Pictureless

I really haven't had much to blog about lately... well, I take that back, I have, but have failed to take any pictures therefore, didn't feel like any posts would be too interesting.  The first weekend in December, the entire family (minus the kids and Chris b/c he was having some pain from a recent surgery) took the Annual Brink Christmas Shopping Trip to Birmingham.  Debbie and Tony always give us our Christmas money, as well as money for our kids, treat us to a trip out of town for a weekend, and let us do all the buying for ours and our kids' Christmas gifts (although they do still buy us some surprises for Christmas morning).  It's much easier on Debbie to do this because she doesn't have to try and buy for all 10 of us, plus we all love it because we are guaranteed to get the things we want and need for Christmas!  Not only that, but we also do breakfast, lunch and dinner together so we have a really good time being together as a family.  It ended up being us girls shopping together on Saturday, while the guys finished their shopping early in the day so they could watch the SEC Championship game that afternoon.  By late afternoon, Haley and I still had a large portion of our money left over after having visited The Summit and Brookwood Mall, so Haley, Stacey and I headed to the Galleria for a marathon shopping excursion.  We split up in order to get more accomplished and literally didn't leave the mall until after 9pm.  More than 12 full hours of shopping.  My back was hurting me so bad, I wanted to cry! I've never thought of shopping as a sport, but that day, it sure felt like it! However, I got a lot of great things that I wanted, including a new handbag and some leather boots that I LOVE. 
The next weekend was our Sunday School Christmas Party.  It was a Tacky Christmas Sweater Karaoke party.  Lots o' fun!  We definitely saw the "wild side" of some of our class members as they sang and danced to some of the latest hits.  However I failed to take a single picture!  The very next night was a Phi Mu Alumni Christmas dinner at Dale's where we played Dirty Santa and I met several older Phi Mu alums that I've never met before, as well as reconnected with some that were there during my 4 years at UNA.  We have 2 more Christmas parties coming up this weekend and then the BIG week of Christmas.  I'm looking forward to it this year with both of the boys.  Last year, Collier was around 2 months old but it will be much more fun this year now that he's older.

On top of all the holiday craziness, our boys have been sick.  During the past 3 weeks, both of the boys have had terrible colds. I finally took them to the doctor early last week but was told to give them a decongestant (which I had already been doing) and if they weren't better by the end of the week, call them back for an antibiotic, which I ended up having to do.  Now that we are about 6 days into taking the antibiotics they are doing better.  Since I took them to the doctor's office, I know what each one weighs... Collier at 13 1/2 months is 19lbs 14oz. I was surprised that he's still not reached 20lbs! I guess it's all the walking he's doing now but he's only gained 2 oz in the last 6 weeks.   Noah at 4 years 7 months old is 43lbs and 42 1/2" tall.  He's our tall, lean boy!

AND to add to the fun (no sarcasm, right?), Noah came home from school yesterday vomiting.  I kept him home from school today, but thankfully, he hasn't gotten sick since last night.  He seems better, but is still weak and tired, but he's at least able to eat a little without getting sick.   Hopefully, we are on the downhill slope of this stomach virus and so far it appears that the rest of us have managed to avoid catching it.  Thank the good Lord for that!