Its Almost Christmas!

Its almost Christmas and we should probably have much to talk about since we haven’t posted in a while. 

Cookies

I would first like to talk about a recent batch of cookies I decided to bake for our friends.  Making cookies and taking them around isn’t something I always enjoy doing, I try to avoid it when I can, but at Christmas, things are different.  I’m not a fan of sugar cookies, really at all.  They’re just boring cookies.  Sugar and flour and a bunch of frosting which all gets hard and stale-just not very good.  Brittney makes wonderful chocolate chip cookies which are a common favorite, even for me.  Somehow, however, I wanted to incorporate the Christmas spirit into these cookies.  Brittney also makes chocolate chip cookie bars which are very similar to her cookies, only in a bar shape.  I decided to make the bars but cut them into Christmas shapes instead of bars.  They worked out pretty good, especially with the powdered sugar on top.  I was pleased with the result.  

Snow

So yesterday, Brittney and I woke up to about a foot of snow.  It was wonderful.  Everything was white, the snow was still coming down, our neighbors could not get out of their parking spots, school buses were late, people couldn’t get to work, absolutely lovely.  Brittney had to go to work, so naturally, I removed all the snow from the truck and shoveled the walk for her.  Despite the piles of snow everywhere, Brittney made it to work just fine thanks to 4 wheel drive.  It plowed through the snow like a champ.  Sadly, the forecast is calling for rain pretty much the rest of this week and sunshine on Christmas day.  Sunshine is nice, but the last real white Christmas I had was in Narva, Estonia.  I’m ready for a Christmas where there are just piles of snow everywhere and no one can even go anywhere because of it.  Maybe next year.

Thanksgiving

                 

Thanksgiving was fun.  We kept it pretty simple-just Macey, Brittney, and I.  We had a great feast of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, mom’s cranberry-nutty-jello thing, rolls, green beans, stuffing and pumpkin pie.  The food was fantastic.  Good job Brittney.  Besides feasting, we played with Macey and watched A LOT of football.  We think Macey likes to watch football, but she probably just likes all the bright colors flashing around on the TV.  I had all kinds of things due the upcoming week which I should have worked on……shame on me.  We did put up our Christmas decorations that weekend as well. 

The Straits Visit and Harry Potter 7.1

Last weekend, they Strait family came to spend some time with us before Christmas.  Brenda had been here many times on and off over the course of the fall, but Pappy Pookie was aching to see our little boog Macey.  Not only that, but Kami was coming home for Christmas and wouldn’t see Macey for a while if she didn’t see her now.  So they made the drive over on Friday and left Sunday morning.  It was good to see them and for Macey to see them as well. 

While the Brittney’s family was here, we took advantage of the opportunity to go see Harry Potter 7.1.  As many of you know, Brittney is a pretty big Harry Potter fan, as is her sister Kami.  She had also not seen the movie yet.  So Saturday night, Brittney, Kami, Shea and I went to the theater and watched it.  I think it was a pretty long movie.  Since I’m not a huge Potter fan, what's most important to talk about is what Brittney thought of the movie.  First of all, she was a bit worried leaving Macey at home-as any new mother would be.  As for the movie, she was disappointed.  She said so much was left out of the movie from what was written in the book (even more than the other book to movie conversions).  She said that she’d wait for something to happen as she knew it in the book, and then see how the movie portrayed that portion to then be disappointed.  We heard talk about the Hermoine and Harry make out scene, and were interested to see how that all went down (because that also is not in the book).  We expected it to come when they started doing their funny dance in the tent-which it did not.  Hopefully the next movie will make up for this one. 

Finals

Finals week and the week before were both pretty horrendous for me.  In Mechanical Engineering, it seems that the further you get in the program, the more courses have required projects for students to prove their nerdiness.  Projects are in addition to regular homework.  All these projects were due either by the end of classes, the scheduled final exam day, or something due on both days.  All these projects were done in groups, which means meeting times and places had to be agreed upon which met everyone’s schedule.  Also, mom left on the last day of class, so I needed to be home to watch the little boog everyday until Brittney came home.  I think I averaged about 5-6 hours of sleep a night for those two weeks (and that’s with Brittney choosing to not wake me in the night to change diapers or whatever).  I really don’t know how I was able to get everything done.  As I went about scrambling to finish my projects and assignments, I’d hear about a TA picking up hw later than the schedule said or I’d inadvertently find a student who understood a concept I did not and explain it to me with enough time to hammer out the solutions and other seemingly miraculous events.  Here I am, three days before Christmas, all projects done, assignments turned in, Final exams taken, and presentations given.  All I can do now is wait for grades to come out and see if it all paid off. 

………….one more semester to go!

Primary Children’s MRI

The week of Thanksgiving, Macey had an MRI at Primary Children’s Medical Center.  The purpose of this MRI was to scan Macey and see if all her anatomical hearing hardware was connected and intact.  This helps doctors to know what can and cannot be done for her hearing loss.  Poor Macey was not allowed to eat for four hours prior to her sedation.  We were pretty worried that by the time we arrived at the hospital, she’d be kicking and screaming for food.  I gave her a blessing the night before and Brittney fed her at the last possible moment.  To our surprise, she slept the whole way to the hospital, while we waited in the waiting room, and pretty much until she was given the drug.  She got a little sad when they poked her little feet and attached an IV, but really, she was a champ.  It was sad to see such a small child hooked up to so much equipment and surrounded by this ginormous MRI machine.  The imaging process didn’t take too long, but recovery took longer.  Poor Macey was so groggy she could hardly cry for food and just seemed so sad and helpless.  She eventually returned to her normal happy self.  The MRI scan showed everything (cochlea, auditory nerve, etc) was in tact, the proper size, and properly connected.  So why can’t she hear?  Well, its a little more complicate than we think, it turns out.  Without trying to go into a lot of detail, basically there are abnormalities or defects which current technology cannot detect.  The good news is that with everything they did see, Macey is a prime candidate for a cochlear implant when she is a year old. 

Growing Baby

Besides all this other nonsense I’ve rambled about, our real life consists of a beautiful little girl who continues to grow and develop. She gets cuter and cuter every day and has begun to make more squeaks, squeals, coos, and other cute noises.  She smiles and spits up a lot more now.  While we haven’t weighed her recently, we’re estimating she’s about 15 pounds.  Before thanksgiving, she was over 13 pounds.  She just keeps growing.  She isn’t crawling yet and I don’t know when children are “supposed” to start.  However, we think she’s close.  We’ll lay her on her tummy and her legs just start going.  Once she figures out the arms component of crawling, she’ll be off and running (crawling).  We read books to her and give her sitting up time.  She still loves bath time.  Brittney still has to work until the new year, so I get to take Macey to mommy for feeding.  We’ve tried about 8 different bottles, including a specially engineered one by me-no luck.  Some days she’s a little more fussy than others, but overall, I think we’ve been blessed. 

And now, baby pictures!!