Busy, busy, busy

Seriously. Crazy is the only word to describe it. I'm loosing track of time, loosing track of my mind (or at least I feel like it), and maybe loosing track of my kids but latest head count proves they're all accounted for (joking, of course). Here's a snipet of our holiday weekend:

Last Thanksgiving we decided we wanted to start a tradition of our own, one that we could continue whether we were celebrating with Jonathan's family here at home or with my family in South Carolina and/or Tennessee. So we decided that every year there was a kid friendly movie playing, we'd take the kids to the movies on Thanksgiving. Last year, I don't remember what movie it was (I think it was "Bee Movie") but we could only find whatever-movie-it-was at the dollar theater. Turns out the dollar theater had been robbed the night before and has never reopened. So, no movie last year. But, we were succeesful this year! We thoroughly enjoyed "Bolt" and highly recommend it. Good clean, kid-friendly, interesting but not scary, family movie! John's fever was breaking by that point so we had a successful trip. Nathan was the only one that needed a bathroom break and Timothy only got cranky once. After the movie, we headed to Jonathan's family's dinner, ate some very good grub, and then us ladies played Hand and Foot (a card game, not a disease).

Friday Jonathan was off again so we decided to conquer 2 big projects. #1 was setting up a new set of bunk beds in the kids' room. We already have 1 set of bunk beds in that room with Nathan on top. Caleb, originally on the bottom of the 1st set, now resides on the top bunk of the new set. While we're waiting on 2 new twin mattresses, John and Elizabeth's toddler mattresses are in a T shape on the bottom of the new set and that seems to be working out. Very, very crowded in there now but, hey -- what's a growing family to do?!? We also got down the Christmas tree and other decorations. Tree went up Friday night; other decorations went up last night.

Saturday we had decided to take the kids to the zoo to see Wildlights. Elizabeth already had plans to spend the night with her cousin Kaylee and her grandparents. So when they called and said they'd like Elizabeth at 5, we decided the zoo was out since it would just be getting dark around then. Off to COSI, we decided, but stopped to get lunch first. That's when we saw that Caleb was acting awfully weird. Yep, his turn with the virus that Nathan and John had already had. So, back home we went after lunch. I went to the store to gather cookie making supplies for next week's cookie exchange and did a little Christmas shopping. Dropped Elizabeth off, ran to Target for another few minutes of quiet Christmas shopping, then home to watch Wall E with the boys.

Yesterday was church but, of course, Caleb was sick and Tiimothy was still sick. John still was questionable so I stayed home with those 3 yesterday morning. Went last night but only because I had nursery and the kids (Nathan, John, and Elizabeth) needed to get to choir, if at all possible with the Christmas programs coming up. With Timothy still no better today, I decided we needed another visit to the dr and turns out I was right -- another sinus infection and this one is worse than the one he had a few weeks ago. So we're going to start with a 10 day set of antibiotics, a different one this time, and if that doesn't work, we'll go for the full 20 days. John's still got a runny nose but Caleb's fever broke yesterday. That leaves Elizabeth, me, and Jonathan....

Please pray for us in a few specific areas:

#1 -- that little Timothy will be able to get well so that we might not have him in and out of the drs office all winter

#2 -- that my drs appointment on Friday will show that I'm holding stable

#3 -- that we would be able to find someone to come in and help me a few days a week with the youngest 3 so that I can work with Nathan and Caleb on getting school done (any volunteers?). School is really suffering around here and we are prayerfully considering what step, if any, to take next.