Gift giving

One definition of a good gift giver is someone who is thoughtful; one who thinks of the receiver and chooses something with that person in mind. If that is true, then Tyler is an exceptional gift giver. For example, last Mother's Day, Dan asked Tyler what he wanted to get me. "Lightbulbs" was his answer. Now, you might be thinking that is a lame gift, but just that day I had mentioned that I needed new light bulbs.

Well yesterday, I was asking Tyler what he wanted to get his Dad for Christmas. "Well, since Dad likes taking baths, how about a rubber duckie?" See? So thoughtful and chosen carefully with the receiver in mind. And yes, we did find a rubber duckie that is just waiting to be wrapped and placed under the tree.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Wow, what a crazy holiday season we have had already. Our Thanksgiving was wonderful! We had 21 people eating dinner at our house, and the food was absolutely delicious. I love the food on Thanksgiving--turkey, potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, veggies, all of it. I sometimes think it would be awesome to have Thanksgiving dinner more often, but then of course it wouldn't be as special. Of those 21 people eating dinner with us, 15 of us slept here at our house. We were pretty crowded, but it was fun. Tyler loves playing with his cousins, and we love visiting with Dan's family; we always stay up too late playing games and visiting, and we did again.

Sunday morning, Tyler had a pretty nasty cold (which we even eventually went to the Dr. for, but yes just a bad cold, no infection) so he stayed home from church. When I came home, our company had just left, so Dan had pulled out all the Christmas stuff from the attic. We were both so excited to decorate this year. I think it might be because Tyler is really getting into it with us. Well finally yesterday, I put the last of the things away and got my house clean from all our company. I love it. The only thing left is the outside lights. We are finally going to do them. I have never had lights on my house at Christmas, not as a child, not with Dan. And I want them. I started this afternoon, but only got as far as what I could do with the ladder; I didn't want to climb out onto the roof without Dan here, and he is working today. He promised me we will get them up next week.


So, here are my pics of our decor. I obviously need some work when taking pictures without a flash, but you should get the idea. I want to point out Mom, under our tree in the family room (which used to be Grandma's and I kept thinking of her when I was stringing the lights on it) we have wrapped books. We are going to open a book each night starting tonight for a little countdown to Christmas. You see, my mom has given us a Christmas story book on Christmas Eve for years now. I think I was able to go from the 9th to the 24th, with some supplementing to fill in the 1st-8th. That would make 15 years? worth of books. What a neat tradition, and we are excited to use them this way.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Indian Boy

Last Monday Tyler had his Thanksgiving feast at school. I love seeing him in his school environment. The class sang us two songs, and then the pilgrims (the grown ups) had all brought food to share at the feast with the indians (the kids). Aren't their indian costumes adorable? Tyler has been wearing his all week.

Later in the week Tyler and I decided to try out the Museum of Health. They have a Sesame Street Exhibit that is all about the body--body parts, how they work, organs, taking care of your body inside and out, etc. We loved that we got to meet Elmo, and I think we stayed in the Elmo's world section for almost half the time we were there, but Tyler's very favorite part, like so many children I'm sure, was the little display on digestion. Look at the pictures, and I'm sure you'll see why. We liked this museum and plan to go back to look at the permanant exhibit, we didn't even make it there we liked this so much.

Vacation Recap

We had such a great time on our vacation. It was a beautiful resort, and we had a lot of fun with our friends Joshua and Amanda. This was purely a vacation of R&R; we spent most of our time hanging out at the pool sipping our newly discovered drink--a virgin Miami Vice. Well, I did. That and spending some time in the spa. Dan was a little busier. He and Joshua went golfing, and also enjoyed all the activities on site--water polo, water volleyball, football on the beach, and so on. We stayed at the Excellence resort at Playa Mujeres. We were actually the first people to stay in our room, which was pretty cool. The only bad thing was that there were a few construction kinks: the fitness center was not open (and I was so going to workout everyday) and the hot tubs were still cold tubs. We had even payed extra for the room with a rooftop terrace and hot tub, and it was cold; we couldn't even use it. The resort was good enough to comp us some golf and spa treatments to make up the difference. The service was wonderful, and the food excellent. We would love to go back again.

Greetings from Mexico

Trip can be summed up in three words:

virgin miami vice

More later!!

Family Pics

We got our proofs back from our family pictures, and are really quite happy with them. Here is a link to our photograper's blog:

http://www.amyjophoto.blogspot.com/

Amy is a friend from church, in fact she was Tyler's teacher for awhile, and we had such a fun time with her.

As far as our happenings go, Tyler and I went to Austin Friday night so we could be there for our cousin Nathan's baptism Saturday morning. What a fun time; Tyler loves hanging out with all his cousins, and he and his cousin Emily who don't always play so well together, did. Here they are with Ryan:

Grandma and Grandpa are here now to do us a huge favor. They get to stay and play with Tyler while Dan and I go to Mexico. It's a little trip for our upcoming anniversary, and we are so looking forward to going. So in two days, I should laying poolside, sipping my virgin pina colada, with a good book in hand. Ahhhhh.

Happy Halloween

Hope you had as much fun as we did!