Bling! and a gross picture of stitches so don't scroll down past the first story if you don't want to see it.

For Christmas we granted Erin permission to get her ears pierced.  

Mixed feelings about it.

She LOVES having earrings and can't wait to switch them out next month.  

Man she's so big.

ALSO: 

(warning: gross picture of stitches below)

I'm recovering from surgery.  

I had a tumor in my saliva gland removed and the reports came back

 that it was benign and should not reoccur.  Yippee! 

I might have some side effects but the most important one that might have happened didn't.  Phew!!

The facial nerve goes right through the spit gland so they had to be really careful not to damage that nerve.  And they didn't.  And I'm so glad.

My sister Cally came down to help out which was so nice.  

But I wish I wasn't drugged and sore so we could have had more fun.

I think I might have to fake another need and have both sisters required to come help but the chance of infection would be high so I would have to recover in some comfy resort hotel with both girls in attendance.  And room service.  And spa service.  

And JD should probably come for the heavy lifting.  Oooo.

Yes, I think so.

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Slowing down now!

Good thing I don't have sponsors on this blog.  They'd be dumping me left and right for sure!

It's been a crazy couple of months!  I did get my tree up.  I know you were worried about that.

We had a FUN Christmas and New Year's with lots of family!

Puzzle time!  Apparently the lighting wasn't stellar enough for the piece placers.

Cassy NEVER ceases to amaze me.  She is a wonder woman...uh, bat girl.

Elliot, Erin and Kacie in the woods.  I love this picture!! 

We took a bunch of family pictures.  Seth is our photographer.  Love that guy!

The trampoline is always a hit with the kiddos.

A TREE HOUSE was built!  An amazing feat and it's pretty darn cool.  

We have a tree house.

Hey,  guess what?

We have a tree house.

I love it so much when family is around.

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Note to self...

The entire tree must go up before the end of the week.  Just get it DONE!

At least I turn on the lights to give some sense of lovely Christmas cheer.  Even if it is only a disk or wreath of evergreen and lights and not an entire tree.

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Occupied

66% of our household were unhappy with the way the finances are being handled.  

The other 33% stayed inside and watched Edward Scissorhands.

16% came inside to finish out the night in her wee little bed.

50% made it through the night and came in to join us for breakfast.

It's official...

I'm an athlete.




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Halloween

We got ourselves a Cowgirl, a ninja, a dementor and a ring wraith.

Toothless

She lost these two teeth on a Sunday morning pretty much within 10 minutes of each other.  

It was quite a Hilarious thing.

The very next SUNDAY morning...  

Now she has the one dangling tooth in the middle of her smile.

But being quite unprotected by it's neighboring chickletts...

The lone tooth was knocked out completely by accident by a best friend's elbow at school.

The tooth went flying and though the whole class spent valuable instruction time searching for the little nugget, (don't bother asking that class how to subtract - they spent the initial lesson looking for a tooth!)

they were unsuccessful.  She came home toothless with nothing for the fairy.  

My toothless wonder.

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