December 10th through the 22nd, What...Us Slow Down?

I'm not quite sure what I was thinking, but I was certainly wrong about it!  I had the assumption that after the SJMMW that things would slow down at the Dismuke house; but I was wrong...very wrong!!  Granted that even though we didn't have seven soccer practices during the week for the girls or any regular appointments at SJ for Ingram, we still haven't had any free time.  And the sad thing is that we have no idea where all of our time is going?? It's totally crazy and the only proof we have is how tired we all are at the end of every day. 

We have made a few trips to St. Jude for special events with our ALSAC peoples and always have a fun time seeing them. We were able to get on phone calls with Mr. Shadyac and personally thank donors and wish them a Merry Christmas too. Ingram thought it was really fun because he got to walk around in Mr. Shadyacs office and he got cookies!!  Madison also had her very own meeting with Mrs. Emily Greer (ALSAC Chief of Staff) to do some research for a school project; one of her questions on her list was "If I were to take Mr. Shadyac's job when I'm out of college, what degree should I have?"  Yep, Madison is just that ambitious and we love it!!  Ingram found a dry erase board in an empty conference room and practiced writing and drawing while Madison was on her meeting.  Thankfully no one caught him spinning in the chair or standing up in it to draw!!






Ingram also had his first real haircut since completing treatment back in October of 2012. Actually, Craig has been trimming his hair for as long as I can remember so letting someone else touch his hair was a big deal!!  Daddy and Madison took Ingram for his haircut while I went on a lunch date with Lindsey; personally I think Craig wanted to be able to "advise" Natalie on how to cut Ingram's hair just right.  As you can see from the pictures, Ingram had fun and his just looks great!  Ingram even said that he wanted to have his "bright red shaggy hair back" and well you can see it's slowing getting back there.








Our friends Marvin and Grey Smith headed off to New York City to a special event with New York Yankees Mario Riveria over the Thanksgiving break.  When we found out they were going, we decided it'd be great to pass along a CONQUER shirt to him and spread a little Team Ingram/St. Jude/Childhood Cancer awareness all at the same time.  They had a great time in NYC and just got the official picture back from the Yankees. So here it is...Can you tell how excited Grey is?!




I guess another reason were staying busy is we can't stay out of the Doctor's office!!  Each of the kids and myself have been in for visits and hopefully our house is on the way to recovering.  Ingram was diagnosed with Bronchitis, Madison was diagnosed with Sinusitis, and I ended up with a sinus infection and an ear infection.  Lindsey and Daddy were the only ones that have been on the healthy side of things and hopefully all of our crazy weather changes won't get them on the sick side too. The down side of Ingram's bronchitis was that he missed the last few days of Preschool that included his Christmas party.  But we managed to enjoy ourselves in our pajamas at home and squeezed in about 6 hours worth of naps during those same days.  That much napping is a definite sign Ingram wasn't feeling good!!

Ingram also got a very special invitation to go golfing with his favorite Mississippi State Bulldog Mr. Brent and his Dad, Mr. Rooker.  Daddy was excited about playing a few holes too and all four of them tons of fun together.  It was a chilly and cloudy day, but Ingram was more than happy to spend an hour or two on the golf course before I made him take yet another nap.  Ingram ran all around the fairways and the greens but loved riding around in the golf cart with Mr. Rooker even more.  He even picked riding with Mr. Rooker over his own Mommy!  When it came time to actually play, the guys would hit their balls and then Ingram would tee his off with about 100 yards left to the hole. Ingram nailed a few fabulous hits with his driver down the middle and sides of the Fairway and had lots of fun putting on the Green.  Those golf clubs G-Daddy gave Ingram for his birthday are definitely coming in handy now!








Since it is Christmas break after all, we decided to make a special trip to see Santa Claus!  We of course went while Santa was on his lunch break (and on a Saturday) and ended up waiting for quite a while to talk about the "Naughty and Nice" list with the big man in red.  After watching people try for that perfect picture with Santa, we decided to do the perfect Dismuke picture and show each of the kids playfulness!  With Santa's permission, the kids had a fun time taking pictures with him that were Dismuke style!  And even after pulling his beard, making faces, and making monkey faces, Santa said that he would leave all three of the kids on the Nice list so they were pretty pumped. 






We also celebrated Christmas a little early with Mimi and Pops when they came in town for our Christmas service at church.  What they didn't know was that Madison was going to be a part of the program and read some scripture passages in front of the church.  I guess it was like an early Christmas gift seeing her so very excited about reading and doing  a great job of it.  Afterwards, we headed out to lunch with Mimi and Pops before we opened presents with them.  Now maybe with all of our Christmas shopping completed and everything wrapped, we might actually get to slow down a bit and focus on Christmas itself. 



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