Ahhh, Christmas break. After the first several days of my "leave of absence", I now have company every day. The kids are now on break until January 3. Unfortunately, with company of this sort, there is a certain required level of activity that goes along with it. I am in the process of trying to retrain my kids to see me as more of a couch decoration than maid right now. That's not really going terribly well. We are unfortunately at the mercy of their whims. RIght now Lauren is washing pennies. Hundreds of them . I have no idea why. She's been counting her allowance, which she's saved. I think she likes having money so much that she's looking aroung the house to see where she can find more. She's better stay out of my money jar!

We are planning on having a good time getting ready for Christmas, but for some reason both of the kids are testy with each other and they are bickering a great deal. Lauren would like very much to mother her brother, and regardless of the quality of her advice (she's pretty good at it, really) Logan is not about to be told what to do by his little sister. You can probably imagine how that goes. I'd like to be able to make cookies with the kids, but I'm really not up to it. I get uncomfortable standing very long, and there's also the problem of making cookies (and therefore, cookie dough) that I will want to eat and have trouble staying out of. I feel bad shortchanging the kids, but they don't seem to be suffering too badly on account of it. Christmas is really difficult on a no-sugar diet. Most of what I want is very very bad for me. I have to admit to indulging a little bit now and then recently!

Everything seems to be falling into place for the Mexico trip. We have what we need for our temporary passes into the country, and plan to get passports before the next time. We have an anonymous donor from church helping us find the couple thousand we still needed for the $24,500 we have to pay upon arrival at the clinic, so we should be all set there. It covers everything except hotel stay on the way down and back, which shouldn't be much. Then the only thing we will still need to come up with is between $1,000-3000 for at-home treatments in between. We won't know how much exactly until we get there. It changes with each patient depending on what he or she needs.

We have our plane tickets. We fly out of Springfield at 5:25 p.m. on Jan. 3, and will return Jan. 16 around 6:30 p.m. I'm so glad we have an airport here and that we don't have to drive to St. Louis or KC to catch a plane. We have several offers from some family members with frequent flyer miles that they will take care of some future flights, so we shouldn't need too much more money for this any time soon. I'm also going to see if the insurance companies will pay anything on the hospital stay. That might help us immensely.

Guess that's all that's going on here for now. I'm off to finish the last of my Christmas shopping. Hope everyone reading this has a wonderful Christmas!