December

What a month!!  It was full of a variety of activities.

Our month started with Kimball's elbow surgery.  He had an anterior transposition of his right ulnar nerve.  Basically he had his ulnar nerve (funny bone) moved into the muscle of his arm. The surgery went well and he did great!  He was on pain medication for five days which wasn't too bad.

This is what Kimball's bandaged arm looked like.

Kimball had his bandage removed after 12 days.  His incision looks great and I'm jealous that his scar looks so good.  Mine did not look as nice after my elbow surgery.  He has a lot of bruising, but that will go away.  The surgical outcome...he feels great!  He can tell already that he is much stronger and doesn't have anymore nerve pain.  He is eager to get the next surgery scheduled so he can feel the same relief in his left arm.  Kimball's elbow is healing nicely.  Picture one is 2 weeks post surgery.  Picture 2 is 3 weeks post surgery.    Kimball has commented so many times how happy he is to have had the surgery.

We are trying to celebrate some of the Dutch holidays that Kimball experienced last year.  Sinterklaas came the night of December 5th. I loved that Kimball put out his Frisian clogs.  I made everyone a chocolate letter--initial of their first name-- and bought some Dutch cookies from Aldi.

Lincoln and Annika had a band concert and Joseph had a orchestra concert.  I didn't get any pictures of Joseph at his concert.  We had driven to the concert in a snowstorm so all of my mental energy was on keeping us alive.  He didn't think we would attend the concert because of the weather and he was VERY surprised when he saw us after the concert. 

Middle School Chorus Concert for Annika.

Third Grade holiday celebrations.  Eden's grade did an international study where each student picked a different country to research.  To finalize the unit they had a celebration where they brought in a food from each country.  Eden researched Poland and she took in perogies.

Piano Recital for Rebecah and Annika

Rebecah's piano teacher happens to be our neighbor and great friend!  My kids play with her girls all of the time.  It's nice having a close piano teacher so Rebecah can continue with piano lessons.

Christmas Eve

We did our usual Christmas Eve traditions.  We decorated gingerbread houses and went to the Lutheran Christmas Eve service where Joseph played his violin.  In the evening we ate our traditional meal and watch A Christmas Carol, read Luke 2 and the kids opened their present from Grandma Bev and one from me.

What a great group!  I'm so glad Kimball is with us this year.  If things go as he planed, he'll be in Belgium next year, and he just plans to visit his host families in the Netherlands for Christmas next year.  I tried to soak up every moment of having all five of my kids together this year.

Ready for Christmas morning!

Joseph was on call Christmas Day.  The original plan was to get up and have Christmas morning at 7:30.  About 7:15 Joseph told me he needed to leave soon for a surgery so I quickly woke everyone up, except for Lincoln, who was already wake, so they could see what Santa brought before Joseph left.  We ended up having time for one round of presents before Joseph left so I made sure the younger kids had something to do while Joseph was gone.

Lincoln got a Lego set from Santa so he built that while Joseph was at work.  Eden did some reading and Annika colored.  When the kids were "bored" they watched a movie and then we started a game of Clue, which Lincoln got for Christmas. 

Joseph got home about 1:30.  While the turkey rested and the potatoes cooked we did a few rounds of presents.  After we ate and cleaned up we finished opening presents.

In the evening we played games that we had gotten for Christmas.  I can honestly say that this year was one of our best Christmases ever!!  Everyone loved spreading present opening out throughout the entire day.  Since we don't have family around to spend time with it helped our day feel more special celebrating this way.  We all agreed to do a gradual opening again next year.  Merry Christmas!

Our New Year's Eve was fairly calm.  I made appetizer foods and we watched a movie while we ate.  I think we played a game and everyone was in bed before midnight!  

We have gotten a LOT of snow already this winter season.  As of January 2, our snowfall total is 80.7  inches and our normal average is 42.7 inches.