Holidaze

All this occurred in the last two days:

1- DSAC holiday party:  Awesome.  Very warm, lovely to see lots of people in our Charlotte area DSAC family.  Santa came and the kids got a picture with him.  Ian deemed him not the real Santa because when he told him that he wanted a DS and a DS game, Santa told him that that was a lot of presents to ask for.  **edited to add that it SNOWED big fat flakes outside during the party!  Sooo magical!

2-Ian's piano recital:  So adorable.  I love that he is learning how to play.  I really need to be better about having him practice.  It is one of those things that gets pushed to the side- someone is sleeping, it's too late, blah blah blah.  It needs to be an every day event and it is more like a twice a week if we are lucky event.  He reads music and plays with both hands, and really has learned a lot in the year he has been taking lessons, but I know he could do so much more so much faster if I was on top of things.

Here is the video of him playing (which will probably only be watched by his grandparents, I understand :)


3- Outreach Appreciation Party at Elevation Church:  The Outreach group honored a handful of partners, and the DSAC was one of them.  They hosted a small, classy reception for everyone, and then gave gift bags to the partners...with giant checks in them.  We have an extra $15,000 from them to add to our programming budget for next year now.  How awesome is that?!

4- Church service Saturday night.

5- Dinner with 2 couples from our DSAC group at Bonefish.  I may or may not have had 3 glasses of white Sangria.  Needless to say, it was lovely.  I am always reminded that we would not know these people if not for Chase's extra chromosome.  Our conversations touch occasionally on Ds, but that is far from the only thing holding our friendship together.  I love that they are in our lives.
**Thank you to my mom who took the boys home and got them to bed while we partied!**

6- Made 7 dozen gingerbread men and hosted a cookie exchange for the birth-3 DSAC group at my house.  I successfully cleaned up my kitchen mess, showered, finished hanging my picture wall, and cleaned the rest of the house (downstairs...don't ask me about my bedroom and the pile of laundry in there) before everyone got here.  Christmas miracle, I tell you.  We had 13 people here, I think...plus I don't even know how many kids.  At one point, I watched Ian get taken DOWN on the trampoline by two girls.  He told me later that the only way he could get them to stop trying to get him was to make them cry.  Nice.  All the older kids were still talking to each other by the time they left and were making plans for their next play date, so I guess all was forgiven.

7- I made red sauce from scratch without a recipe and EVERYONE ate it.  Score!

8- We (mostly) remembered to put drops in Chase's ear during all of this.  He had an ear infection so bad that his eardrum ruptured on Friday at school.  This is so frustrating.  No symptoms, no fever, no tugging on the ear.  The only thing that he did was have a really fitful night of sleep around Wednesday, when he got up, oh, a million times, and I got really frustrated because he was refusing to settle down.  Poor guy was probably miserable and couldn't tell me about it.  Screw you, limited verbal skills.  I hate you.

9-I forgot to mention that Bryan passed his kidney stone.  Not really my accomplishment, but we are all happy for him and look forward to having him back to normal.  (Is this a gift-giving occassion?  I feel like I should give him one of those 'push-presents'..?)


And now, we are back to Monday.  I have all of my Christmas cards to send out (ok, I have to address them and stamp them, too.)  They very well may be New Year's cards at this point.  I also have the presents for my nieces and nephews to send out still (Happy New Year's, again).  There is wrapping that needs to happen soon, and some last minute gifts to shop for and finish making.  My brother will be here soon, hopefully to help with the cookie eating, which I have been taking on mostly by myself.  Busy times, these!