Yesterday was a good, but busy, day... We met up with some friends some the homeschool group for lunch, then we headed to The Wildlife Experience and explored and played for a couple of hours... 

 The Wildlife Experience is an interactive museum/art gallery not far from us... It's not a big place, but they always seem to be adding to it and the kids (and I) had a great time looking around. Probably the most fun we had was in the kids area where we "created" an avalanche using styrofoam balls. Even the big kids (and me!) got into filling the machine as quickly as possible with the styrofoam "snow" in order to create the biggest avalanche. 

 We came home for quiet time, then left again to do some Christmas shopping. We managed to hit six stores by dinnertime (completely wearing the kids out!) and made a pretty good dent in my shopping list. 

 We made the decision to simplify our gift giving this year... None of us really needs anything, we all have more than enough "stuff". So we are giving lots of homemade gifts this year, and just keeping things a little simpler... M and R are getting a mix of homemade gifts (new robes, maybe slippers) and store bought (I have the Addy doll tucked away for R, and M's heart's desire is the big Heroscape game!) 

 Depending on the weather we'll probably head out this weekend to cut our tree. When our big kids were very young we would head up into the mountains (with a permit, of course!) to cut our Christmas tree. As they grew that got harder though, and we started just buying a tree in town. Last year we renewed our Christmas tree cutting tradition, but went to a Christmas tree farm about 30 minutes away to do the cutting. (Dh just isn't up to the long drive into the mountains, or tramping around looking for trees.) It was nice... there was snow on the ground and it was cold enough to feel like winter... but the car was close and it was easy to get warmed up again. There is nothing that smells nicer than a fresh cut evergreen... 

M has been doing really well the past few days... We're still dealing with the car issues, of course, but other than that he's doing great. I haven't heard from the pdoc, which is ok... It would be really hard to talk about something like ECT when he seems so stable. (But he's only stable because of the med we need to stop because it's causing the tardive dyskinesia.) He does seem to be having a lot of trouble with cognition... I see it when we are doing school, there seem to be big "gaps" that open up in his thinking. And his speech has gotten so bad... When he's tired it's really hard for me to understand what he's saying, I have to ask him to repeat what he's said... over and over sometimes. That's the TD... even if we can stop the med that's probably causing it, it may not get better... but at least it won't get worse. 

 Today should be an easy day... We'll stay home, get school done (I'm excited to start a new writing program I found for the kids!), draw blood for M's CBC, and catch up on the barn chores. Sounds like a good day to me!