What a Holiday Season!

Well, to say I've been quiet on this blog is probably an understatement! The holidays were great, crazy, scary, busy, full. Graham is doing so well, and we're really enjoying him! A little bit of an update, and this afternoon I'll post some new pics of our little guy and our two brown girls!

The Christmas holiday was so good - great to see family and to have Graham as part of the family! My brother and sister in law, Robin, were with us for over a week. My grandmother and aunt stayed with us for over a week. (My grandmother is actually still here - more to come...), we spent time with Kyle's older sister, her husband and our two nieces, Kyle's older brother and fiancee (YEAH!!), and Kyle's dad, step mom and 4 younger siblings visited us. Lots of good family time. Christmas morning we were at my parents' house eating breakfast when my grandmother told us that she had been having intermittent chest pains for the past week. Particularly two instances while she and my aunt were in Austria on vacation. All Christmas morning she kept having chest pain until around lunchtime we all convinced her to go to the hospital. A couple hours later she was in the cath lab having a heart catheterization and a stent put in after they discovered she had been having a severe heart attack all morning. And decided not to tell anyone about it...) The next eight days found us scurrying back and forth to and from the hospital to spend time with her. Within a few days she was starting to feel back to normal. She is at my parents house recovering very well. (She did tell us that while she and my aunt were on vacation she enjoyed quite a bit of sausage. My brother told her that he hopes she really enjoyed it - it's the last sausage she's going to eat!) My dad has told my grandmother for years that she defies science - she eats fried foods and red meat and has not had any heart problems until now.

A couple funny hospital moments (we've had much practice at finding the humor in hospital visits given our family's recent practice...) - when they moved my grandmother to a less intensive room away from the cardiac unit once she started feeling better, she started talking about the difference in quality of service - in a joking manner. She mentioned to the nurse that "they" took her by force from the Hilton to the Motel 6. While my grandmother was joking, I don't think the nurse knew how to take that comment. My grandmother also had a visit from a man who is in charge of a heart attack support group. He brought some booklets about his group and recovery. The first thing my grandmother asked was "did you bring me a sex novel"? (Her sex novel was still at home.) He seemed rather taken aback and didn't know how to interpret her comments. Just hilarious.

In spite of the wild emotional ride this holiday season was, it really was such a blessing. We got to spend over a week with family, and we have Graham this year!! I was terrible at taking pictures of Graham on Christmas morning - feeding him, rocking him, then at the hospital (without him) for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Is it tacky to dress him up in his Christmas clothes and take a picture today?!

I'll post some pictures this evening...