Knee Surgery

My right knee has been giving me problems since late summer. I have been going to the ortho since August about it. I've had a cortisone shot, water drained, and another shot in the knee to help relieve the pain. Unfortunately, those things only lasted about a week and I was back in pain. We were trying to hold out until next summer to do anything about it.

After an MRI reveled bone on bone, I discussed a knee replacement with my doctor. He said I was a good candidate for a partial knee replacement. The recovery time is much shorter than a total replacement-2-3 weeks vs. 4-6 weeks. We decided to go ahead and do it over Christmas break so that I could go back after the holidays and not miss much work.

My surgery was done on Dec. 15th. Once the doctor got in there, the damage was worst than he anticipated and wound up doing a total knee replacement. I stayed in the hospital for 2 days.

The recovery has been very emotional for me. I cry at the drop of a hat. I've really had to work at doing my physical therapy. That has gotten better over the past week. My biggest challenge right now is not being able to get comfortable or sustain attention on anything for very long. One would think this would be a great time to read, do crafts, etc. However, I can't get into anything. It's very frustrating.

I know I haven't been the easiest or most fun person to be around, but I've had some great support. Eric is amazing. He is handling everything so well. He encourages me to exercise the knee and get up and about. He is keeping the house going, the kids entertained, and working his job. What would I do without him?

I also have amazing parents!! They came down and stayed with me while Eric andmthe kids celebrated Christmas at his mothers. They were good moral support as well as my cheerleaders. Mom helped me with my physical therapy, got me out of the house, and cooked me yummy oatmeal. It was so nice having them here. Oh yeah-they thought they were so cute. They brought me my dad's cane from when he had his knees replaced. While I was taking a nap one day, they put a mini license plate on the cane with my name on it. I guess they wanted everyone to know that I had a license to use the cane. : )

I won't be able to go back to work next week as planned. I'm walking around on it, but my stamina is no where near what it needs to be. I go to the doctor on Monday, so we'll see what he wants me to do.

Holidays

This has been the most blessed Holiday season ever. With 3 new little ones we shared many daily traditions and created a few new ones. We did the usual tree decorating. We took the girls and let them pick out their own ornaments. This is a tradition we have had since Rebecca was a baby. When we decorate the tree, we each put on our new one in order of age. Eric and I start off with our Atlanta Braves ornament. Then we go from there. The kids enjoyed putting theirs on the tree. Ethan had a little boost from Eric since he wanted his at the top of the tree. After that, we enjoyed sharing all of the memories of the other ornaments. I always enjoy reliving memories of former students, friends, and places.

The entire time we were decorating the tree, Ethan kept saying he wanted to put lights on the tree outside. Eric was determined to make it happened. All 4 kids bundled up and headed outside to help him wrap the lights. The tree turned out beautiful and a new tradition/ memory was made.

We atteneded a foster parent association Christmas party. The kids were able to " shop" and get presents for the foster parents. Rebecca got to take the kids in and help them out with that. We were in line to get our food when the president of the association approached Eric about being Santa. The one that was supposed too come had to back out at the last minute. Eric agreed to do it and did an amazing job! I was even able to get Rebecca to sit on Santa's lap another year. : ).

Due to my knee surgery, Eric had to take the kids to his mother's by himself. My mom and dad came to stay with me while they were gone. They all had a good time at Grannas. They returned on Christmas Eve afternoon with lots of goodies from Granna.

Although we weren't at Grannas for Christmas Eve, we continued our Christmas Eve meal tradition of hot dogs and homemade chili. Donna made her famous chili and sent it home for us to eat. As usual, it was delicious. After dinner, we all gathered around the tree and opened up one gift each. This was a tradition of my family growing up. I can assure you there were no arguments from the kids to do so!! It was tough getting the kids into bed, but they finally gave up around 10:00.

This was the first time we had ever spent Christmas morning with my parents. What a nice treat to be at our house on Christmas morning. I wound up waking up the kids around 7:00 to go see if Santa had visited. He indeed had visited the children. They were so excited over their new goodies. The big hits-Nintendo DS for all of the younger ones and a new t.v. for Rebecca. We moved into the living room to open the rest of the presents. Everyone was spoiled rotten.

My sister, Jennifer, and her family braved the snow and headed this way. We enjoyed a second round of opening gifts after they arrived. If was great to have my family under our roof this year. Momma Hope made lasagna for our Christmas dinner. If was delicious.

A new activity(hope to be tradition) was that the family all watched a movie together. Rebecca got Toy Story 3 for Christmas and was the one we decided on. It was a sweet movie.

The day ended with the women all piling up on my bed and chatting while the kids played games and the men watched t.v. It was just plain good family fun!!

Here is a slide show of some of the highlights. We are not allowed to post the foster kid's pictures on the internet, so there aren't many pictures of the entire Liles' clan.

This free slideshow created with Smilebox

Beta Club Induction

We are so proud of Rebecca. School does not come easy for her. She really has to work at it to make good grades. When she didn't make Beta Club in 7th grade, she made it a goal to make it in 8th grade. We are proud to say her hard work paid off. She was initiated into the Beta Club this past Monday night.

Cheer Competition

Rebecca and I wrapped up our competition season yesterday with the

state cheer classic. Our girls worked so hard this season. While we didn't do as well as we had hoped, we made tremendous gains as a squad. I couldn't be more proud of the girls. Here is a video of their performance.

Rebecca was sad to see her middle school competition cheer season come to an end. She is more and more like me every day. : )

Here we are about to take the tumbling warm up mat.

This is my dear friend/c0-coach, Doris, and her daughter, Dionne.

Proud parents!!!

Daddy's Little Girl

I have really enjoyed coaching the girls. They have been a sweet group. We still have basketball season, but the "hard" part is over.

Trick-or-Treating

Rebecca was excited about going with the kids trick-or-treating. She didn't want to dress up until her friend, Miranda, showed up in her super girl outfit. They walked around for a little bit with Eric and the kids and then decided they were ready to join their friends.

Before the change into the costume

Rebecca and her pumpkins

A great group of teens

Rebecca's Loot

Carving Pumpkins

Halloween with 4 children is quite an adventure. We started out today with carving pumpkins. I bought each of the children their own pumpkin to carve. They each had a small and large pumpkin. They told me what they wanted on their pumpkin and I drew it out for them. They each had their own carving kit and got busy cleaning out their pumpkins and carving the faces. They went from working on them on the counter top to sitting in the middle of the floor working on them. My kitchen floor had pumpkin seeds and pulp all over it when it was all over. It was well worth it when I saw the smiles on their faces.

Rebecca found a pumpkin plant growing inside of her pumpkin.

Trying hard to get the top off

Starting to carve the face

The mess on my kitchen floor

The front porch

Pumpkin Jars

I love to browse craft sites online. I have been scouring them lately for new halloween ideas. I came across one that looked like fun for the entire family to do. The kids absolutely loved doing it and then seeing them all lit up. Here are a few pictures of our new pumpkins.

Rebecca and Mir Mir making their pumpkins

All lit up on the mantle