Crafting Teacher Gifts

This week Bradley and I were busy crafting with old Christmas cards to make handmade presents for his teachers. There were 6 teachers so we made 2 of these geodisic ornaments....

(Instructions and pic from this site)

They were hard but turned out pretty!

Next we made 4 of these with Birch slices from Michael's. Brad helped me decoupage pictures to the front, and daddy drilled a small hole for the string.

These are my favorite! I save my cards every year to try new crafts with. We may have to do this again next year. He also wrote his name and the year on the back.

Christmastime and Surgery Time

I managed to fill the freezer, finish chores, and get the house decorated for Christmas before my surgery Monday!

We've already gotten several inches of snow, and it's been lovely to see from my window.

On Monday the 3rd I had my first surgery (I don't count wisdom teeth removal...) which was an open ventral hernia repair. I chose a great surgeon I work with and I was very happy with everything! It was outpatient at my hospital, and of course the whole family came along due to NO babysitter :) The staff was amazing and let even the little ones come into pre-op and post-op to see me. And my lovely coworker Jessica brought a special gift bag in for the kids, as well as a nice gift bag for me from the unit! So sweet!!

The incision is only a couple inches, and I've really had little to no pain since I woke up. I didn't require anything in recovery, and I've only taken a couple Norco right after just to ward off potential pain. Frankly I've been battling a headache more!

I am getting around pretty well at home, and have started venturing outside the house. But I am of course on lifting restrictions so I won't be going back to work till next month. My post-op checkup is Tuesday. I was able to remove the outer dressing today, and the steri-strips will come off on their own.

Nick has done wonderfully taking care of me while watching the boys and keeping the house clean.

Today I got out with the boys for a fun afternoon of Christmas events in our town. They had Santa there, pizza, donuts, music, and crafts for the kids. They had a blast! We love our town.

Food Prepping and Snow

This big guy loves to help me in the kitchen! And his attention span is up to about 4 seconds!

We got our first dusting of snow a couple weeks ago. Brad was already asking to go sledding...

It melted the next day, so Nick and Jacob hit the leaves with the mower one last time.

I'm going to be out on medical leave soon, so I've been meal prepping to stock our freezer so that I don't have to bother with grocery shopping or cooking for awhile! I spent an afternoon cooking and knocked out several meals. I even enlisted the help of Brad.

That day I made sauce, lasagna, meatloaf, tuna casserole, and banana bread. Yum!

We had company over for chicken fried steak last week, and wouldn't you know it--the kitchen sink decided to clog right before they got here! Nick got on the next day, and it took the whole afternoon to fix! Thank God he was able to finally clear it. Damn potato peels!

Today we got a bit more snow, and the news called it a "snow squall" that came thru. It dumped heavy snow for about 30min. We have maybe 2-3" on the ground. Our high temp tomorrow is only 20°!

I've been prepping all day for turkey day tomorrow, and I work tomorrow night so it will be a long day! Hope you all have a great holiday with family.

Jack O' Lanterns and Costumes

We had a great Halloween here! I was lucky to have the night off work and got to take the boys out trick or treating. We carved our huge pumpkins a few days before.

We've been getting a lot of rain, and it was still a bit drizzly when we started out. It cleared off enough to where we didn't get wet while walking around the neighborhood. Nick wore his costume and handed out candy.

The boys had a great time! After one round I dropped Jacob off at home, then went back out with Brad. They got a ton of candy and had a fun time!!

The leaves are coming down more around here, and it's very pretty! It's been in the 40s and rainy for about a week now so it definitely feels like fall is here!