Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It's been awhile since I've posted. I've been working quite a bit lately and blogging hasn't exactly been top priority. School has been continuing as normal. We had 2 days of school this week and we'll do three days of school next week before taking a few more days off.

Dan's parents came down to our house on Wednesday and we did Christmas with them Friday after I'd slept for a little while (I'd work the previous two nights--Christmas was my holiday to work this year). The kids were quite happy with their gifts. Ellie and Kara got MP3 players that Dan got on sale on Black Friday. Darin got some Thomas train tracks and Natalie got some clothes and a new blanket for her bed. She was most excited about just opening presents but it took her a little while to warm up to it. She was a little shy at first about opening presents because she knew everyone was watching her. But after the first couple of presents that she got from Ellie and Kara she kept asking when it would be her turn again.

Dan got me an interesting stocking stuffer this year. He bought me one of these. It is the "That was easy" button from Staples. You press the button and that is what is says. Now there is a story behind this gift and Dan thought it would be perfect for when I am working with Ellie. Ellie is so literal and concrete that often she makes things much harder than they are. So Dan thought it would be great for me to have and I could press the button once the light bulb went on and Ellie figured out what she was supposed to be learning! Sometimes it is pretty funny how literal Ellie can be. You can tell her a joke and she will just not get it. And then you can try to explain it to her and she just has this blank look on her face. It can be quite amusing.

While Dan's parents were here Dan's mom did my laundry!! She washed and folded all of it. It was wonderful. I absolutely hate doing laundry and she loves it so I don't mind it at all. Now my laundry is caught up again for awhile--although the pile is starting to accumulate since Kara has discovered several dirty clothes on her shelves. She vacillates between two extremes--either she throws all of her clothes in the laundry because she doesn't want to fold them or she puts them all on her shelves without bothering to check if they are dirty or not. Then when it comes time to look nice she has nothing to wear because she hasn't put anything in the laundry for awhile. We discovered this Friday night when they were packing to go to Chicago (for Dan's niece's baptism).