Its been a while

Its been a while since I've had a chance to post. So here is an attempt to update everyone on the past 6 weeks.

November: We are very lucky to have many elderly family members that are not only still with us but also healthy. In mid-November Brannon's grandmother Helen was out dancing with her girlfriends as she did every Friday night when she suffered a massive stroke. From what her friends told us, she was up dancing for a good hour when she sat down and began to slump in her chair. She was taken to UVA and kept at the hospital for two weeks before she passed away on November 30th. Helen was an incredibly hardworking woman and loved her family deeply. When Brannon and I went to visit her home after her funeral we saw her name tag sitting on the living room table right where she had left it the morning of her stroke. She worked until the day she died. Helen served coffee at the local gas station and would get up at 5am to make biscuits and coffee for the customers. Like I said, she was a very hardworking lady. When Brannon went to visit her in the hospital right after the stroke he found her phone and the background picture was a photo of Austin right after he was born. I think since we live far away from family we forget how important our children are not only to us but to all the people in our family. We found pictures of Ben and Austin next to her bed. It makes my heart ache that she never got to meet our 'Little Phil' but I am so glad she was able to have photographs of him, he was 3 weeks old the day of her stroke, she was 82.




Grandma Helen


December: We flew into December, leaving home the morning of the 2nd for Helen's funeral in Staunton. The funeral was in the afternoon on December 2nd and we spent the evening with Lisa and Eric (my mother in law and brother in law) having dinner and remembering Grandma Helen. The next day was my 27th birthday.



Brannon surprised me with tickets to a local theater to see a comedy, it was lovely. My in-laws watched the boys and let B and I have a night out on the town. I felt like I was cheating sitting there laughing, relaxing and all dressed up having a glass of wine while someone else watched the boys, it was truly a treat. Brannon signed me up for a pottery class for my birthday, I have been wanting to take pottery since high school.

December 5th we had both of the boys baptized at Olivet, the same church where we were married. Pastor Joe, who married Brannon and I, baptized both of our boys. It was a lovely service and we had a beautiful reception with family afterwards.




After the baptism we went to the local bowling alley and of course there was an incident because when there are Spragues involved there is always a story. I went out to the car to get something and came back into the alley finding Brannon literally trying to cover his face. He comes up to me and says 'this is possibly the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me' the facts are these: Ben tried to roll his bowling ball down his lane. It was rolling slowly, too slowly according to my mother. My mother goes out to get the ball and crosses THE BLACK LINE (the one that there are warnings about saying 'do not cross the black line' - because the lane is slicked!) and as soon as she crosses the line 'BAM' she falls. At this point my mother is laying out on the lane and in comes my mother-in-law to help my mother. My mother-in-law crosses the black line, my mother is yelling 'nooo lisa, nooo!' and down goes my mother-in-law, feet flying out from under and cracks the back of her head. I come in to find my mother nursing a broken wrist, but in her words 'only a little fractured' and my mother-in-law with a knot on the back of her head the size of an Easter egg. And that was our bowling experience. Ben retelling this story is PRICELESS, I am still trying to get him to tell it to the video camera.

So we finally get home, narrowly avoiding death by bowling. We spent the next few weeks getting our beautiful 10 foot tree decorated and setting up the house. I love Christmas time. I spent most of my childhood being angry that my birthday was always overshadowed by the holidays and swore that my mother had ruined my life for having me in December. Of course I go and have a child three days after Christmas. Ben was the one who put it all into perspective for me this year. We were driving the evening of my birthday and Ben squeals from the backseat, 'Mommy look! Everybody put up lights for your and my birthdays!!!'

Christmas. We had a wonderful Christmas. I had been shopping since the summer to try and have everything ready before Austin got here. Ben's big gift was a train table and train set. And as we set everything up, its 1am - Brannon has got the table put together, the track set up and says 'ok, lets get the train on this thing' - it is then that I realize we have no train. Mother of the Year over here. Ben thoroughly enjoyed looking at the train tracks on Christmas morning.



We had planned to leave in the afternoon on Christmas to go be with family but the snow storm that dumped 7 inches on Raleigh put a stop to that. Being the geniuses that we are, we had made sure we had eaten all of our food before we left for our big trip. By the time we realized it was not going to be safe to drive to Virginia - we had thrown away our left overs from Christmas Eve. So on Christmas this year we feasted on a very tasty meal of frozen pizzas. We ate pizza and watched the snow fall. It wasn't classy but we were together with a fire going and it was snowing on Christmas.



December 28th - Ben turns 3. We have been promising this child since this summer that when he turned 3 we would take him skiing. The morning of his birthday the wind was so strong he would have stood at the top of the mountain and been pushed further up. So we took him to the Baltimore Aquarium instead. After the initial half hour of sobbing and being told that we 'promised skiing' he accepted our peace offering of going to a dolphin show. We had a great time at the aquarium. He loved the sharks and sting rays. Austin slept through the entire visit but woke up to view the dolphin show at the end. Two days after Ben's birthday we did get him up to the slopes and we did take that boy skiing. He was amazing. I don't know if I've ever been more proud of him. He was up on his skis, letting go of me and shooting down the hill on his own. His balance amazes me. Of course he can't stop so a lot of our time was spent running after him and catching him. Since I didn't think he would be able to do much other than stand on the skis and cry about it being cold we didn't get a lift ticket. I thought, worst case we would have to walk up the bunny hill once or twice and help him ski down. SEVEN times people. The child lasted SEVEN runs. But the good news is I think that I burned off my remaining baby fat cross country skiing up the hill while pulling Ben behind me.




January: We rang in the New Year in Frederick. Brannon and I went out to Outback for dinner and had seasoned babysitters watching the boys (my parents). But unfortunately Austin was getting sick and was not going to take a bottle no matter what Grammy did. So we had a nice dinner and came home around 10:30-11ish. I was trying to get the boys to bed between Austin screaming because he couldn't breathe through his congestion to nurse and Ben bouncing off the walls from sneaking chocolate all day. When right before midnight, we are talking 11:59 on the clock - Ben is running around my parent's bedroom and I hear CRACK. He fell head first into the corner of their sideboard. Blood curling screams from both children filled the stroke of midnight with me yelling for Brannon to come and help me. And that my friends is how we started off the 2011.

Consider yourself updated.