what strange couple of weeks.

This has been one of the busiest, craziest winter breaks/Christmas I have ever had. lol. I will forewarn you this is going to be a very long entry, so if you don't read it all, I understand.

First off, we went to Jessie's folks for Christmas Eve. We all had a great time, my father-in-law (fil) Gordie dressed up as Santa Claus for the kids. Everyone got a kick out of it, but Cyril and little Blake weren't quite sure what to think. Gordie even had a mask on, so you couldn't tell if was Gordie, it sounded like grandpa though. Jake, Dawn and Spencer loved that Santa Claus came early to visit their house, but this would lead to a little bit of confusion at the Zemke household come Christmas Morning. (Little Jake thought that Santa Claus was coming to his house sometime that morning, so refused to open his presents till Santa came. Adam and Rochele had to explain that Santa came while the kids were sleeping.) Dinner was wonderful, and it was great to see everyone. Kenny even brought his girlfriend Bri, who I think by far is the best girlfriend, he's had since I've known him. Everyone had a blast opening their gifts, Jake was "Santa" passing out all the gifts, it was funny watching him get so excited, that he'd either mix up who the gifts went too, or threw them at the person. Jake did get a little wild that night from all the excitement, but I think we all handled that pretty well. The Zemke family brought their new 4 legged addition over. He's an adorable golden retriever named Cooper, but it sounds more like Hooper when Jake calls him.

The children seemed to have a blast with Cooper, and he seemed to enjoy all the playtime the kids, especially Dawn gave him. Even though it was chaos with all the kids opening gifts, it was a fun time watching all the children open their gifts.

On Christmas Day, Dawn & Spencer were so cute. They woke up before Cyril did. I was surprised, because he spent his first night sleeping with them on the floor. He did very well, but like I said I was surprised he didn't wake up first or wake when the kids woke. Anyways, Dawn & Spencer saw the gifts that Santa left, and refused to open any of theirs till Cyril woke up. When I woke about 9am and the kids still hadn't open them yet, I gave them the go ahead. It was cute watching the kids get so excited about all the presents. We had one slight mix up with Santa. Apparently Spencer has stopped collecting Pokemon cards, and failed to tell Santa. He didn't get upset or anything, just looked at me and said "Mom, Santa didn't get the memo." lol. It was a ball watching Cyril watching open up gifts this year. He gets so excited with all the decorations, the Christmas lights, Santa, the presents and everything that it entails. It's been a challenge this year keeping everything safe from him. The kids and I talked about baby Jesus, and all David kept saying is "Baby nigh-night, mommy Baby nigh-night" He'll get it.

On Christmas Day, we also went to Jessie's grandma Gall's house. She always haves a get together on Christmas Day. I love going over there and seeing his grandparents. We hardly get to see his relatives very much these days, for one reason or another. I think it's sad, but when we do, I enjoy the time all the better. We couldn't stay very long, because this year it was my mom's turn to have Christmas Day with us. So we headed home, and this my friends is when our interesting adventure begins.

We arrived home about 3pm, we dropped off some stuff, figured we'd let the kids open up some of their gifts. Since we were at Jessie's folks, and it's a house we didn't right away realize how chilly it was in the apartment, I mean that it was chillier then normal. Can you all guess where this is going? lol. I turned up the thermostat, and we all headed off to mom's shortly after that. We went over to mom's for dinner and had a wonderful time. It was great spending time with mom and uncle Greg. The kids had a blast opening up gifts there too. Several hours later, we came home and noticed it was still very chilly, which is odd, considering we're in apartment. So I called the ER maintenance person, to let him know, in doing so I noticed this rather huge wet gray spot in front of our entertainment center. As I got ready to scold the kids for dropping water, I noticed tons, and I mean tons of steam coming from our water heat registers. Can you guess yet? As I'm on the phone with Matt, the ER maintenance guy, thru the conversation we realized what happened. So we had the kids start moving all of the toys from that corner to put in the boys room. As a toy was removed from beneath the register is was like someone had turned a water hose on. Water started gushing onto the floor. Later it turns out that right below our AC unit, near the patio door about 1 inch crack in the pipes was the cause. Somehow or another the pipes froze while we were gone and we didn't realize it till after we turned the thermostat up. Thankfully, no water damage got down to the apartment below ours, I would have felt terrible either way, but right were our water spot was, directly below was their TV.

I was really tempted before this happened to tell, Jessie that the kids and I wanted to go back up to his folks house to visit with everyone, while he took Spencer ice fishing. Can you imagine the disaster we would have come home too? So we decided that I would stay here, while they repaired the pipes. Jessie took Spencer back up north for his 1st ice fishing experience. And that was an adventure for Spencer in itself. lol. Spencer had a blast, caught more fish then dad, but also stepped in one of the holes shortly after they started fishing. SO I'm not to sure if he wants to go again. Also the stinker stayed up all night from Christmas Day, to 6am the next morning watching movies while everyone at Jessie's folks place were sleeping. He's NEVER done that before. Jessie told me he wasn't sure if he should laugh in surprise or not, he later sent him to bed, but we were surprised that he would stay up that late. Back at the Johnson's household, since Matt had to turn the heat off to the apartment, we had to leave the oven on low ALL night, it finally went from not registering on the thermostat to about 75 degrees at around 2am. It sure didn't feel like it though. Thankfully the kids were dressed warm, (I had bought earlier this year 3 down-alternative blankets for their beds) and several quilts to keep them warm. It was a long night of almost no sleep for me, I was worried about the kids staying warm, keeping warm myself, and worried about how safe it was/wasn't to let the oven on low all night. By 9am Friday morning we had heat! After talking it over with the landlord, since we've lived here for almost 5 years, she made the choice to have our carpet replaced the next following week on New Year's Eve (the 31st).

That made a very fun, interesting weekend. The boys room, and our room was a disaster area, because we had to move furniture so they could get to the shut off valves, the Christmas bins for the decorations, in ours, the toys from the living room in the boys, and trying to figure out how we were going to get all the living room furniture off the carpets. Jessie couldn't take any more time off cuz of the holiday break, so it was left to me to get almost everything moved by Wednesday morning. I think everyone would have laughed seeing this little adventure. It was interesting watching TV, and playing board games with the kids Tuesday night on the living room floor. Wednesday morning Jessie arrived in time to help move the TV, and the carpet was done shortly there after.

I will never forget Jessie's reaction when he saw the carpet that was chosen to lay down in the apartment. It's a light color carpet. While we are very grateful and appreciative that the landlord had this done, we wonder do they not realize that 3 children live in the apartment???? So now I need to find some huge rugs to cover up the living room, and hallway so that it's not destroyed while we live here. The bonus though is that we discovered the wonderful invention of Magic Erasers from Mr. Clean. Little Cyril'sPablo Picasso moments on the walls are gone now...well at least in the living room. I still need to tackle several other walls.

While this in itself with 3 kids was interesting to tackle, did I forget to add that we had neighbor's kids, over visiting too? I don't know how moms of really large families get it all done. I had to make meals for 5-7 kids, do laundry, other household chores and rearrange a living room. Plus I needed to get two Christmas gifts out for my secret Santas 'that I'm doing, and still have failed to get them out. I was quite pleased when New Year's Eve came, the carpet business was done, and we were able to go to a friends' house. I enjoyed myself thoroughly that night.

Also Spencer yesterday had his 2nd round of appointments down at HCMC (Hennipin County Medical Center). He had his ears looked at due to the car accident in September, his speech looked at because he's always mumbling, and to visit with a neurologist since he hasn't talked to or seen one since his 1st fall 4 years ago. His hearing passed with flying colors, so we all know he can hear perfectly, he's just tuning out. His speech passed, but there are a few things that need to be worked on. Nothing though that warrants services, we just need to work at it, at home. Which I'm okay with. I want him to get the services he needs, not the ones he doesn't need, just because he can get them. The neurologist, wants him to have an MRI done, to see if there have been any changes in regards to the PVL, and to see if the 2nd TBI had done anything to the brain. We (meaning the doctor and I) do not feel it will show any changes, but just to be sure. So he will have that done here locally, and we will go back to see the neurologist in February. So I believe all the tests, and doctors that need to see him, have been done. Now we wait for what they have to say, and see what the new game plan is. I had several people remark at how detailed Dr. Willis was in her assessment of Spencer back in November. I'm very thankful for that, because she hit everything on the nose.

So that's it in a long, long nut shell. Hopefully now that I have access to a computer again, I'll be able to up date more frequently. lol.

God Bless~
Carlena