Friends

Being a single mom while your husband is away on business is so much easier when you have friends around to help pass the time.  Alan was in Vegas for five days last week.  I was expecting it to be long and hard, but it wasn't too bad because we kept busy with lots of friends.  (Until yesterday anyway, when Spencer got sick again.  Uggg!)

Andrew lives across the street and is a perfect playmate for Spencer because they have such similar interests.  They can switch back and forth between playing trains and cars for hours.  It's so lovely that Spencer's at an age when having friends over is actually a break for me.  There is the occasional fight of course, but they really get along very well for 3-year-olds.

My wonderful visiting teacher/friend, Nicole, invited us to go to OMSI (a science museum) with her and her cutie-pie, Anna, one morning.  Spencer and I had never been and we loved it!  It's a big museum, but the area we stayed in is similar to our children's museum.  They had all kinds of fun, sciencey exhibits.  Spencer's favorite was the whirlpool.  He threw balls into it for a solid 15 minutes.  Even though I knew he loved it, he had the most serious expression on the whole time.  It was funny.

Spencer gets along with kids his own age or older okay, but younger kids are a different story.  Check out this major grouch-o face he made at Anna!  

We missed Alan a lot and are SO glad he came back today, but are also so grateful for friends to keep us company while he's gone.

Almost quarentined

This has been the longest week.  Not bad, it has just seemed so long because Spencer and I have been stuck in the house almost the entire time.  Spencer's little cold turned into pneumonia on Monday.  We had a miserable trip to Urgent Care with a tired, sick and uncooperative little boy but the albuterol and antibiotic they gave him really helped and he was doing so much better the next morning.  His cough was still pretty bad though, so I canceled everything for the next few days and we just stayed home.

I actually really enjoy just staying home and playing (for a few days anyway).  Here's how we filled the time:

Playing LOTS of trains and cars.  Spencer was so proud of this track he built all by himself.  Too bad that I had to take it apart later because it went all the way from his room, down the hall and into our room.

I think the doctor at Urgent Care felt bad that Spencer had such a rough time there.  As we were leaving, he tired to give Spencer a monster truck as a prize for surviving I guess.  (It certainly wasn't a prize for being brave or cooperative!)  Spencer had noticed that someone had a display of Disney figurines above their desk however, and loudly cried that he wanted The King car (from the Cars movie) not the monster truck.  The kind doctor actually stole the car from the desk and gave it to Spencer.  I felt bad, but was worn-out myself and didn't want to deal with the total melt-down that would have occurred if I had refused.

We did our own little preschool complete with tracing, coloring, a treasure hunt and snacks.

Spencer is now tired of me practicing with my new camera.  This is what he does every time I try to take a picture.


Alan built this cool track for Spencer.  I think he secretly enjoys it as much as Spencer does.

 

Then today, just as Spencer was about better and ready to be out in public again, I had oral surgery.  I had to have three gum grafts for receding gums.  The actual procedure wasn't that bad.  The only pain I felt was the needle pokes for the anesthesia.   It was quite painful after the anesthesia wore off and before I could take my pain meds though.  Thankfully, Spencer was awesome today and played by himself so good while I laid down for awhile. 

It's hard eat anything solid so I've just been drinking smoothies and shakes through a straw.  The left side of my face is all swollen and it's hard to talk so I think we're going to be staying home for a couple more days.  Hopefully I can keep finding things to keep Spencer occupied.  Good thing Santa brought lots of new train tracks and he has his King car!

Christmas Day

After having such a rough night the day before Christmas Eve, we had hoped Spencer would sleep in a little on Christmas morning.  He was back to normal and up at 7:00, however.  His tummy still wasn't completely back to normal, though, because he didn't even ask to eat any of the candy Santa left in his stocking and didn't even want a cinnamon roll for breakfast.

Christmas gets more fun every year with Spencer as he is understanding more and getting more and more excited.  Santa brought him a bunch of new Thomas trains, the Tidmouth Sheds and some fancy new tracks.  Alan and I had expected Spencer to be really excited about the train stuff, but he barely glanced at them before unpacking his stocking.  For the record though, he does love his new train stuff and I am getting SO tired of playing trains with him. :)

The three of us spent an hour or so opening our own presents before heading over to Alan's parent's house for a yummy breakfast and more presents.  We all got a lot of nice things and I, for one, felt a quite spoiled.  Alan splurged and surprised me with the fancy SLR camera I had been drooling over for a few months.  (Too bad I skillfully deleted all of the pictures I had taken with it up until yesterday!  Grrr.  Hence, the lack of Christmas pics.)  Spencer came away with gobs of fun, new toys and games to help make the rainy winter and spring months more bearable.  Thanks to everyone for all of the nice gifts!  We feel so blessed!

I'll admit that I wasn't super excited when I first realized Christmas would fall on a Sunday this year.  However when the day actually came, I LOVED it and now wish that Christmas was on Sunday every year.   It was absolutely lovely to be able to worship our Savior at Church on His birthday.  So much better than blobbing around in pjs and eating junk all day.

After Church, we had a delicious ham dinner with Alan's parents and Alicia.  Then spent the rest of the evening playing games in front of the fire, reading instruction manuals, skyping and talking to family on the phone.  It was a lovely, relaxing day filled with warmth and love.

Now, it's all over.  The decorations are down and my house looks so bare.  Hopefully I can keep that warmth and love with me for awhile though.  January is always such a blah month for me.