meal in 2008 and that really bugged me a great deal.
 
Since then things have been fairly calm around here. My pain is up but not too bad and my meds are controlling it fairly well.
 
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!
 
Happy New Year!

Up All Night

Earlier tonight Ron (my DH) gave me a backrub. When it was done and I tried to get up, my back went nuts. I'm not sure why either. It wasn't hurting any more than usual while he massaged it, nor did anything he did cause shooting pains or something like that. I'm guessing it was because I was lying on my stomach (with a pillow to support my lower back). Laying on my stomach or my back always causes me to hurt, but usually not as quickly and severely as it did tonight. Due to the pain, I've been awake all night. I did take my meds, which did help a little bit, but nowhere near enough for me to sleep. When I layed down to go to sleep the muscles in my buttocks, pelvis, and my left leg all decided they wanted to cha-cha and tango, which of course kept me awake.

Since I am awake anyway I decided to come out to the living room and catch up on my blog reading. I am behind because we were gone for 10 days, so now I have 355 unread blog entries in my google reader thing. This will probably take me 3 or 4 days to catch up on, but I will catch up. Since we do not have another trip planned anytime soon, I expect to be able to read other people's blogs, comment, and post to my own blogs more regularly. Before we went to Indiana, I was all caught up and staying that way but boy do blog entries and email groups fill up fast. I'd rather play catch up though, than just skip the entries.

On my stitching blog I have posted information for a give-away (A Pay It Forward [PIF] giveaway). It is open to anyone who wishes to enter, not just stitchers. Though due to the nature of the PIF being a crafty one, it would probably help if those who sign up do a craft of some sort, or they can send gift certificates instead of a finished craft item when it is their turn to do a PIF and thus continue to Pay It Forward. Anyway, if you are interested you can find the post here http://raven-stitches.blogspot.com/2009/12/pif.html To enter the drawing all you have to do is post a comment on that entry and please be sure to include an email address so that I can contact you if you win. Thank you!

I'm Back

I just got back from visiting family for Thanksgiving. DH and I went to visit his family for the holiday. It was a 17 hour car ride, which of course wreaked havoc with my back. Though, it wasn't as bad as it has been in the past. I was hurting pretty good when we arrived, but I wasn't in a pain crisis and I could still limp around. This surprised me, but it was a nice surprise.

Thanksgiving was wonderful! I love my DH's family and they love me. We had a lot of fun, great food, and wonderful company. DH had to go to a class for his job on the Monday after Thanksgiving, so I stayed at his dad's house while he was gone. I went shopping with my mother-in-law, drove to WI to pick up my daughter (who was meeting her boyfriend for a few days since we would be closer than we usualy are) and my mother-in-law went with me (drove most of the way there and back also). We had wonderful conversations during the week and lots of laughter.

We had dinner at his sister's house the night after Thanksgiving I believe it was. I'm not 100% sure because I got sick. For 3 days all I did was cough a lot and sleep almost non-stop. Around noon at my DSIL's house, I went to lay down and slept until Ron woke me up at about 5 or 5:30pm. The dinner was wonderful! My DFIL made his baked beans and my DSIL made a delicious ham. There was a lot of talk and laughter during the meal. I love his family a lot! After we ate we went back to his dad's house and I went back to sleep.

DH returned on Friday the 4th of December, which was our 9th wedding anniversary. I never thought I would have a relationship with a man that would last this long and still be happy and healthy. I was wrong and this is one of those few times that I am so glad to be wrong LOL We've been together for 9 years and I love him more now than I did at the beginning. He is always there for me, listens to me even when he doesn't really understand what I am rambling about, makes me smile, doesn't hold my disabilities and pain against me, doesn't treat me like I am less of a human being, he is just wonderful in most areas. I am looking forward to our next 9 years together!

We stayed 2 days longer than we had originally planned because the family had scheduled their annual Christmas Dinner (family) for Saturday the 5th. This is earlier than they usually do it and Ron thought that it might be because they knew he was going to be up there around that date. So we stayed and went to the dinner. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet even more of his family. They all seemed very nice and I got to talk to quite a few. Sadly we had to leave a bit early because my back freaked out on me. I had woken up that morning with lots of pain and sciatica which normally would have kept me home, but I did not want to miss the dinner so I went anyway. I brought a pillow with me to sit on in the hopes that it would keep the pain from going too high. It worked for a little while, but not as long as I wanted. I felt so bad but when the pain hit a 9, I had to leave. Ron, of course, went with me to make sure I went to bed when we got back to the house and I feel so guilty. Some of the family members that were there were people he had not seen in 20 years or so and he had been enjoying conversations with them. He said he wasn't upset, that he was happy that I had gone despite a high level of pain to begin with, though he was a tad annoyed that I had worked so hard to hide the pain I was in.

We started home that night and I drove from just a bit after Nashville to our house, about 5 hours. When we were about 2 hours from home, Ron was finally asleep in the backseat and my pain went way up. I chose not to pull over and wake Ron up because I knew how tired he was, so I pushed myself a bit and drove all the way home. I hit pain crisis when I got out of the van at home and both legs wouldn't hold me up. We went to bed when we got home and slept for a while.

We've been getting back into the routine of things around here. I love visiting his family, but its still nice to be home. I am very grateful that my chronic pain didn't interfere with our visit as much as it could have and has in the past. All in all my back and pelvis held up pretty well and I am very glad!