Celebrating the new year with family

Yes, I'm a little behind. And I have new stuff from the past week, spending time with Lee's family for his grandmother's funeral and spending time with sweet friends along the way, but that will all come in due time. (Which, for me, probably means in a month or two. I'm just not one of those bloggers who takes pictures in the morning and has the post up in the afternoon. I'd love to be that pulled together, but that's not in the forecast any time soon.)

On New Year's Day, we headed over to my grandmother's house in Winston-Salem to spend the day with her, as well as my sister and her boyfriend who had come up for a visit. That was a treat because we rarely see each other, other than brief visits here and there.

It was so sweet to actually get to spend a little time with Lis and James!

As as you can see above, even sweet Cady came along.

Cady is willing to share Lis with James, which is saying a lot. She's a rescue dog who was found owner-less after Hurricane Katrina, and she obviously experienced some ugliness at the hands of a man because she's not fond of the menfolk. James has gotten her approval, though!

Cady even got to meet her cousin-in-fur and fellow rescue mutt, Napoleon.

Cady and Napoleon didn't play much together (Cady's a little skittish about other dogs sometimes), but she did just fine with our other pint-sized guy!

They even exchanged kisses!

Because Cady growled once at Lee, though, Daddy's girl wasn't so sure about her canine cousin.

I love capturing her personality on film. (Yes, yes, I know it's not film. But "on SD card" just doesn't have the same ring to it.)

One thing I cannot pass up on getting on film is loved ones reading books with my children. It's even more rare to get good candid shots of Nana because she prefers to pose formally whenever a camera is in view.

But this?

Melts.my.heart.

While I was able to capture the sweet reading moment, I'm still learning the ins and outs of my camera. I love the picture below, but I managed to get the poinsettia in focus and my main men out of focus. It's still mighty precious nonetheless!

I'm learning more and more about using my trusty DSLR, and it's pretty fun to figure out. Even my okay pictures with it are a bazillion and one times better than most of my good pictures with my old camera. And you've gotta admit that a picture like the one below wouldn't look as cool with a little point and shoot camera, right?

But back to our day with family...dinosaur, anyone?

Our sweet girl insists on opening other people's presents. We restrain that part of her at parties for her friends, but great-grandmothers don't typically mind that sort of thing.

And as for our little man, he might as well have hung the moon in Nana's eyes. She has always favored little boys, and our handsome fella was named after her father and twin brother.

How precious they are!

But who wouldn't love a guy who has his own spinning dance parties in the foyer?

He doesn't suck his thumb much unless he's tired or hurt, but he does occasionally opt for the bored hand-sucking.

 
While our girl has long since given up the thumb, she isn't too big for her mimi (the purple blankie). Shout out to our friend Heather for giving us the most used and loved new baby gift four years ago! There is no mimi like purple mimi.

Nana was impressed as how well our little man was trained to keep his arms behind his back when we were around all the breakables in her house. (Umm, confession: he isn't trained to do that. That day he just decided it would be fun to walk around with his hands behind his back, something that has amused him a few times since then. We had never seen him do it before New Year's Day.)

And another confession: We didn't tell Nana that we hadn't trained him to do that. We just smiled when she complimented us on that. (And, considering that she still doesn't know how to use a computer, much less how to access our blog, that secret will stay safe here.)

Finally, if you've hung in here this long (I would apologize for the length, but I'm not really sorry, so I'll keep it real by omitting the "sorry it's so long" mumbo jumbo), here are some of my favorite pictures from the visit. Though Christmas seems like it was more than a month and a half ago, I'm still awestruck by the beauty of Nana's tree. Let it be a reminder to us all to celebrate Christ all year!

Me too.

He ran up to this picture at the museum yesterday and announced, "I want go there."

Me too, little man. Me too.

A sweet date with my birthday girl

For her fourth birthday, we splurged for a date with yours truly to the movies, including popcorn and candy.

(Side note: This might not be a big deal in your family, but we don't go to the movies. It's not because of the cost - though that's certainly part of it - but mostly because we just don't feel like it's that fantastic of an experience. Lee and I were dating or engaged for six years, and I think we saw less than five movies in the theater during that time, and we've only seen two or three more since. During my freshman year of high school, my drama teacher assigned a paper two days before finals, asking us to review a movie that we had seen in the theaters that semester; rather than 'fess up my freshman uncoolness of not having been to the movies that year and ask to review a less current film, my mom and I went that night. {Thanks, Mom!} The whole idea of sitting in a dark, quiet place with sticky, greasy floors with other people who may or may not understand proper theater etiquette just isn't all that enticing to us. And then you ask us to pay how much for an experience that isn't all that thrilling in the first place?!? Eh, we'll pass.)

I may not care for trips to the movies, but I have a little princess. She loves Disney. She loves movies. She loves dates with Mommy or Daddy, special times when she gets us one on one. She loves doing big kid things.

Which is why I knew she would LOVE seeing Tangled on the big screen.

As it turns out, the only Friday night showings now (and maybe ever?) of Tangled are in 3D. So we rocked the glasses.

And, as much as I don't love the movie theater experience, I did L-O-V-E Tangled. Ohmygoodness. Solid music? Check. Witty dialogue that doesn't insult the intellect with potty humor? Check. Sacrificial love? Check. Clear good and bad? Check. Cute little chameleon side kick? Check. (The first Disney hero I thought was an animated hottie? Check. umm, did I really just type that?)

Precious little birthday girl wearing a Tangled dress-up dress and 3D glasses
who climbed into my lap halfway through the movie because she doesn't weigh enough yet to keep the seat down on her own,
who wore four different hairbows in her hair because she couldn't choose just one, 
who danced in the aisles until the credits were over,
who screamed and yelled "oh, no!" when the main guy and a horse fell off a cliff,
who occasionally hugged me and said "I love you" at random points in the movie,
who told me that we could cuddle with each other to stay warm as we walked back to the car because that's what penguins do,
who insisted that we bring some of our candy and popcorn back to Daddy and Robbie and maybe even Napoleon,
and who was in awe of the whole movie theater experience?

Check!

in which I bathe in bleach and turn my bodily fluids orange

In other words, in which I (hopefully) say goodbye to MRSA foh-ever. (I would say faux-ever, but Norma is busy saving the fauxes.)

I saw an infectious disease specialist today because, you know, eight bouts of MRSA in two years (plus a tryst with c. diff for good measure) isn't good for anyone. We have a plan, which (thankfully!) doesn't involve changing my arthritis meds.  That's wonderfully marvelous very good fantastic supercalifragilisticexpialidocious news because those drugs finally seem to be working well (hallelujah and amen)!

Here's the dealio; for the next week I will

• take two different antibiotics, including one that will probably turn my tears, sweat, spit, and other bodily fluids bright orange (note to self: avoid wearing white while taking that stuff)
• use antibiotic ointment in my nose twice a day, not because I have an infection there but because that's a place that MRSA likes to hang out
• use a special antibacterial soap called Hibaclens every day for the week
• pour a cup of bleach in a bath and soak in it for 15 minutes twice during that week (second note to self: if I ignore my first note to self, just wear those clothes in the tub)
• wash all our linens a couple times in hot water, particularly sheets and towels

After that week, I'll use the soap a couple times a week and do the bleach baths every couple of weeks. And, of course, do the other typical good hygiene stuff that we do so that we can engage with others in polite society because it's good for us.

If you've made it this far, I need some recommendations, por favor. What's your favorite moisturizer or lotion? I know the Hibalcens dries me out badly, and I can't imagine that the bleach is going to help with that. So I'm willing to accept any donations of suggestions for lotion.

And I'd love it if you would pray that this will eradicate the scourge of MRSA in our house.
'cause that would really rock.

both little and big boys

I discovered something on Christmas morning this year.

You see, I thought I had bought presents for our son.

Turns out that most of them were for my husband too! They played happily together, and Lee continued playing even if he got left alone for a bit.

For example, they had to take turns with the cannon on their new pirate ship.

(You can see the ball loaded in the blue cannon above. In the picture below, it's the black blur in the middle bottom of the picture.)

The two of them played with this (and other new toys) most of the day.

I love both of my cute boys!