Thanksgiving

 We enjoyed a quiet, peaceful Thanksgiving at my parent's house.

We had a small crowd this year compared to others,

but the little girls still dressed the part for Turkey Day !

 

Audra, Maura, Teagan, Tatum

 

The girls had fun coloring on the activity table cloth while our feast was being prepared.

 

We eat an early dinner on Thanksgiving, 

which means we are usually all cleaned up by 3:30...

just in time for the women to go shopping!

I have always loved to go shopping on Black Friday,

but for the past few years the shopping extravaganza has been beginning on the evening of Thanksgiving. 

I like to call it "Grey Thursday".

 I know some people are opposed to it, but for us it really works.  

The women shop, the kids play and the dads watch football.

It's a win-win-win all around! 

 

We made our rounds at Toys R Us, Target, Walmart and Kohl's and made it back to my parent's house about 8:30.

 

Then this morning, true to tradition,

our Elf on the Shelf "Elfie" arrived!

He brought along his suitcase full of shirts from last year,

and an Advent Calendar.

Celebrating Grandma

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday,

so today we {my sister and I} took her on an outing with the little girls...

to paint pottery!

 

We chose a nice big platter for her to use at all of our family gatherings.

 



 

First we painted on the base coat, a light tan color that covered the whole dish.

Us mommies made sure that the entire dish was painted before we moved on,

this was the not-so-fun part for the little girls.

 

 

Then we let the little girls freehand paint with a light green and light blue color...



Once the plate was full of color and mostly dry we put each little girls handprint on...

 

And we finished it off with some personalization,

this was the most nerve-wracking  part...



 But the finished product turned out perfect,

and Grandma loved it !!

 

It was an adventure, and a bit challenging with 3 of the 4 girls not really being "in to it".

I bet you can guess which girl loved it the most.

 

After our arts and crafts session it was time for dinner and cake...

 4 out of 4 girls were in to that !

 

Happy Birthday Grandma !!

Audra's health update

Audra has been struggling with not feeling quite herself for a while now.

Really, ever since she got sick on vacation in August.

She just hasn't gotten back to "herself".

She has been sent home from school many times for low grade fevers.

And generally she just seems tired and sluggish.

She isn't using the few words that she usually does,

and she isn't her happy, smiley, hyper self.

 

She hasn't had any symptoms to help guide us to what might be bothering her

and her limited language really impacts her ability to tell us what is wrong.

She is such a little mystery.

 

We have talked with many of her specialists and done some non-invasive testing to try to determine the problem. 

All we know is that her bloodwork shows signs of infection/inflammation but where is the big question ?!

 

So we came up with a plan...

Audra was scheduled to have dental work done under anesthesia so her GI doctor decided to scope her too.  And today was the big day.

 

Here she is in pre-op this morning with her faithful hospital buddy Pink-Flamingo-Bunny.

 This is their 13th trip to the OR together in Audra's 3 1/2 years at home.

 

Audra had an eventful afternoon in the OR...

sweet girl needed to have FIVE teeth extracted due to "crowding".

She had some adult teeth coming in but none of her baby teeth were even loose yet. 

So now she is missing six total including the one she lost on her own last month.

The top two and bottom four teeth are gone,

she is a toothless wonder.

Will certainly make for easy slurping of noodles !!

And as if that wasn't enough,

the dentist also took care of a few cavities and a crown.

This princess has more crowns than she needs

{in her mouth that is, not on her precious head!}

 

The scope went well also, but no real answer was found.

It showed her usual friable tissue with a tendency to bleed.  But no lurking signs of infection/inflammation...or worse.

So now we wait for the biopsy results to come back next week.

Once we finally got home after our long day,
Maura was super sweet and wanted to comfort and take care of Audra.
Her little face is so swollen...



but she still managed to give me a {toothless} smile for the camera :)