Busy Busy!

The last few weeks have been very busy! We have a wedding coming up very soon, less than two weeks now. You'd think that we would be nervous at this point but we are both pretty calm and confident about it. There are issues with the company that we ordered the clothes from, we could be stressed about that but in the end, it doesn't matter what we wear, it just matters that we are going to get to share our lives.

The wedding is not the only thing making our lives hectic right now. James has finals coming up and since Christmas is one of the biggest business producers for his company he has mandatory overtime. In my office, because of the way the holidays are landing, we are having to move our deadlines up sometimes by two or three days which means I am also finding myself in the office early, skipping lunches, working late and going in on Saturdays. All of this coupled with the kids' schedules makes sleep a priviledge.


Jordan just turned two. Her birthday was on Nov. 28th. With everything being so busy for everyone right now we decided that she is young enough to combine her birthday with Thanksgiving. So, no big party, we just took a cake and her presents with us to my brothers house and had cake to follow the turkey. She loved everything and James got to learn how to have a tea party with imaginary tea later that night. The weekend before her birthday, she got to move to her big girl bed. It is a white plastic, toddler bed made sort of like a sleigh bed. She had been getting up at 11pm and 4am everynight at first but last night, she slept through until morning.



James wanted to get Christmas stuff up and going while he had a few consecutive days off. That doesn't happen often. We saved the tree decoration for Sunday when Christian would be with us all day. The kids seemed to have had a good time with that. Now the task is keeping Christian out of the presents and Jordan away from the ornaments. I had said that the whole family needed matching Christmas stockings, when we went to pick them out, we got stockings almost as big as the tree. I love it!

This week we had a little bit or normalcy peek through. Craig stopped by to play X-Box with James for awhile. At one point I had thought marrying James might have been a package deal because Craig was over so often. (ha!) But since he got this new job, he too has been very busy. It was nice to have him over again. He's always good for a laugh or two.


This weekend we sorta took a break from everything and spent some time together. Friday night we got to go out with adults for the first time in months with out the children. We had dinner at Trappers which was nice except for all of the seafood. My porkchops were wonderful. We also went out for a couple of games of pool at Slick Willies. Wow, we were bad! Most of the evening was very fun but there was an awkward point when Brian mentioned how great Christian is doing with Karate and much he loves it. The awkward point was because he had been told we knew about Christian taking karate and in fact, the opposite is true. Not only was Jame's not asked for his input on this very big decision, it was kept a secret. Well, none of that is Brian or Ginger's fault so after a short pause to think about what we had just learned, we all made a choice to move on and enjoy our night.

James of course had an early morning for work on Saturday, the kids didn't let me sleep in either. So, we were up and off to the parade in Stockyards with grammie and papa. We met Thomas and Tina there. We got to see and pet a pug who was there to see the parade with his mom and dad. The girls got lots of candy, mardi gras beads and even a stuffed bear. The girls loved it but I have to say, I forgot my coat and I thought I would never thaw out. I wish Christian could have gone with us too. I bet he would have had a blast! After the parade, we went to Braum's for lunch. Burgers and Chicken only, no ice cream, it was TOO cold for that. Ha!
Somewhere in the conversation we decided to take over Danny's house for the evening, that what he gets for skipping the parade with us. He wasn't there to nominate someone else's house for games. When James got off of work and picked up Christian we cleaned him up and headed south. We all had a good time. I got to hold Jacob. James learned Michigan Rummy and we both got to learn catch phrase, it was a good time. The fun thing about thier house is that they have kids of all ages so everyone has someone to play with. The kids were having a good time and did not want to leave but were asleep before we made it down the street. I got to stop to see my aunt on the way home too. Saturday, was a good day!

Sunday, we rested. We came up with a game plan for how to handle the clothing issue if the company we ordered from doesn't come through and we just hung out around the house with the kids. It was a nice break and we all got to spend some time together, one on one at one point or another.

Sunday night, was a different story. It was almost 9, we had told the kids to go lay down for awhile. We didn't turn off the tv or make them go to sleep, we just wanted them to start winding down before we turned out the lights. James and I were laying down talking about the weekend and trying to get a gameplan for this next week, reminding each other of our plans and obligations. (Jess and Jordan have a Christmas program on Wednesday night at 7, they need to arrive by 6:30, James has set some time aside for studying before his final on Tuesday, things like that.) Then someone starts knocking, hard, on the door. No one had been invited over so James checked before he opened the door. It was Rachel. He opened the door and told her the kids were laying down and please to keep her voice down so that Christian wouldn't hear that she was there. She started in on why is he in bed already... again. So, James asked why she was there. She wanted to know where her child support was. James told her, he mailed it, she should have it and if not, it should be there soon, maybe Monday. She wasn't happy but moved on to a new subject, she wanted to get Christian up and take him with her. James told her no, several times. She had been rude and agressive to me this whole time and James had asked her to leave more than once. Finally, when they were talking about her wanting to get Christian up and take him, James said, she couldn't take him, his routine is messed up enough as it is. She started to step toward me and was saying "Yeah, I know his routine is messed up" as if she were implying that somehow everything in Christians life is my fault. James stepped in front of her and told her again to leave and she grabbed his chest, leaving scratch marks and ripping his shirt and she swung at his face, grabbed his glasses and threw them from the front door across the living room, across the kitchen to the far wall and they landed near the trashcan. James opened the door, made her leave, shut and locked the door behind her. Luckily, Christian did not come into the living room to see the way that she acted but he knew she was there and he heard everything she said and James and I were left with consoling a sad, scared, crying little boy and trying to explain to Jessica what was going on because until Rachel came into our lives. Jessica has never had to deal with this sort of Drama in her life. Luckily, Jordan had already fallen asleep and Rachel did not wake her up.

Today, we are all back to the rat race, the kids are at school, James and I are both working OT and life goes on as usual.