Thanksgiving for 15

This year we were down two adults with Shawn and Michele both missing. We also had three extra sweeties with Thomas and Natalie's two Foster sons and ours. Natalie is in charge of Thanksgiving, sometimes cooking and other years making the restaurant arrangements. Last week end she cooked for a houseful of friends including their boys' family.



Lily Jean

Ella Nancy

Samantha Adair

We were very nervous about Thanksgiving and this little guys insulin levels

THE BUFFET

Uncle Tommy and Johnny aka Jack.

Piper telling Papa what she wants

but Wyatt they are just balls of butter

Piper Nicole

The buffet was great for our diabetic.

Wyatt Thomas

THEN THERE WAS THE CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN

Just strawberries no chocolate but he was still excited



Ella even licked her plate

WE WERE THERE FOR TWO HOURS AND THE KIDS WERE GREAT

Piper took this picture, pretty good for a two year old

AFTER NAPS WE CAME BACK TO OUR HOUSE FOR SANDWICHES, DESSERT AND TREE DECORATING

and a flag for Shawn

They think there is a secret hide out under that tree
with a magic key hanging in front of it



Wyatt with our German hedgehog ornament!

Lily putting all her Christmas ducks in a row

Jennifer with Lily and Piper

Piper and Lily dancing

Jack

Our newest sweetie fit right in.



These two, two year olds, adore each other. I can't wait to see what their friendship becomes

come on, Piper

THEN WE TOOK SOME PICTURES FOR OUR CHRISTMAS CARDS

Wyatt and Piper

ADHD nooooo not these two



The boys were tickled to discover stockings with their names on them hung above the fireplace.

Sami looks up to her sister

With all those stockings I didn't even need to decorate the mantel

Our three red heads. They love their Uncle Chuckles.

 THEN BACK TO DECORATING

Sami

Sami, those are for after dinner. Okay just one

little hands

Look Daddy, your favorite ornament

THEN WE ATE . . .AGAIN

Add caption

We made a turkey and a ham kust for leftovers

Our oldest Sweetie put the angel on the top

. . . with a little help from Mommy

They love reenacting Jesus's birth

and this is the reason for the season

Another Surgery

he

 Two weeks post op and the stitches in his back and the staples in his side are out and the doctor is impressed with his work. He said Tom is doing better than a lot of his patients after two MONTHS post op. Bad new is they referred him to the orthopedist for the pain in his knee.

The recovery had a slow start. The surgery included two parts, actually two surgeries. The original bad disc was in such a place that they couldn't get to it through the back so through the last four surgeries they left the crumbling disc in place. This surgery started with  a 6inch incision on his side to remove the bad disc and put in a spacer. That alone took an hour and a half. Then they had to flip him to his stomach to do the second surgery which was to add on to the fusion he already had both at the top and bottom. They took him back at 11am and completed at 5:30 but he didn't make it to recovery until after eight.
They had some trouble getting him sedated. The person who put his original IV in did not have it in his vein so the drugs they were putting in to relax him before surgery didn't work at all, he found the operating room all very interesting. By the time they got him to sleep they had trouble intubating him so when he came out of surgery so late they decided to keep him intubated and sedated just in case. That was a bit scary, the last time I saw someone intubated was my dad and THAT didn't come out so well.
The next morning he was doing much better but that was when we realized he had a spinal head ache. The doctor said they found a pouch of spinal fluid that leaked. That kept Tom flat on his back in bed for three days. He also had a fever and an Ileus (his inestines didn't wake up) so he couldn't eat but on the fourth day he was out of bed and the fifth day he came home.

SHOUT OUT TO OUR SON AND DAUGHTER IN LAW FOR DRIVING ME TO BALTIMORE EVERY DAY. I COULD HAVE DONE IT MYSELF BUT IT WAS GREAT THAT I DIDN'T HAVE TO. ALSO TO JENNIFER FOR KEEPING THE HOUSE RUNNING AND OUR FOSTER SON SAFE. THE THREE OF YOU WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND. LOVE YOU!

Hurricane Sandy

Another close call with HURRICANE SANDY  this time. Craziness ensued the couple of days before it hit and no battery, loaf of bread or bottle of water could be found

 The kids were all very excited and Natalie took it all in stride reading them a book by candlelight.

 

Thomas had a headlight that never had a use before

 We even celebrated Natalie's birthday

 We charged up th Ipad ahead of time and the kids were able to watch a movie

Lily

 They all slept really well but Ella did spend the night at our house.Don't tell her parents but we even let her sleep in bed with us.

Our new little guy was even comfy

Jack

The Boys



PaPa

We lost power for less than 24 hours and I'm not going to say it didn't bother me. I was a bit more nervous this time with people with medical issues depending on me. So I was pretty happy when it came back. In the end all we lost was Autumn. Every single leaf from every tree had it's leaves blown off . The next day some hard working teens came around and for $20 they cleaned up our front and back yards. Have I mentioned before how great it is to have such a small yard?! Come on winter we're ready for you.