Christmas at NiNi & Big Jer's

Well today we went to my mom and dad's house to do the Christmas thing over there. My sister Ashley and her three kids; Morgan, Paul, and Matthew had come in from Tennessee. Her husband Tim had to go back to work so he wasn't able to partake of the joyous festivities. My other sister Amy and her two children; Lauren and Caroline also came over. First things first...Mom's table. This is a BIG deal at her house. That woman knows how to decorate a table. It's a Here is a pic of what it looked like.
It's a different theme every year.








After the great feast we went to the part the kids like best....opening presents. This is Nolan opening the new air soft pistol he got from Aunt Ashley.



The adults sat around talking while the kids played with the new loot. Ash is going to be in town for a while so I'm sure I'll have more to share.

Merry Christmas

All of us at the Craig house would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas!!

Had a Bad Day

Yesterday was the last day of school before the Christmas Holidays for the kids. I had to do a site change on Emma in my office that morning because hers was coming off. The kids started out with a school choir program and then back to their rooms for the class parties. I made sure that I was there for Emma's to count her carbs and make sure that she bolus' for them. Emma is bad about not pricking before she eats something. This to her is the worst part of diabetes, the constant pricking. When we are at home it Todd or myself that does it since she has to at school. Anyway, I counted up the carbs, as best as I could, and then went to visit Nolan in his class. In my opinion they waited way to late to let the kids out, I truly think that the teachers were happier than the kids! After the parties the kids and I went to look at a house that was for sale near the school. I'm always on the lookout for a place closer to work, you never know when God is going to put the right one in front of you. Well, about halfway through the house Emma kept saying that her stomach was hurting. She then started to cry to go home. I hurried through the rest of the house and went back to the car to check her blood sugar. She was HI = this means that it is so high the meter won't even register it and the meter goes to 600. (NOT GOOD) We hurried to the office to check her ketones (she is usually running some when her stomach hurt) and she was at .9 which was still in the mild range. We gave her a correction for a 600 blood sugar count and headed home. I checked her sugar again thinking she would have come down some because of the correction and she was still HI. The second thing to do is check the site to make sure that it is working. When I looked at it the cannula that is suppose to be up under her skin delivering the insulin had some out, this has only happened once before. I changed her site and checked her ketones again. This time she was 1.6. I got a syringe and gave her a shot of insulin the old fashioned way. It took two of these before her ketones went to 0.0. In the past if her ketones had gotten to 1.6 we would have been in the ER immediately. After having gone there twice before and spending no less then 6 hours, it's easier to see what we can do at home first and monitor her closely.

We are off to a skating party for a classmate today...later.

This is a picture of the cannula (it's wrapped around the needle and a little shorter than the needle) that goes into the booty. The ones that go into the stomach are longer. (I'll figure out one day how to make the pictures clear)



This is not a happy "Hi, how ya doin'?" This is a HI we hate to see when we check our blood sugars.

And Again

This time it was Emma's turn in the Dentist chair. We went today to have a baby tooth of Emma's extracted since it didn't look like it was going to come out any time soon. The permanent teeth around it had shifted it every which way but it hung on. Emma's tooth, once extracted, came with a cute pink treasure chest. I'm not sure if this is the difference between a Dentist and an Oral Surgeon, but there was a lot less fuss with Emma than with Nolan.

Well, we've got 50 states and capitals to learn before we get back to school in January...gotta go.

Holiday Fun

We have a lot of family traditions around the Holiday season. One of them is making several different cookies/goodies from when I was a little girl. Sour orange balls, bourbon balls, and chocolate covered pretzels are among some of them. For extra credit Emma could make something and bring it to the class. The requirement was that she did all of the measuring herself. She decided that the sour orange balls sounded good. This recipe only has 4 ingredients but we managed to mess the whole kitchen up in the process.



Ok, some of it was my mess. The whiskey goes with the bourbon balls that I was making. Here is the recipe if anyone is interested in making them.
Bourbon Balls
1 package (6 oz.) Chocolate chips. - melted
3 tablespoons Karo Syrup, white
1/2 cup bourbon
2 1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1/2 cup powdered sugar (10X)
1 cup nut meats

Mix together ingredients, let stand for 30 minutes Form into balls 1 inch size. Roll in powdered sugar or colored granulated sugar. Put in a covered can for 3 days before serving.

hint: putting more bourbon in the mix doesn't make it taste better (even if it sounds like it should). My dad also claims that the cheaper the whiskey the better.
The best way to get the vanilla wafer crumbs is to use a blender. I usually double my batch and use 2 boxes of wafers but i think one will do for a single batch.

This has always been a big hit with anyone I've fixed it for...my dad already has people putting in orders for containers!
Enjoy.

This is what the sour orange balls (left) and bourbon balls (right) look like when they are done.

I've sold out

Christmas...making Bourbon balls,  listening to Robert Goulet's Christmas album , and smelling the sweet aroma of the freshly cut Christmas tree (whaoo)...this is where the memory takes a bad turn. It is a sad dark day at the Craig house. I let Todd talk me into getting an artificial Christmas tree this year. I'm not quite sure how it happened, one minuet I'm as adamant as always about having a real tree, and then the next thing I know we are at Costco buying a FAKE one. I have always had real trees and felt sorry for those people who had to have the artificial ones for some reason. I love the smell of a real tree...it symbolizes the start of the Christmas season for me. Todd assures me there are ways to get the smell of a tree (some type of spray in a can and/or candles). I stopped by my favorite Christmas tree place and picked up their live cuttings to put around the house. I went in quick and got out quick so that they wouldn't ask me if I was buying my tree today. I feel like I have moved into a new world and I'm not sure I like it. The only trade off I got for giving up my live tree is Todd promised we could hardwood the stairs going to the second floor within the next two years. 

There's just something wrong about a tree coming with replacement parts!!!

Well...I'm off to see about a pine scented candle.