A very merry Christmas to us all

The last month has been busy for our family, so here's some pictures to catch you up on what the boys have been up to lately.

Cooper catching a ride at the family Thanksgiving. Carson created a beautiful gingerbread house for his teacher this year.

Colten created a very loaded gingerbread house for his teacher. She cried when he took it in to her at school and wrote him a thoughtful thank you note. He was so proud of the job he did.

Our Christmas card picture for those of you who didn't receive one... sorry about that.

Carson was a camel in his preschool's Christmas pageant this year. He did a great job and was really excited. I wish I had better pictures than this, but the room was packed with people and he was one of the last students to go down the aisle.

We went to Corvallis to visit family for an early Christmas and Santa (aka: Uncle Mike) showed up. This was Cooper's first experience with Santa. He wasn't too impressed.

My big boys were excited about the pinata Santa brought them. They had lots of questions about if he was the real Santa and decided it must be one of his helpers dressed up like him. They are still believing in Santa so I'm going to let them as long as they don't ruin it for Cooper.

All three boys with my cousin Mandy, who's birthday happens to be on Christmas. The boys look forward to playing with her each time we visit.

Colten's turn at the pinata.

Carson's turn at it next. I held Cooper and tried to get him into swinging the bat since he normally loves to swing and hit things, but he didn't like this so I took his turn.

My mom made all five of us matching pajamas for Christmas Eve. They have reindeer tangled up in lights on them. The boys were so excited for Christmas morning, but even let us sleep in until 6:30. I was thankful.

Santa was out of Batman costumes, but he brought a great pirate one for Carson. Colten was a little bummed about not getting his Venus Fly Trap plant (that I drove around to four different stores looking for) but he'll get one this spring when they are in season.

Cooper is obsessed with all the ornaments. Both our tree and my mom's have been well kid-proofed this year.

My dad's latest creation in the series of wooden construction toys for my boys. This year was a side dumper semi truck.

My dad also made one with a "low-boy" trailer so the boys can haul all the previous years' creations to their constructions sites. It also gives them a different one so they can argue about who gets to use what one at what time.

Other gifts included a variety of Legos and Star Wars gear and books, Tony got me a Kindle Fire, though it is being well used by all of us, and I got Tony a skydiving trip.

'Tis the season for....

...depression.
I'm a victim of seasonal depression. It hasn't been very obvious the last few years. I'm familiar with depression, with the worst being the year following my miscarriage. What's not familiar for me is not having anything to be depressed about. The only thing is that I'm just not seeing the sun.
In high school and college I remember wanting to just curl up in my room and "hibernate" for several months. I would want to sleep 12 hours a day and could barely make it out of bed to attend work. I even had to drop a class once because I couldn't get out of bed to make the one class in January.
I didn't really notice this season's blues much until Tony mentioned it. But now it just keeps getting me down. I think the worst part about depression is that it is entirely mental, but affects everything. My emotions are all over the place and I over-react to even the smallest things. I know I need to exercise and that it will help, but just can't get myself to exercise. My self image is in the toilet and yet I still can't get the motivation to work out. I'm impatient and find myself "vegging" lots of the time. To sum it up, it sucks.
So what am I going to do about it? I'm hoping that once things stop being so busy in a week or two, then I can talk to a doc and see about finding some treatment. I just can't wait until the sun comes back out in three months. I've been there, lived that, and know that I can't do that again. Hopefully once I get a handle on this depression I'll feel more on top of my school work, and able to keep up with the kids. Hopefully you'll be seeing more posts soon.