Deck The Halls

I am a Christmas decorating junkie. There I've said it. I feel much better. Raise your hand if you are too. I know I'm not alone in this. I can't be the only one with more than 25 Rubbermaid bins full of snowmen, oranments, lights and garland. The collection gets bigger every year. It's starting to become a problem, especially since this house is half the size as our last one. But not to worry, there is still some spots that have not been Christmased. I can continue to add to my collection for a few more years. After that I will need to purchase a seperate residence for all my holiday cheer, which is the ultimate goal: a Christmas house. A house just for Christmas. Ah, to dream.

This year, however, I have been challenged. After seeing my impressive yet tasteful outdoor lighting our neighbors went and purchsed some lights of their own. For the first time. Our adorable moving reindeer has been put to shame by their TWO new moving reindeer. We put wreaths and bows on every window. They answered with candles in all of theirs. The battle has begun. And now the bow is missing from my mailbox. Good move neighbors. Let's see what else you got ....

My plan to win this: sneak over to their house with the most hideous decorations I can find and redecorate for them. I will make their house the ugliest in the neighboorhood .... hee hee.

Jon's plan to win this: get a snow making machine and invite their kids to sled down Palmer hill. Ooh, I bet they can't top that one. (Gosh I love that man!)

Either way, we got this one in the bag!

Gimp

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Gimp
From: K Palmer <kpalmer@kabenbuilders.com>
To: kirstinjpalmer.blogpost@blogger.com
CC:

Cam is without a cast. Or a boot. Or any other tibia protective device. After a much less dramatic ortho visit last Tuesday the boot came off for good! Yipee!
Camryn crawled at first but by Tuesday afternoon was standing and hobbling along. She still has quite a limp and complains of pain every now and then but for the most part is doing very well. Her ankle, which hasn't moved in 6 weeks, is still very weak. Our goal is to strengthen her muscles and increase range of motion of her foot. She improves every day.

But I still call her Gimp. I'm such a sensitive mom.

Turkey to Tree

Phew! We've had a busy week around here! Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday. If I didn't have kids it would be my number one, but the look on my kids' faces on Christmas morning tops all others. Spending a few days with my entire family, cooking, eating, drinking, playing and just being together is a close second. I have four brothers who I adore and they have all managed to convince some pretty fantastic women to become part of our crazy family. It's loads of fun when we are all together. Add my crazy dad, wonderful step-mom and my lovely mom into the mix and it's just perfect!
We ate too much. Drank too much. Laughed loud enough the cops paid us a visit. Yelled a little. Stayed up too late. And of course played our family flag football game. (In case you miss Sports Center this week, I had some amazing catches, one touchdown and a mean tackle!)
I miss them all so much already. 'Til next year boys!

Because it's been such a crazy week we thought we'd add to the madness and drive two hours (each way) today to cut our own tree in Boone. It was cold, but fun. Now that the tree has been secured, tomorrow can be spent decorating for my favorite holiday!

I LOVE this time of year!!

Spelling and Typos

Whomever points out the most spelling and grammer mistakes wins!!

Ready.
Set.
Go!

I have no prizes. BUT the email post worked and that's all that matters to me.

Here, hear!

Can you here me now??

This is a test. A test of the emergency blogger system. This is only a test.

Okay. So here's the deal. I am emailing a blog post from my phone. I feel so ... so... so young, so hip, so now! Wait, kids don't say 'hip' anymore do they?

Anyway, I am testing this out to see if it works. My laptop is without internet access at the moment. Long story. A possible future blog. But for now I need to test drive this baby to see if it's gonna work.

I think I may even try to attach a photo. Don't fall out of your seats okay.

I'm not sure if any of this is going to work, but if it does you can be sure of one thing: I'm going to have some might defined thumb muscles. Phew!

Traumatized

This is Camryn after her bath tonight. Yes, BATH! Camryn can bathe again. Woo-hoo!! Notice her new 'boot'? Guess what? It comes off. So she can take a bath. The girl is complete once again. And no longer has an odor about her.

Just look at that happy fish in the water. Notice that skinny little cast-less leg of hers. Doesn't she look content?! Thanks to PopPop for leaving his shaving cream, she had a blast playing with it in Ben's tub. (Aren't two year old supposed to be chubby? My word she's a scrawny little thing!! Doesn't her mother feed her?)

This was my content little angel yesterday morning. She was anything but content. Just look at her face!

Cam broke her leg on October 13th. She has been in a full leg cast ever since. Her knee has been stationary for three weeks. Yesterday we went to have her leg x-rayed again. Before they did that they removed her cast (see it there on the left). As soon as that cast was peeled off she started screaming. It was horrible. She screamed for the remainder of the hour we were there.
The sudden movement of her knee was painful. Combine that with her fear that it was going to hurt like it did 3 weeks ago and you have one pitiful baby girl. It was heartbreaking.

She screamed "Mommy, me go home! ME GO HOME!!" over and over again. And when she wasn't screaming that she was screaming "Me want Dr. Dave, Me want Dr. Dave!" Dave is our chiropractor ... and apparently Camryn's choice health care provider. Only once everything was over and she was fitted into her new boot did she calm down. This new boot allows her to use her knee while still protecting her tibia. She was hesitant to walk on it yesterday but was up and running today.

This is my baby girl the day she got her full cast 3 weeks ago. That was another traumatic day. Makes me sad to even look at her. But she has been such a great sport through all of this. And like the saying goes "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" ... she's bound to be one tough little cookie.

Halloween 2010

What a strange holiday Halloween is. Getting dressed up in weird costumes and going door to door asking for candy from strangers. Kinda odd. But it is so much fun how could you not love it? People handing out chocolate just makes this world a better place.

My sweet Kitty Cat with a broken leg.

Spiderella. Perfect for my lover of all living things, including those that creep, crawl, slither, jump and fly. She is my most difficult child, but she is also the one who melts my heart with her sweet comments. After returning home from gathering candy from the neighbors she said to me: "Mom, thanks for doing my make-up. I know you were really busy, thank you." She's the only one that ever says Thank You to me and it means a heck of a lot.

Here are the crazies at a neighbors house. Man, they are getting big. So big in fact that I have given up any hopes of cute Halloween themes with them. I had good ones this year too! The Beatles (how is that NOT cool?), the seasons (winter, spring, summer and fall ... all you got to do is call and I'll ... sorry, James Taylor moment). What was I saying ... oh yeah, cute themes. Anyway, I gave up on them. My kids have opinions. And likes and dislikes. And their own ideas. I don't know why I allow them to, but they do. So I gave up on cute Halloween themes and let them 'be what they wanted to be' and buy costumes. But don't worry I haven't completely given in, their coordinating Christmas outfits should be enough to get my by until Easter.