Ben was in a car accident on November 16th. It was really scary and, when I first got to the hospital, we were not sure what would happen.
He spent 4 days in the ICU and now, 3 weeks later, he is back to work with no serious lasting injuries. Truly a miracle!
As you can imagine, the first couple of weeks after the accident were crazy. The kids were in Tampa for most of that first week and Ben was still largely out of commission for the second week so we were in crisis and survival mode for a while.
Last week we were finally able to get back into our normal routine. Ben returned to work and we picked up where we left off with school. We have been doubling up on a lot of our lessons so we don't get too far behind and Lily is doing really well keeping up. It is nice to have the flexibility that we do!
We are all much happier and more relaxed now that "reality" has sunk in, everything is OK and we are able to move on.
In addition to getting back to our school work, we are also celebrating Advent with stories and activities through the month. Each day, we read from the Advent Book and the girls pull a tag from our Advent Calendar that gives us an activity to complete that day. So far, we have baked cookies, made Christmas crafts, read books and made gifts for grandparents.
On Saturday, we hosted a family party. The girls had a great time getting ready and especially loved all the sweets. We baked 5 different kinds of cookies before the party.
Everett helped in the best way he knew how!
In addition to all the cookies they baked, they decorated gingerbread men with Kyleigh while she was here.
Everett and Natalie aren't old enough to be trusted with icing so they ate some animal crackers instead!
We finished off the weekend by going to see Santa. The girls all wanted to go and Ruthie was the most excited. We went to Bass Pro and everyone was excited right up until we got up to Santa. Then, they all seemed to lose interest. It was really pretty amazing how they all transformed at once!
They did have fun in all other areas of the store and at the pirate ship playground. Santa was just a bit too much, I guess!
Looking forward to a couple more weeks of "normal" before Christmas!
