Things

2010 has gotten off to a very interesting start this year! I'm looking forward to the weddings- both Amy and Katie have asked Hannah to be a junior bridesmaid and Micah to be the ring-bearer! Hannah is over the moon about being in two weddings in one year! :) She was a flower-girl twice when she was little, but a jr. bridesmaid is sooo much cooler! LOL She's at that age where little girls start dreaming of "when I grow up". She is starting to talk about "when I get married" and making my heart palpitate! :) Nathan was asked to be a groomsman in Matthew's wedding, too, so it will be a family affair.
Amy's wedding has been moved up to April 24th, so they are in high gear with the planning. She asked me to be coordinate the ceremony and processional. I guess she thinks I might be good at bossing people around or something! LOL :D Who'da thought?? :D I'm also going to help Sara with the bachelorette party/lingerie shower. We have some really great ideas! ;)
This past week at the office we have been training for our big EMR switch. I think we are ready to go green! It's taking us longer to room the patients, but it will get better with some experience. The software is really great, and once we get used to it, we will be able to send prescriptions directly to the pharmacy (no more written prescriptions for the patients to lose), fax consult notes to the PCPs, and print/fax all orders for labs, etc. We won't need a pen for anything! LOL If we don't go stark raving mad before that point! :) My boss is not the most technically savvy guy, so it was a rough week. I think he is seeing hope for himself, though! He even said it might not be a disaster after all! LOL
The bad part of the whole thing is that my blood pressure spiked again. It was high all week and on Friday, after a freak-out by the boss, it was 150/96. Not good. Going to have to go back on my diet again and drop a few pounds, since that always seems to reign it in. I did gain about 3 pounds over the holidays, which put me over the magic number my BP seems to like. As long as I don't go over that point, it will stay down; but BP has proved again that my body does not like to be any heavier. Great. I need to lose more this time so there is a bigger grace-period! LOL Nathan and I have been considering adopting a vegetarian diet during the week and having chicken or fish on the weekends. We aren't quite ready to go completely veg, but I think it wouldn't be too hard to be majority veg. Mom and Dad have been following the McDougal diet and she has several really good recipes for vegan meals. Nathan and I are both ready for a change. The things that worked for us before regarding our diet aren't working anymore and we are getting frustrated.
Ok! I guess this post is long enough and totally devoid of any really interesting topics! :) Just the ramblings of a woman up way past her bedtime! Night everyone!!

Pics from Christmas

I realized I never posted any pics from Christmas! Here a few shots of our fun times:



If you want more, I'm gonna upload the full folder to FB. :) Hope everyone is having a happy start to 2010!!

Holiday Fun

This year was our year for Christmas with my family. All seven of the Mapp kids came home with their spouses and kids, so it was a really busy week! The kids had so much fun with all their cousins. We got to spend a good chunk of time with Jude, who we hadn't seen since he was a couple of months old. He is the sweetest, cutest, squeezable-est baby! He likes me, too, which is a first! I am a huge baby person, but my little neices and nephews haven't really taken to me until they were older, so having Jude reach for me was awesome! Mom managed to pull off a spectacular lunch (our traditional lunch with turkey AND ham) and the even more beloved pie supper that night. I think I gained 5 lbs in one day! Mom made lemon merangue pie for me, so I had to eat it, you know?? It would have been rude for me not to eat almost a whole pie in 3 days...c'mom already! :)

Hannah and Micah got their much requested Nintendo DSIs and have spent countless hours trying to find their styluses and their game cartridges, but otherwise have had a lot of fun with them. These systems take pictures and voice recordings, too, so Micah has been having fun making his own soundtracks. They've also been taking pics and then using the edits to distort the photos, decorate the photos, and deface the photos. It's great fun for them!

Nathan and I spent New Year's Eve with Hope and Shannon, playing pool and goofing off. The kids stayed here and had an "awesome" night playing with poppers and silly string. They also couldn't believe I was letting them stay up till midnight! :) A little after midnight I got a phone call from my sis Amy- Chris asked her to marry him at the stroke of midnight!!! We are so excited for her! Chris is a great guy and the kids keep telling me they kept telling him to marry Amy so he would be their uncle.

Today we went to Nate's family for another "Christmas". While we were there, Matthew and Katie announced they are engaged, too! Matthew asked Katie yesterday also! :) I'm so excited!! I love weddings and there just aren't enough of them lately to satisfy my romantic side. :) The kids opened more presents and got so many cool things. Hannah got a bunch of clothes, which is great. I can't keep her in pants these days. I think her legs grown an inch a week!

So that capped our busy holiday season this year. We are all tired and hoping to spend the next couple of days recouperating. The kids have been so exhausted this week they are actually sleeping in!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2010 here we come!!!!