RECOVERING FROM THE HOLIDAYS

WHEW!!!!

What else can you say after you are hostess with the mostest during the Holidays? I must admit I had a wonderful time!! My family all got in on the 22nd. My brother and his fiancee got in a little earlier than anticipated. They were at a party until 2:00 am and decided why bother going home to bed, so they left their house at 3:00 am and got to our house around 4:30 in the afternoon!!! Good thing they called to let us know... I would've still been in my jammies and my funky ass ponytail washing bathrooms!!!

The girls were very happy to see the relatives. Karis got to bunk with the twins in their bedroom - which was interesting. Jenna kept crying because Karis wouldn't shut up for her to fall asleep. At one point I went up there and Karis was standing beside Jenna's pillow yelling her name in her face. The threat of no Christmas presents gets kids to go to bed pretty well though.

Christmas Eve we had our family's traditional fondue night!! We tucked the kids in bed, and then gorged ourselves. We did the meat fondue (chicken, steak, pork and shrimp) and then we did a chocolate fondue for dessert! YUMMMY!!!!!!!! Christmas morning, we spent the first part watching the girls go totally berserk opening their gifts. My kids are in one word... spoiled!!!!! They got so much stuff, it's obscene. However, Kierra did get her beloved pink laptop computer from Santa. She was so happy, she just sat there all day playing ABC games. Everyone was excited to get their gifts! Then the adults go to open theirs. We all know that I knew what I was getting (the diamonds) so I tried to feign surprise but of course it wasn't exactly believable. LOL. Hey - a girl has gotta try. Instead I listened to my SIL complain to my brother that SHE wanted what I got. Sheesh!! I got a lot of nice things though.

Christmas dinner consisted of my husband trying to smoke a turkey in his stainless steel,kick-ass smoker from hell. Me.... I just baked a spiral ham and did everything else including getting hassled from my SIL about my cranberries. I make my own (non of that gelatinous goop from a can). I wouldn't give up my recipe because I do a few things to it no one else does. Everything turned out good though. We then had a discussion about the origins of my maiden name. My brother insisted it was French, and we all said no, it's Scottish. It became quite the debate I must say. Then we had a friendly game of family poker. LOL my mom was drinking punch and Grey Goose vodka, my bro and SIL drinking some white chocolate liqueur from Godiva.... so it was interesting. At one point I got out the video camera to videotape my mom (who barely ever drinks) because she was doing the Ghost of Christmas Past voice to my husband... who apparently is evil for taking all her poker chips! CLASSIC CHRISTMAS I TELL YA!!!!!!

They all left yesterday, to which I'm sad. I hate it when everyone leaves at once. The house feels so lonely and empty. Plus both Jarrett and Karis got bronchial infections (joy). Between listening to my beloved complain profusely about his sore chest (not too sore he didn't abandon me to go play in a poker tournament with his buds and then go to Ruth Chris's for steak), and my 3 year old hacking up a lung like a coal miner - it's been good. My hubby has up to January 7th off - so this will be a nice time for family bonding. Hopefully we'll hit the resort and go sledding or something.

Anyways, hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!! The best to you all!

GOOD TIDINGS... OR IS THAT JUST GOOD TIDE?

I am back, I am well... after almost two weeks of being miserably sick. My husband tells me I'm one of the poorest excuses for an immune system. Perhaps he is right. Or perhaps it's impossible to get better when you are running around, barely resting... and having a man nagging you constantly about seeing a doctor. BUT I can finally breathe easy... literally.

Which leads me to my next topic: washing clothes. I have decided that A) I have wayyyyyyy too many articles of clothing (is 20 pairs of jeans too many?), B) I'm horrible about putting things back when I try them on, even when they are clean and C) I really need to stay ahead of the game when it comes to laundry. I'm thinking all columns apply to me. I've spent most of my day organizing my insane closet, sorting loads of laundry, washing and hanging them back up again. And yes, I'm ashamed to admit MOST of them are my clothes. SIGH!!!! Not to mention the stupid sweaters I have that have to be laid flat to dry. I need a runway from our local airport just for this purpose.

In cute news... I attended the girls very first school Christmas concert this morning. It was sweet! Kierra actually participated in the songs, trying to sing as best as she can, and ringing her jingle bells with all her might. Jenna kept looking at us reassuringly that we thought she was doing a good job. She spent all of this week lamenting about being nervous about her performance. You'd think she was the star at Carnegie Hall or something. But she did do well - and we were very proud. Me being the total doofus I am, forgot to charge the video camera until one hour before having to leave, so I had to clear off my digital camera to do video clips. I literally ran out of battery juice when the last song ended (good timing!). I promised Jarrett I would charge the video cam for Christmas.

I've also determined that children will always pick a birthday party theme that is difficult. Case in point: Karis is a total Hello Kitty fanatic. I mean it's borderline obsession with her. I can't find ANYTHING remotely party-ish so I'm going to have to make all the decorations. I did manage to pick her up Hello Kitty p.j's, a purse, necklace, books, chapstick and hair things for her birthday. She'll be four years old in the begining of January. MY BABY!!!!!!

I do have family coming down on Saturday until the 27th. My mom, dad, bro and his fiancee. My sister and her family decided they couldn't come (which actually is probably better in the long run). I should also note that I will be an Aunt once again (I can't remember how many nieces or nephews I now have). My sister (same one) is expecting in August. She's a little hormonal, irrational and annoying right now. I'm trying to be sensitive as you can see.

So that's about it. I'm doing lame things like organizing a pantry so my mom doesn't raise her eyebrows when she comes. LOL you gotta love the moms!!!

WHEN NASAL SPRAY ATTACKS AND YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM DOESN'T

BLAH!!! That is the only way to adequately describe how I feel right now. My taking the Cold FX pills only warded off the inevitable it seems. Friday my immune system went on strike and let all the little bad germs take over. Alas - to think I wouldn't get sick was too good to be true. Case in point, I spent most of my week-end sniffling and complaining as a man would. How embarrassing to admit!!!

Saturday, I literally stayed in my pajamas ALL DAY! That's right - I'll admit it and I'll you something else - I'd do it again! This isn't to say that the bed and the jammies united all day. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO my friends. Instead I cleaned the kitchen, dusted, cleaned the floors and did four loads of kid laundry. I may wear jammies, but that doesn't make me lazy. Or does it....

Sunday I stayed in bed until 11:00am. I woke up, ate some soup, crabbed a bit, and then went for a nap from 1:00-3:30. After that, I FINALLY took off the jammies (remember I'd been wearing them since Friday night), got dressed, and Jarrett took us all out for dinner. After, came home, put kids to bed, got back in NEW jammies, and sat around waiting to take Nyquil and go to sleep.

I have made a few observations during my week-end. 1. Nasal spray sometimes hurts more than it helps. I took my Dayquils and in spite of them, still couldn't breathe through my right nostril. So Jarrett tells me to use the nasal spray. I do and I swear to God I thought my head was going to spontaneously combust!!! BURNT LIKE HELL!! I'm swearing, I'm rocking on my heals, my eyes are watering and he asks me, "What is your problem?" What is my problem?? My cheek to my eye socket is burning in the ravaging pits of hell!! He asks me if I can breathe. Seriously? Well actually yes, but every breath feels like my nasal cavity is burning into my brain! 2. Nyquil is wonderful but the medicine head the next day is like a proverbial hangover. Why can't they make a wake-the-hell-up pill that accompanies this? They now have those hangover pills (no I don't take them!). I'm thinking can't they make something like that for us poor people who are walking around like drug-induced zombies the next day? 3. When husbands say to you, "But you slept all day, how can you be tired" do they just forget how THEY feel when they are sick? Seriously guys. I mean everyone knows when you are sick, the quality of your sleep is pretty sub-par at best. I mean between getting up to blow your nose, getting up to realize you can only breathe through your mouth (lest the dreaded burning nasal spray), getting poked at by your significant other because you can't breathe and you are snoring (ah poetic justice if you ask me!)- you aren't exactly sleeping beauty. How can I be tired? I'll remember that line the next time you are sick dear.

Today it's a bit better. I feel kinda-not-quite human. I'm not happy to look outside and see it snowed outside and the only thing that could possibly get around out there is a Yettie or a Yettie with a snowmobile. I don't want to take the kids to school. Not because I can't drive - but because of all the other idiots out there that think it's June or something. And the worst part? I have to take off my jammies - the staple of my mere ill existence. So if you have any good antibodies you'd like to contribute to "Make a blogger feel better" please do so.

OUR HOUSE IS A MEDICAL MYSTERY

Well maybe not so much a mystery. Not even a marvel. More of a pain in the proverbial ass (and the not so proverbial one).

I promised I'd give you all an update on Kierra. So we went to see the doc on Saturday about her last test results. It surprisingly came back normal! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy!! But I can't say I'm not a little surprised. And so was the doctor since a majority of autistic kids show strange levels of bacterias and yeasts in their digestive system. This only means A) we don't have to contend with this and B) now when I give her digestive enzymes, they will actually work for her. To re-cap, the digestive enzymes allow her at times to eat "normal" foods without the effects it usually produces. And to answer the question no, you can't just give her those every meal and let her eat what she wants. It's more or less a fail safe in those cases where there is no other option. So if we want to go out to a restaurant one Sunday, she pops one 1/2 hour before she eats, and presto - she doesn't have any problems with it!!!

So at this point, we are just supplementing her diet with some omega 3 pills (which taste like strawberry - not fishy!). In January, we'll have her fatty and amino acids tested to see if she's absorbing them properly. I'm willing to bet she does since it's unlikely now that she suffers from Celiac Disease and/or Leaky Gut Syndrome. There is three more tests to do. Two require urine tests: testing for neurotransmitter levels and the other for something I can't remember. Yeah that's right - I can't remember and I suck! The other is a blood test that checks the amino acids. We did discuss her "shinners" she's getting, and he theorizes that she's having an allergic reaction to something airborne (most likely in the classroom). That's all the insight he could offer.

Onto the family doctor: he also believes it's an airborne allergy and is referring us to an allergist. This will take God knows how long since where we live, we are overpopulated in people, underpopulated in physicians. I'll get back to why this is bothersome in a minute. After discussing the results from the Naturopathic doctor, my family doctor suggested Kierra go for additional allergy tests. Yes Kierra just had some but those only tested for the specific digestive allergies. She never had the standard environmental allergy test done. He then asked me if I believe in modern medicine. SHEESH! I'm not a crunchy, tree-hugger - I do believe in medicine! I guess he was wondering if I was going to protest and simply grind up bark or something to treat her. In any case, he is also ordering blood tests to check her liver, iron and other levels because he wants to see what those are doing. So I have to take her for a blood draw sometime ... I don't wanna! This will be insane and not good. But in the meantime, no one can do anything about the bouts with the eyes, so we just tough it out until the allergist becomes available.

Onto my husband. He had an appointment with the ENT (ear/nose/throat) guy last week. Actually this was a follow-up from the one he had six months before. Jarrett SNORES! Chain-saw snores. It's horrible! Before we left the states he was supposed to have surgery, but alas he didn't and we moved to Canada. We get here, and the new guy says "there's nothing wrong with you". Sigh - ok so why was he going for surgery in Michigan but here in Alberta, he's cured? Did the sound of music from the Rocky Mountains cure him? Hell no - because I listen to him grunting in his sleep! So this time I told Jarrett to insist on figuring this out. He actually told the doctor if he didn't fix the problem his wife was going to start cutting stuff out of his head in his sleep (not exactly inaccurate; those of you living with snorers know what I'm talking about!). He also snorts this spray up his nose every night so he doesn't develop sinus infections (which he has ALL the time). So he goes, and the same doctor tells him he has a deviated septum (which we knew), his adenoids are enlarged (which we knew), that his uvula is large (which we didn't know), and that he may need tubes in his ears (huh?). So he is on the wait-list for surgery to have two taken out, one fixed and something put in. The kicker: wait is about 8 months!!! This is what you get with universal health care. Sure it's non-discriminating but you pay for it in the wait times. Plus our doctors have to wait for OR scheduling, which means they can do a surgery but they can't pull a Dr. Nick Rivera and use a pizza cutter and do it in a back room in a bar. So until then, Jarrett has to get up about 2 times at night to drain his ears.

And to top it all off, Jenna's cold officially became my cold this morning. Even after I started to take those Cold FX pills (which are bullshit by the way). I got up this morning feeling like someone run over my head. Not a good feeling. Plus Kierra's therapist called in sick for a fever... just not a good day. The thought of going out today to drive them to school erks me. I just want to sit in my jammies all day long! WAH!!!! At least Jarrett is back from his business trip; although he'll just be snoring alongside me at night with his flappy uvula and crooked septum.

Wish us well in the house of germs and medical woes!

WINTER'S WONDERS-MAN!

Before anyone who actually still makes visits to my blog reams me a new one, I'd just like to say... yeah I suck. Honest to God, I think, "Oh I have five minutes, I'm going to post something" and then I get side-tracked and two days later I remember where I left my train of thought. Not too many trains coming into the station lately huh?

So hope you all had a good week-end. I had an interesting one. Let's start off with Friday. Friday: my darling hubby took the day off so we could take the girls to see Santa. Usually Jarrett misses this event, because he is working. I guess I could wait until the week-end, but who in their right mind would try to visit Santa on a Saturday? It was bad enough that he accepted children at 10:00am... we were there exactly at 10:00 am and we still waited 45 minutes to see him!! Thank goodness they have a workshop play-area to occupy them. They were satisfied to wait. When they finally got to see the man in red, they were all smiles. Kierra made a point of sitting on Santa's lap - which was surprising! This is the first year she's had any interest in him (which is a good thing to see!). Of course I'll include a picture. I do have to make note that yes, I do realize Santa had quite possibly the worst dentures known to man. But hey - at least he took the time to grow his own beard this year.

Friday night we had my hubby's Christmas party. So I got all gussied up in a dress I already had. I tried to find something else, but alas, it was a feat too big. But that's okay - Jarrett added something new to it by giving me some Christmas ice a little early. This would be a one carat diamond solitaire pendant, and just so my ears didn't feel lonely - 2/3 carat a piece diamond earrings!!!

Yes swoon!!! Who doesn't swoon when their husbands give them over 2 carats of diamonds? He let me wear them as he said it was a "special occasion". However, he did take them back at the end of the night so he could wrap them and put them under the tree. Don't ask me how his mind works. I had to scratch my head at that one. He said so I had something to open Christmas morning. I told him usually that is a moot point when you already wore the gift. Oh well!! But the party was very nice!! I made a new friend (I sound like I'm in elementary school), and I won the centerpiece from our table. Jarrett won $250.00 in a gift card for an electronics store. I can't tell you how great that is, considering the ipod I was going to buy him cost around that much. Christmas present for Jarrett... CHECK!

Saturday we had Kierra's doctor appointment. I'll do another posting this week on the results from that (otherwise you'll be sitting here in a marathon posting). We then met a little girl and her mom from the twins class for the movie "Enchanted". The girls LOVED it! Kierra was cracking up almost the entire time. She has a crazy laugh - which made us laugh. After that, Jarrett went out and bought some stuff to make me a dinner, which he eloquently called it "a special dinner for my lady friend". Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ok nerd. He was actually singing this lame song as he prepared it. He made hor d'oerves, a great chicken pasta dish, champagne and chocolate mousse cake. YUM!!!! Needless to say - romantic evening a la deux!

Sunday, I slept in until 10:30 (whoops!) and then spent the afternoon in a baking frenzy. I baked about 14 dozen cookies, made 30 mincemeat tarts, hand dipped a bag of pretzels because Jarrett likes chocolate-covered pretzels.... and then made three trays of homemade chocolates. Puff puff puff.

So anyways, that's about it from me!!! I'll try to be more diligent in posting this week (however we all know how good I've been about that lately!) Thanks for coming back!