Our weekend

Last Friday night I started feeling a little under the weather.  Thanks to my freakish immune system (seriously, it's actually a blessing) I almost NEVER ever get sick.  I mean, like, less than once a year. The only time I ever have gotten sick more often than that was my first year of teaching Pre-k. 

 20+ sets of dirty hands and snotty noses will do that to you. 

 I'm thinking it actually made my immune system even stronger over time.

  So thank you, little snotty noses! :)

Anyway...the point of all that was to say that because I rarely ever get sick, when I DO get sick, I feel like it's 100 times worse. Or something like that.

I went to bed Friday night feeling like my head was in a vice.  (Vice? Vise?  Neither of those looks correct...)

My head hurt, my nose hurt and I couldn't breath out of it, so then my throat hurt from having to breathe through my mouth.  I would wake up with a dry mouth and chapped lips from breathing out of my mouth....see where the whining comes in?!

 I basically felt like crap-ola.  And as we all know, moms don't tend to "get" sick days.  Thankfully, Jason WAS home since it was the weekend and he was a sweetheart to take Lauren with him for a few hours running errands on Saturday so I could lay around and do nothing.  It was heavenly. 

 Except for the being sick part.

They even stopped by CVS and picked me up some OTC sinus meds, and those plus a good dose of ibuprofen and I was feeling human again.  Sorta.

Saturday night I went to bed at exactly 9:30.  I think I fell asleep around 9:31 and did.not.move.a.muscle until Jason came to bed at 2am!! He stayed up watching some football game....

Unfortunately, I also woke up around 4:30 needing a drink of water like a woman living in the desert.  When I got back in bed, I couldn't sleep anymore! I tossed and turned, but I absolutely wasn't tired one little bit anymore.

So I got up.  The clock said 5:15. AM! It was still dark outside for goodness sakes! I mean, I haven't been awake that early since....well, probably never (voluntarily anyway).  But I got up, plugged in the Christmas lights, turned the tv to Christmas music and did what any normal person would do at 5am. I baked a chocolate cake. 

From scratch.

  With homemade chocolate frosting.

And then I made 2 trays of mexicali casserole and some homemade guacamole.  Followed shortly by some homemade potato soup in my crock pot. Whew.  

My little early bird snuck downstairs sometime between the casserole and the guacamole, so I had some extra help. :)  

Actually, all this yummy food was for a friend from my MOPS group who had leg surgery.  She wasn't able to get around and we signed up for days to bring her some meals.  I signed up BEFORE I got sick, of course....

Then we finally woke Jason up around 9:30, and went up to Knoxville to see Santa at the mall.  Lauren was beyond excited- she had been wanting to see Santa everytime that we've been there for the past month or so!  Even though we had to wait in line for almost 45 minutes just to have our turn.  But when her time came, she acted a little nervous.

  Typical Lauren. :)

  She did, however, tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas, and the hilarious thing was; Santa had to call me over to "translate" for him.  Lauren was telling him she wanted "sah-sah twabs" and he had no clue.  I said, "Xia Xia Crabs, Santa, you know, those little plastic hermit crabs?!  I bet your elves have been making a lot of them this year!"  Santa laughed (ho ho hoed?) and told Lauren to be a good little girl.  :)

The whole Xia Xia crab (pronounced "Sha Sha") thing is funny to me, because she has talked about them almost constantly since she saw the commercial for them on Nick Jr way back in September or so.  I googled them and quickly realized that there were not even available in stores! They are made by the same company that produced the Zhu-Zhu pets last year (or the year before?) and they were projected to be a HOT Christmas item and could sell out.  Oh my Lord.  Visions of me wrestling other parents to the ground for the last xia xia crab came to mind...sorta like this

According to their website, they would be released in October, available ONLY at Toys R Us and Walmart (my 2 least favorite stores).  

Great.

I was really thinking about finding a way to talk Lauren out of the idea of this toy! 

But thank goodness, early in November, I happened to be shopping at Walmart and meandered over to the toy section and what should I find?

You better bet I grabbed them up and stuck them in my buggy fast as I could. :)  They have been living happily in the top of my closet ever since then and I absolutely can.not.wait. to see her little face on Christmas morning when she sees them under the tree!!

Because I started my Christmas shopping back in September, and have done a lot of online shopping, almost all of our Christmas presents are already bought. Woo hoo! That means that I can avoid all the stores from now until Christmas and thereby hopefully avoiding the long lines and craziness. :) 

Now I just have to figure out what to buy for Jason, my other child. :)

Anyone else finished with their shopping??!!