We survived!

Well, we managed to survive Christmas break. It was a long break having been cooped up in the house most of the two weeks, but we made it. Cole had to start school back a day earlier than Kelsey because his school had been flooded with sewage back in October and it was time to make up the 4 days they missed during the clean-up process. But, it was good for Kelsey to have one extra day of recovery. We weren't sure she would be able to go back this past Tuesday, but she made quick progress in just a matter of 24 hours. She received a clean bill of health from her surgeon Tuesday morning, and off to school she went. Ella started back to preschool on Tuesday as well.

I'd like to say that having them all back in school, I rushed home to get the house back in shape and rest before they returned home, but if you know me well enough, you know that's not the case. Having had the girls' doctor appointments scheduled for 9:00am in downtown Birmingham required us leaving the house at 8:00 to make to the appointment in time. Needless to say it was pouring down rain and rush our traffic was at a standstill. However, we did manage to make it there in the nick of time. Ella was started on a 2nd dose of antibiotics because she failed her pressure test due to fluid remaining behind her left eardrum. The tube in her left ear has come out prematurely and is lying in the ear canal...that does her no good. The right ear looked great and it passed the pressure test. We wait now to see if the fluid drains like it's supposed to. If not, she has to have a 2nd set of tubes and have her adenoids removed. I'm really praying the fluid resolves and we don't have to undergo another surgery. I've about had all I can take with hospitals and surgeries. If she has to have another surgery, that will put our family having had 4 surgeries in 2 years' time. NO MORE SURGERY!!!!

Anyway, I digressed. I got Ella to school around 10:30 and Kelsey to school at 10:45am. That left me with two hours before I had to pick Ella back up. Really not a lot of time to get much done. I decided to rush off to the grocery store to do my shopping. I'm on this kick right now to weed out my cookbooks. I have so many of them that I've never used, or maybe just used a couple of times that I thought it was time to see what else they have to offer. I'm going through one book at a time and planning my meals from there. We are going to keep the recipes that we like and print them up so that I can finally rid my house of all of these books that are just collecting dust. I returned home with about an hour to spare, so I started prepping meats and vegetables. By the time Jason got home from work, I had prepared 4 meals and had 4 more to go. One of the meals that was prepared was one we had for dinner, the rest went into the freezer. After I got Ella to bed, off I went to finish making those other four meals. I can't tell you how liberating it felt having had all that done and now I have enough meals in the freezer to feed us for 3 weeks and all I have to worry about now is baking them and preparing sides. It will free up so much time in the kitchen. I'm ecstatic!

On another note, Cole's spelling bee is early tomorrow morning and I'm really excited for him. Last year, he lost during the third round with the word bureaucracy. Jason and I didn't even remember seeing that on the list of words they sent home for him to study. This year, he has worked so hard to learn all the words. They sent home 1 1/2 sheets of words with four columns on each sheet. They're printed small and it's a lot of words, but he's up for the task. I have to make a stop at the drug store in the morning to see if they have any video discs for my camcorder. I forgot to pick some up. I'll be sure to let all of you know how he does.