Sunday, January 31, 2010

Snow event 2010

Our first snow and ice event of the season on 1/30/10. Daddy got some great pictures of the girls!



Great smiles!!!!








Christmas Eve 2009

Ok, so bad mommy didn't get a single picture of Christmas morning. Too tired. Was up until 3:30 .. um ... "arranging" things. Then was up at 6 when Maya discovered presents downstairs (after she got up 3 different times during the night!) Then did the usual breakfast casserole and Honey Bun Cake and waited for the guests to arrive. Gran came by, of course, as did Calli and Mallori and our friend Paulette. we had a blast, but I was oh-so-tired! Anyway, these are the Christmas Eve pictures, when we let the girls open their gifts to each other.

Maya picked out a Dora the Explorer backpack toy for Maria, which she loved:
And Maya got a Scramble game from Maria, which they both love playing:
Gran stopped by Christmas morning, and I did get a picture of that at least!


Christmas Eve .... putting out cookies and milk for Santa (and carrots for the reindeer, of course!)
Maya loved that Scramble game.... trying to sort shapes to beat the clock, and I think Maya is winning!





Christmas 2009 with the Rainwaters at Hilton Head


My newphew Chad ... congratulations on graduating from Clemson University on 12/17! (and on getting this bag of coal for Christmas ... tsk, tsk....!)
My awesome big brothers....
Omi got lots of presents!






Christmas 2009 with the Lawsons

The cards always make Gran cry...

Maya loved the present from Uncle B and Aunt K:
Aunt K is a librarian and knows the BEST books to get:
Love that smile!
The girls LOVE their cousins!
Do I look as tired as I felt that night?
Calli and Lexi...
Maria's favorite gift of all time ... Rudolph!






Saturday, January 30, 2010

Maya's 4K Christmas Program at FBS - Dec 2009

I love this kid! She was the star of the show, and she and Maria are the stars of my world.

Wow. Long time no see...

I can't believe I haven't blogged since early December, and now January is almost over. Where to start ....

Well, I guess the reason I've been away so long is a good place to start... my job had gotten really, really, REALLY hectic. There was no way to keep up. And while they kept adding on to the managerial duties, my one vacant position was not going to be filled any time soon, if ever. I was working long nights, often all night (more the once a week), working all day, missing out on all the fun in life, or so it seemed. Christmas was a whirlwind ... my nephew graduated from Clemson on the 17th, I had to work on the 18th (my birthday, and I hate working on my birthday!), and then the 19th we headed to Hilton Head with my family, where we would do our family Christmas thing. Well, the 2nd day there, one person ruined the entire trip for the rest of us ... she's a piece of work. So then we spend 2 more awkward days there, and the kids all exchanged Christmas gifts. My girls had a blast, I'm happy to say. My brother Roger and his wife and two daughters were able to come from Nebraska, and I had a GREAT time with all of them. Then, on the way back home on the 22nd, we spent one night in Columbia with Roger and family again. My girls got to swim in the indoor pool at the hotel, and again, they had a great time. I had to work again on the 24th, but we did all get to leave at 3:00, thank goodness. Then back home to rush to get all the presents together and get Santa's visit organized. Up until 3:30 or so doing that, then Miss Maya woke up at 6:00 a.m. on Christmas morning. That is, she woke me up at 6:00 exclaiming "Mommy! There's presents downstairs!" She was so excited, and that made it all worth every minute of planning and shopping and putting things together. We did remember to put out cookies and milk for Santa, and some carrots for his reindeer, which was all eaten. :-)

Christmas Day just flew by ... we had our usual breakfast casserole and Honey Bun Cake, with plans to go to E's brother's house for our Christmas with his family around 4:30. Then it was time for the girls to take their naps. That's where I made my big mistake. I layed down with the girls to get them to go to sleep. When I finally woke up, I thought we had only been asleep for just a few minutes and was trying to convince Maya to go back to sleep when she asked if it was time to get up. I finally look at the clock, and HOLY MOLY it was 4:15!!! Up I jumped, ran to the kitchen to make my last dish to take to the family dinner, rushed to get the girls dressed and told E he had to take them on and for them to go ahead without me and I would try to get there by 6:30. I still hadn't fixed my hair or makeup and hadn't wrapped the first gift for this event. ugh. That convinced me that the beach trip had not been the best idea timing-wise. Missed too much of my usual pre-Christmas prep-time. Anyway, they started calling me around 5:30 and I didn't come downstairs to get the phone. When I had the last gift wrapped and just had to get dressed, I finally answered the phone and found out they were waiting for me! double-ugh. So then I flew out the door with everything and put my makup on in the car driving down I-26 about 80 mph. Got there and explained everything, and I really, really wished they had started without me so I wouldn't have felt so stressed. But it all turned out great, and my girls were loving having everyone there. Mom didn't come down to spend Christmas with us this year because the beach trip, I think, just wore her out and she was tired.

Not sure how mnay pictures I even got of all of it, as I did download them but haven't really had time to do anything with them.

So that leads me back to my job ... the stress just got to be too much, and I went to speak to my boss about getting out of management. She was very nice about it and told me to think about it. She asked another director within Revenue Cycle about his open position, told him about my decision, and he was receptive to me applying for his job. But then again, got so busy I didn't have time to even think about it for a couple of weeks, so my boss called me and asked if I was still interested in that position. I said yes, I was, and she said I would still have to apply for it if I wanted it, so I did that immediately. We are all in the process of moving our offices, so when that director talked to me about the position on a Wednesday, he said they were moving that Friday and he thought that would be the best time for me to make the switch. Good grief they can move fast when they want to! Anyway, life is soooooooo much better now, but we're just a whole lot poorer. It was quite a pay cut to go from management to non-management at the hospital, but less expensive than losing my mind from the stress! So that brings me up to now, when I finally have a weekend to actually do what I want to do and not work! woohoo! I'll have to post pictures soon when I can find them. We're having a snow/ice event this weekend. We were supposed to get 3-5 inches, but it didn't even cover all the grass. But there is enough ice out there to keep us inside and off the roads today. We do have good pics of the girls playing outside, so I'll have to post those, too.

Well, supper time. I'm sure I'll have time to be better about posting now. Yay!