Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday. Ours was very nice. Friday I had to go to Dr. Y's office in the morning for my CBC. As usual at this point in my cycle my white count was low, but not low enough to require my antibiotics! Yeah! I got into work around 10 a.m. and tried to cram as much as I could into those 2 hours. Our office closed at noon for Christmas. Once I left work I picked up some lunch and went to Eric's office and ate with him. Then I picked up Grace and took her to the doctor's office. She started coughing on Wednesday, which is usually a sign of an ear infection, so I wanted her to be seen before Christmas. Sure enough, she has a nasty infection in both ears, so we got a prescription and will go back to our previously scheduled appointment on Jan. 4th for a follow up.

Saturday was Christmas Eve and Grace got up nice and early. Eric went to work for an hour or two and Grace and I hung out and played all morning. Around 11 a.m. Will and Samara called and said they were going to come by around noon and we'd exchange gifts for the girls. However, after I informed them of Grace's ear infection with the cough and runny nose as a sidekick, they decided to keep the girls apart. I don't want to get into the tradition of giving Ava some kind of contagious disease or infection every holiday. So without any company, we just spent the day being lazy. We watched a little football and just hung out around the house. After Grace went to bed, we put together her big toy from Santa and got everything ready for Christmas morning. I also packed for our surprise Christmas trip.

Christmas morning we got up at 6:15 a.m. Grace hadn't slept very well the night before, I think this ear infection is really bothering her. We got up and opened presents. Grace was very excited to see her dinosaur from Santa. After opening our gifts we had breakfast and packed up our last minute items. By 7:45 a.m. we were on the road. Last week, I started feeling nastalgic for the old days when we would go to Grandma's for Christmas. Every year on Christmas afternoon, all my Aunts, Uncles and Cousins would show up at Grandma's house. As we've gotten older, not every one makes it every year, but the invitation is always open. Since we moved out of state (when I got married), I think we've only made it back once. There really wasn't any reason we couldn't go this year, except we didn't want to travel, so I talked to Eric and we decided to go. Now my parents and brother drove over from Iowa on Friday so they were going to be there too. We decided not to tell them we were coming and surprise them. We got to Grandma's just before noon and no one was there. Luckily I knew where they hide the key, so we got into the house. They had went to church and weren't back yet. About 5 minutes later, my Grandparents got back, but I called Mom on the cell phone to wish her Merry Christmas. She sounded sad that she wouldn't see me. I got off the phone quickly and they got to the house a few minutes later. They thought it was a good surpise. We visited for a bit and then took Grace took a 2 hour nap and I layed down for about an hour. Everyone else started arriving around 3 p.m. It was a houseful. Around 5:30 p.m. we decided to leave, because we were going to go to Eric's brother's for the night since we weren't going to see them this year either. Grace napped in the car and then we drove the hour and a half to their house. Once we got there we did Christmas with Eric's Mom and brother. Grace did awesome and loved playing with her cousins and their big dog! She finally got her bath and to bed around 9 p.m. (that's a late night for my little lady).

This morning Grace woke up crying once around 5:45 a.m. I settled her and she went back to sleep for a while. I'm not sure how long, but a little while later she had a coughing fit and started to get upset, so I picked her up and put her in bed with me. We cuddled and dozed on and off until we all got up around 8 a.m. The girls played and visited and Leslie made us a huge breakfast. We had eggs, french toast, and biscuits and gravy. Yum! After breakfast, we decided to head out because it was obvious Grace was ready for a nap. The drive home was uneventful. Grace slept for about 2 hours when we first got in the car and was good the second half of the trip. However, this afternoon she was a terror. We couldn't do anything to keep her happy. I think she cried for about two hours straight. We eventually decided to give her dinner early and I had her in bed at 6:30 p.m. (about an hour earlier than normal). I'm hoping she was just tired from the weekend and her ears aren't bothering her that bad. I don't like her to feel bad, but the crying needed to stop. We were ready to pull our hair out. Luckily she layed down and went right to sleep tonight.

I'm going to go to work tomorrow and then Donna is coming back tomorrow afternoon. She's decided to bring my niece Ashton with her since she's out of school this week. She's seven now and I think she'll be fine. Her Mom talked to her a little bit about me being sick and I think she'll be more pre-occupied with Grace then me. As long as they let me rest on the couch, I won't complain. Wednesday, I've got round 4 of chemo. This will be the new combo of Taxotere and Herceptin, so I'm not sure what to expect. I'll be off work the rest of the week and probably Monday too. Look forward to the chemo update and then my New Year's Resolution post as we get ready to head into 2006!