Tis The Season!

Let me be the first to say, IT'S BEEN TOO LONG!!  I just realized I never updated anyone on Spencer's injury... in my defense this semester was BRUTAL!  But I survived, YAY!!!  So now for a quick update.  Spencer healed miraculously, I say, he is more humble about it.  Spencer received 3 priesthood blessings from the time of his injury to Monday's appointment with the ENT; one immediately after the accident his dad was with him and gave him one before we left for the ER, the next one on Saturday afternoon, we called our Bishop and he met Cleon at the house and together they gave him a more "proper" blessing.  Well that evening we got a call from Brother Howard, a counselor in the stake presidency asking if he could stop by later, of course we said come on over!!  That night Spencer got released as second counselor in the bishopric.... but wait, there's more!!  He got asked to serve as the first counselor!  So on Sunday he was set apart and given another blessing, this blessing was not one of health and healing, but it was asked of the Lord to bless him that he will have a speedy recovering so that he would be able to serve those in our ward.  Well Monday at the ENT, the Doctor, was confused by Spencer's CAT scans....  he says to us immediately when he walks in the room, your face doesn't look as if it's been shattered (or something to that effect).  So Spencer proceeds to tell him what happened and the Dr. decides he wants to stick a camera up there and check it all out.  There was severe tissue damage and broken bones, but the shape of his face held up, which I guess was surprising considering all the damage that was done.  The ENT wanted us to go to a Neurologist, Spence did suffer from nerve damage to his facial nerve, which has 5 branchs; cervical, mandibular, buccal, zygomatic, and temporal (I now this from Head and Neck anatomy!!!!)  I could also tell you the function of each nerve branch, but I wont LOL.  The Neurologist didn't go into much detail as to which of the 5 branches were damaged, but I am guessing it was the buccal, zygomatic, and temporal because of the numbness he felt in his maxillary arch and he had a VERY slight facial droop.  Needless to say his face was very fragile for a few weeks, but no surgery was needed!!!!!!!  He was off of work for about a month because he was not able to wear the equipment that is required of him, I guess he was at risk of entrapment of the eye muscle if pressure was exerted on his face.  He didn't get to hold Pace much because Pace likes to "love tap" right in the face (it's something we are still working on)!!!!  But Spence has been back to work now for 6 or 7 weeks, they really missed him over there!  We are so blessed!!!

As for me I survived the most demanding semester of my life.  Four science courses, and two clinical courses, almost killed me!!  But I did it along with 35 others, we survived to live through another semester at UTSD!!  We lost 2 girls towards the end and it was really sad, and freaked a lot of us out.  Especially me, all of you know I am a big "WHAT IF-er" and I easily stress myself out, but Spencer and my mom were like little birds in my ear all semester reassuring me that I can do this!!  And I DID!!!!  About 2 weeks before the semester ended Cori started asking me if we could bake cupcakes, I baked molar cupcakes for my dental anatomy professor to go along with a presentation I did on amleogenesis imperfecta (enamel defects), they were cute, but so time consuming I just didn't have the time to bake with her with finals coming up. 

And I felt awful, but my sweet little 4 year old was so understanding when I told her as soon as mommy is out of school we will bake cupcakes.  She quit asking to bake, but she was sure to remind me every 2 days or so that we are baking when I am finished with finals!! LOL, she's a HOOT!!!

You bet that Friday after school she new we were baking cupcakes so after I picked them up from Margaret's we went straight to Walmart and got all we needed to bake the next morning.  

Good morning!!  Lets BAKE!!

We baked a batch of chocolate and a batch of vanilla cupcakes and Cori did all the work!

She did the pouring and the mixing, and she did such a great job that next time I will let her try cracking an egg!! LOL

Enjoying the best part of mixing cupcakes!  Licking the beaters, YUM!!

Cori filled the cupcake trays too!!  Can you believe my little baby girl can do this?  I almost cried, she is getting so BIG!!

We made several types of Christmas cupcakes, these one's are our Christmas trees, I did all the frosting and Cori did all of the finishing touches!!

Coir is making her Christmas wreath cupcakes!  I think she is a natural born cake artist!  I decorated one to show her how they should look, and she did the rest!

Here is Cori making her Holly cupcakes (these of course were MY FAVORITE)!!!!

A job well done!!! Aren't they AWESOME??!!!

All finished and ready to go to Grandmother's house for the Christmas Party!  Which was a total blast!!  I cannot wait to do it in Vegas with my side of the family!!

Here's the deal if you ever want to try it:
It's fun, doesn't take a lot of planning and it's affordable which is important in these economic times!

We all brought something to contribute to our Christmas dinner, beautiful holiday cupcakes were our contribution!!  LOL

And after dinner we all drew names, we had the kids, 16 and under draw with kids, and 17 and up drew with adults, this worked for us!

And after we had our names we split up and went shopping we had 2.5 hours to go out and find a gift for our person that was under 10 dollars (we set a limit, tax not included, and you can go over, but we tried to keep it close if we did... gift cards are frowned upon).  Some of us thought it would be hard, but we all had a blast and LOVED our gifts, but we ENJOYED every minute of the whole thing!

I pulled Tiffany, one of Spencer's sisters; I went to tractor supply and got her a book on preserving and canning.  She just started to can!!  She loved it, the book was 14.99

Spencer got Paul Tif's husband, we went to academy and got him a gun case, the kind with the foam stuff inside, I'm not sure what it's called, he LOVED it!!  It was also 14.99

Cori pulled Kate's name, she is Elizabeth's youngest and she is 8.  Cori picked out a Monster High watch for her, it was 9.99.  It was so adorable, when she gave it to her, she said Kate, I got you a High Monster watch!! HA HA LOL we all laughed so hard!!!

And Pace got Madison, Tiffany's youngest, we got Maddy a pocket Disney camera that was 65% off at Tuesday Morning for 6.99!!

Ashley, Little Cleon's yougest, she is 17, she pulled my name and got me a gorgeous burnt orange scarf!  Which I love, (HOOK EM)!!  I wore it on a date with Spence later that night and I got 2 compliments on it, apparently Longhorn orange is my color!!!

Marie, Little Cleon's wife got Spence and she got him refills for his thermocel, it a masquito repelling device that he wears when he goes hunting and a pair of wool socks for when he goes hunting.  Y'all are probably laughing, because he got socks...  But he was really excited!!  I put them in is hunting bag as soon as we got home!

Cori got a mermaid barbie for the bathtub from Hailey, and it is honestly the prettiest one I've seen! And Cori is into mermaids right now, so she was THRILLED!

And Payson got the cutest little Tonka Chuck truck from Kate, it talks and has a light on top of it and when he plays with it he says, VROOM VROOM!!!!!!  He can also say, duck, cracker, and ball!  He calls me Dad and Spencer Mom!  It's another thing are working on LOL!!!!!!

Words are not good enough to described how great our family Christmas was, I wish I would have taken pictures!  I cannot believe I left my camera at home.  But everyone got a great gift and none of us had to spend to much money!  It was perfect!

Happy Holiday's from the Carraway's!
Y'all come back now, ya hear!!!