The Keatons Downunder: December in Review

Ok, it's official, I've been slack with the blog this month. My excuse is that John G has experienced a fair bit of sleep regression the last few weeks (think going back to two hourly feeds at night) so when John's been having naps during the day, I've been napping too instead of updating the blog - so that's my excuse (just ignore my reading stats though, okay?). But anyway, as it's the last day of the year, it is time to step up and blog blog blog!

There is a lot to cover so take a deep breath and.....go!

We helped Grandma celebrate her 75th birthday this month. We rode out to Virginia to go to Cracker Barrell for dinner. Little John was jealous of our eating, and so we got him out of his seat and he enjoyed chewing on a spoon and sucking on my glass.

Then it was back home for some icecream cake and presents (we also got to listen to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional on the way home in the car - another advantage of being in the USA)!

This month we also went and got some family portraits done at the local Walmart. We are really happy with how they turned out. The best ones have been printed out for us to bring back home, but we got a couple of extra as 'online views' so here they are:

John absolutely loved getting his photo taken, and was smiling in EVERY photo - you pretty much couldn't get him to stop! The only downside of the photo's was that the next day or so afterwards John G caught a really bad cold - I couldn't help but think it was from the photo session, as he was put on a blanket for some photo's that looked like a lot of kids had been using it, and didn't look like it had been washed very much. Poor little guy had a really snotty nose and a little cough for about a week - I think I've mentioned it before but I absolutely HATE the aspirator, and I know little John doesn't enjoy it either. I did my best to help him out, and found that I could use the aspirator on him while nursing him with much less crying than any other way.

John (Dad) also managed to catch bronchitis for the 2nd time this trip shortly after little John's cold came on. Poor hubby, he only had about a day or so rest between the two bouts, and it has been a pretty miserable time for him.

Apart from some sleep deprivation for me, I've had a few stomach troubles while here. About a 2 years ago, I had stomach ulcers. Actually I had had them for a long time, but it took a while to get a correct diagnosis. After going through the anti-biotics to heal the ulcers, I had ongoing issues with acid reflux. I was on prescription medication for it, but when I fell pregnant with John G, I had to stop the prescription due to the potential impact it could have on my unborn baby. I had horrible heartburn and reflux during my pregnancy, but was amazed that after John was born the problem was gone. Seriously, gone. I thought that maybe I would never get it again, but, as my body has returned back to normal after giving birth, the stomach pain has returned, the same as when I had the ulcers.

So, after a couple of sleepness nights and significant pain, I went to a Dr here - it is funny to me the little differences of going to the Dr here versus in Australia, but anyway...long story short, because I am nursing, the Dr could not prescribe me any medication for ulcers or acid reflux. He did suggest I go get a blood test to check that it was pancreatitis (as this has the same symptoms as stomach ulcers). In the meantime I am just to take tums every 4 hours (before eating) and he gave me a prescription for pain killers for night if I need them. This seems to be working, although I have had some pain a couple of nights where I had been 'feeling better' and so skipped taking the tums through the day.

We had to go to the hospital for the blood test, which was a new thing for me to - you actually get admited in order to get the blood test, so I have a wrist ID to bring home for my book of remembrance, ha ha. The test came back negative, so that was good. Anyway, enough of my drama, it's not that big a deal and I feel much better now.

On some of the days were it has been good weather and not too cold, John G and I have gone for some walks around the neighbourhood. One day we saw several little squirrels (or sqwerls as I would pronounce it if I was American). I don't know why, but I find them soooo adorable, and so I had to stop and take some pictures. I also took some pictures of the beautiful scenery along the street.

Can you see the squirrel at the base of the tree?

This time the squirrel is more than half way up - defying gravity.

I've also been able to do a bit of reading while I've been here. I started by reading a John Grisham book, and then realised that John's parents have the full set of the Work and the Glory, and so I've been reading those. I'm currently about halfway through book 7 and really enjoying it. Even though the story is fictional, I find reading about the early saints very faith promoting and envigorating for my soul.

December is also Christmas time - yipee! And as the song says 'it's the most wonderful time of the year'. Funny story about that actually, John and I watched a bit of the Christmas concert at the Rockafeller Centre on TV. I don't know what the group is called, but they had this 'boy band' sing it's the most wonderful time of the year. They looked ridiculous as most pop stars do (they were definitely car carrying members of the hair club for me) but what was really more amusing is that they were foreign and so had accents and when they sang 'marshmallows for toasting' it sounded hilarious (more like marzmellow for tosting)...John and I have been mimicking them all Christmas season long. Little John has of course been fascinated by the Christmas tree, often rolling himself over to it so he could stare at the lights (and try and grab the ornaments) - as Grandma Keaton keeps telling me, next year is going to be great fun with the tree. We might have to take Terry and Ann's strategy and only decorate the top half of the tree.

John received an early Christmas present from Grandma, a jolly jumper! He seems to enjoy it, but is probably a little small for it yet. We stuff him in with towels at the moment to help him sit up straight in it. It's fun to watch him bounce and turn himself around in it.

We travelled up to Raleigh for the Keaton family Christmas which was fun. It is a lot of driving in one day with a little one, but John did fairly well. We did have to stop on the way home to nurse him, but other than that the travelling was fairly uneventful, just a little tiring is all. It was nice to be at Brenda's and see all the family. Their dog seemed very interested in John, and John wasn't scared of him at all, which was surprising for me. I did ok around him seeing that I have a phobia of dogs - he seems to be a fairly placid dog which helped alot. Lunch of course was delicious with lots of food to try (I really loved the baked brie) and Addy had suggested a cookie exchange so we came home with brownies, choc peppermint kiss cookies, date balls, some other sort of choc nut tropical slice thingo (sorry Brenda, can't remember what they are called) and Uncle Terry's favourite brittle (I've been waiting 2 years to get some more of that stuff).

One of the cool things we received as a present from the family was a DVD with a lot of the Keaton Christmases from when John, Brenda, Terry and Paula were children. As I never new John as a child or teenager, it was especially exciting for me to see those video's. I always wonder how much our little John is going to look like his Daddy growing up.

We were also able to go to the Stake's Christmas program here in Elizabeth City. I loved it, as I really enjoy music and their program had tonnes of it. I especially enjoyed the variaton they did on 'Oh Holy Night'.

The neighbours on the street are pretty serious about their Christmas lights. They started going up straight after thanksgiving and for a while there, every day when we went past they had put more and more lights up. I finally managed to go and take some photo's of their lights while we were out on Christmas Eve, the pictures don't really do it justice, but you might be able to get a small idea of what the street is like.

1. The Horns

The Horn's neighbours on one side.

The Horn's neighbours on the other side.

The three houses together.

We took John to visit Santa for the first time. Given how great he went in our family portraits, I was expecting a happy smiley baby for his Santa photo. Not so. Santa's 'helpers' were not the friendliest people and rattled some bells right in John's face, he was startled more than interested and this resulted in the following photo:

I thought that they could get a better picture, so I asked them to take another one, but John had decided he wasn't startled after all, he was downright scared. His lower lip began to tremble, he frowned and then started crying, so that was an end to that. The first photo wasn't that bad after all, I just wish we could have got one of him smiling.

We had real Christmas here in Elizabeth City with John's parents, and his Aunt Elenor. It was a laid back affair, I think we ate about 3pm-ish and we opened presents afterwards. That is one of the beauty's of John being so little - he had no idea what was going on so he wasn't up at the crack of dawn demanding we get up to open presents. I wonder if even next year he will really know what is going on.

John and I had travelled up to Virigina before Christmas to do some shopping for presents. I think that was one of the funnest things about Christmas, buying presents for our little one and then seeing him playing with those presents afterwards. He wasn't so sure about opening presents, and I think got a little scared of the sound of the ripping paper at some times.