First Day of Winter 2013

 December 21st was the first day of winter, 

and our family loves to celebrate the changing of seasons. 

Our first day of winter was filled with...

 a new winter discovery box,...

 

playing with our felt snowman,...

 

  snowman magnets,...

 

and making snowman sock puppets.

  

 Because the first day of winter has the fewest hours of light, 

we ate a solstice dinner by candlelight. 

  We threw "snowballs" again this year,

 

and we made two adorable snowmen.

Happy Winter!

{Gratitude} Lately

Every day I look around in amazement at all the 

beautiful, yet simple, things that I'm so thankful for.

 Lately I've been grateful for...

 a handmade coffee/tea cozy that reminds me of my childhood home

 nourishing food delivered by sweet friends

 a meditation guide 

and a lovely magazine

 goodies in the mail

 delicious and healthier candy canes

 

and ugly sweaters and a special Seed group to wear them with

Advent 2013

 

This year, we started Advent twelve days before Christmas. I'm not sure we could have started it sooner even if we had wanted to, but thankfully, we had already planned to do a shorter Advent season this year. We're skipping some of our typical activities, reading a few extra Christmas books each night during family time, and really enjoying this special season. Here's a glimpse at some of our fun so far...

We kicked off Advent by visiting a live Nativity at a local church. 

This was our third year visiting "A Walk Through Bethlehem" 

and it is becoming quite the family tradition.

We've played with Nativity magnets...

 and Nativity stickers.

 We've made homemade ornaments.

 

 We had big, elaborate plans to go and cut a tree at a local tree farm this year, 

but because of the flare-up we opted for a real tabletop tree 

(and we just got it up and decorated this week).

 

We've painted candy canes.

 

Then last night we cuddled up under blankets 

and watched The Very First Noel while eating candy canes.

 

 We still have a few more days left before our big Happy Birthday Jesus celebration,

 but it's been a wonderful abbreviated Advent season so far.

Random Reflections

• Teeth never feel like they are clean when your mouth is tingly.
• The house without the boys is way too quiet.
• I gave up TV at the beginning of this year. My spare time was spent reading. The past two and a half weeks, (because reading was so hard) I have spent more time watching TV than the whole year combined.  I can now safely say, I didn't miss a thing.
• Bryan and I recently attended a Sheep Management Seminar. We don't have sheep YET, but the thought of it excites us so!
• It has taken 8 years of floundering around to find a church home. It feels good to finally be home.
• Why, oh why can't Burger Up be closer than an hour away? 
• The thought of selling and buying another home is so scary.
• Hospitals should serve nutritious, healing foods, not stuff you are afraid to eat.
• I've learned about the world of Instagram. As cool as it looks, it still doesn't make me want a smart phone.  

You can read other reflections (also known as "Statuses Never Posted") here, here, or here.

Learning Highlights: November 2013

The  month  of November was filled with learning about nocturnal animals and Thanksgiving. I am not quite sure how we got on the nocturnal learning exactly, but it happened and it was good. Maybe it happened when Seth asked a question about a nocturnal animal. Maybe it was when I found the stuffed possum that I used as a class mascot in a bin downstairs one day. Either way we enjoyed ourselves. We watched YouTube videos of possums playing dead, and we even stopped on the side of the road to examine a possum that had been hit by a car. I'll spare you that picture, but we loved our little adventure!

Meet Joe. He's almost as important as llama in this family.

 

We also checked out a ton of books from the library about nocturnal animals and

we sorted animals on paper.

  

Then we switched gears to Thanksgiving later in the month. 

Again, we used a lot of books to help us learn about Thanksgiving.

  

The boys made several crafts throughout the month at library 

story times so we only did a few at home. 

 

 Some things that happened this month that were a first was the introduction of beginning sounds and addition. Seth would randomly announce a word like dog and say "that starts with a d." He does that all the time now. He also would say "plus 3 plus 4 is" and would count his fingers and would count correctly. This amazed us because we have not been working on this! It just happened. We are going to embrace this new phase and start some simple addition after the holidays.

 

We've had to take a break from our structured learning so far during the month of December, but the boys have already enjoyed some Christmas learning with the grandparents, so I'm sure there will be plenty to share by the end of the month.

About this Flare Up

It is still really hard to type, text, see, read, walk, and do much of anything beyond laying around, but I wanted to record this while the memories are still fresh.

• Friday, November 22, 2013- I felt the slightest tingling in my fingertips and lips.
• Two days later I remember mentioning how this must be a very mild flare up. Boy, was I wrong!
• By Monday, I just felt like laying around. 
• Tuesday, we haphazardly packed for our Thanksgiving travels and we left for Jackson that evening.
• Over the next few days the tingling/numbness increased to the entire right side of my body. 
• Thanksgiving Day, the dizziness kicked in.
• Friday, I called the MS clinic and they prescribed some dizziness medication. I couldn't walk without assistance.
• Saturday, I woke  up and knew something was very wrong. Bryan and I opted to skip the local general hospital and drive the two hours to Vanderbilt. We got there by 11 am. Thankfully, the boys were in great hands.
• I failed a bunch of neurological tests in the ER. The main concern was my reflexes and my eyes not working together. That was the cause of the dizziness. They admitted me that afternoon.
• At 1:20 am, they wheeled me down for a 3-hour MRI. That was not pleasant.
• By Monday, the doctors decided to let me finish a 5 day IV steroid treatment from home. We headed for Jackson instead of home that evening so that we could have more help and we could be with the boys. The medical supplies beat us to my parents' house that night.
• Bryan left for BG on Tuesday (at 4 am!) because he had to return to work. I miss him so much. I can't wait to see him tomorrow. 
• The first home health nurse arrived on Tuesday around noon and I finished my last treatment yesterday.
• It's 3:30 am and I can't sleep. It's a side effect from the steroids and the sleeping pill the doctors prescribed must of worn off early.
• The tingling is a little less intense and I'm hoping that more improvement will happen with my eyes and walking in the coming days. 
• I see my MS doctor on Wednesday and will more than likely start disease modifying drugs.
• We have no regrets about waiting this long to start treatment, beyond what we already do holistically. We wouldn't have learned what we have about food, about community, about our desire to start a homestead and to live off the land. (I hope to share more on this later.)
• We have learned so many lessons through this MS journey and for that we are thankful.

{Gratitude} Lately: Hospital Edition

I've been writing gratitude posts since the beginning of the year. They are the easiest, quickest, and my most favorite posts to do. Sometimes even when things aren't as we wish, gratitude can help us through. This week has been hard and I will share more when typing isn't so hard, but I felt like a gratitude post was needed even in the midst of all this hardship. 

So here's what I've been thankful for lately...

very strong steroids that will hopefully fix these crazy eyes (that don't work in sync all the time right now) and all the others symptoms from this MS flare up

 

 bright no slip socks because they are so cheery

 an auxiliary IV to minimize pokes

 

hand rails and how helpful they are to a person 

who can't walk straight without assistance 

a "get well" message from the chickens and for a very special friend

 that is taking care of the girls for us

and for Nana, Pop, Granna,and Papa for taking care of the boys 

and for all the prayers, love, and messages we have received from everyone.