Yes, I still live...

...although I am not sure how I have survived the last 4 weeks somedays. It has been a terribly busy and stressful time at our house so blogging has taken a backseat. Not that bloggable stuff hasn't happened--it definitely has. It unfortunately has happened over and over and over again, while in the meantime not giving me any time to really get it all down. I will do it in list form so that I can get it out. I will not go into too much detail, but hopefully this will get me back on my blogging track. I hate that everyone is missing out on our family's lives. So here it is...4 weeks in a nutshell:

1. We attended my cousin John's wedding in Longboat Key, FL the weekend before Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time. We stayed the week of Thanksgiving in Holiday, FL at the newlywed couple's house while they were on their honeymoon. My other cousin Robert and his fiance Kayla live 2 doors down from the house and we got the pleasure of hanging out with them a lot. We took over their house in the morning because John and Mary didn't have a coffee pot! Poor things...and let's just say that they got more than a taste of what it was like to have children in the house!! We had a great time with them. My Aunt Nancy lives about 15 minutes away from their so we were lucky enough to get to spend some time with her and Bill, as well as Grandma and Uncle John and Toni (who were all in town for the wedding and Thanksgiving, too!). Robert and John's youngest brother, Stephen, was in town for the wedding on leave from the Army for the occasion. It was great to see him--we are all SO proud!

While in Holiday, we were also very blessed that Roger's Aunt Doris lived literally about 2 blocks away from John and Robert! This allowed us the great pleasure of spending some time with Doris and I finally got to meet Roger's cousins, Spike, Tony, and Michael. I had heard a lot about these guys, but had never met them before. What a great group of people! We had such a good time and even got some adult time together with Tony and his girlfriend while Robert and Kayla took the boys for a few hours. We spent Thanksgiving dinner with them as well. Which leads me to number 2.

2. "Hey Roger, do you want to play flag football tomorrow morning? I know some guys who are getting together." "Sure, sounds great." This conversation has come to haunt me. Roger did play flag football with Robert, and did well from what I understand. Unfortunately, I was not able to see him do well because on my way to the game with the boys (so that they could watch their daddy play football) I received this phone call. "I need you to bring me some ice. I hurt my knee." I said ok, and stopped at Starbucks to get coffee and a bag of ice while my brain was screaming "Oh, crap." Little did I know.

We spent the day in the ER getting X-rays. Happy Thanksgiving. Roger had broken his tibial plateau (look it up, it's too much to explain on here) with displacement and fragments. Oh, lovely. Surgery here we come. We spent the evening at Doris' house for Thanksgiving with Roger staying in one place because he couldn't move. He was miserable, but trying to have a good time with his cousins that he hadn't seen in a while. When we got home, we had to prepare for the 10 hour return drive to SC so that we could try to plan for his surgery. It was a super long day and I won't go into details, but we were so glad to get home!

3. ER visit number 2. Roger was losing feeling in his foot so we decided to get to the hospital and see if we could get it better taken care of and possibly get in with an orthopedic surgeon. Of course no one was going to operate on the holiday weekend, so we got a prescription to call the office Monday. Thanks for nothing. He had been broken for 5 days by the time we got to the doctor's office. They scheduled the surgery for Wednesday, he came home Thursday evening. No weight bearing for up to 12 weeks. Crutches and a wheel chair. Pain, pain, pain. The first day home was terrifying. My strong husband was struggling so much and it hurt me deeply to see it. Thank God my mother in law was here! She stayed through till the next Thursday morning and was a God sent Angel!

4. I have discovered that when my life is out of control, that I obsessively clean my kitchen. I can't control Roger's pain, his recovery, or the stress that comes with that. I am stressed about the kids, it was Christmas, the dog is dying (more on that later, too), and the only one who can do anything is me. When my life feels crazy, I clean the kitchen. I never had the desire to clean the kitchen like I do now. But, I guess it's always clean, right? Now, if I don't keel over from the fumes of this obsessive cleaning, we will be in business.

5. Justice and I have made several trips to the vet in the last couple of weeks. Each visit was sad and anticipatory of saying goodbye to him for the last time. He is still here, but we are on our last treatment option and we know that it's temporary. He made it through the holidays and we are just sort of waiting now. Please pray for us that the goodbye is painless for him (and us). It's hard on all of us.

6. Last, but not least, I have a 4.5 year old and a 1.5 year old who both miss their daddy and for at least the first week seemed mad at Mommy because of it. They are adjusting to Daddy's boo-boo now, so we are getting better. We made it through Christmas (pictures to come, I promise) even though there were no Christmas cards this year. They will be super late, but will get there, so bear with me. They are growing like weeds and are both so funny. Colin is coming into his own and starting to enjoy learning to read. Nothing major yet, but it is so awesome to see his wheels turning. Christopher is at that hilarious age where the things he says are so funny either because he is repeating something that he has heard or just jibber jabbering to himself. His latest is if you ask him a question that he doesn't know that answer to, he replies "Ohhhh. Nutning." (Oh, nothing). He is always ready with a grin for you and you can't help but smile back. These boys, while driving me insane have the uncanny ability to keep me sane. It's the oddest thing. I love them so much and this has brought me to tears more than once in recent weeks!

So that is it in a nutshell. I am sure there is more to tell and I will try to be better about sharing, but for now just know that I am doing my best here and sometimes it will make it into the blogosphere and sometimes it won't.

Oh yeah...HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope that everyone has a very successful and fulfilling 2010!