Merry Christmas!

Oliver can't keep a secret.

One of our family traditions is to take the kids to the Dollar Store to get presents for each other. This year I helped Savannah and Emmaline and Tyler helped Oliver. At the end, when we met up, Tyler said, "You even bought something for Mama, didn't you Ollie." Very innocently, Oliver answered, "Yes, hot chocolate." The crestfallen look on Tyler's face was so sad! Several days later I took Oliver by himself to buy something for Tyler. When we came home, he ran in the door and said, "Daddy, I buy you pickles!" He just can't keep a secret!

My Favorite Decorations

I can't get a really good picture of this, but it is my favorite holiday decoration. I think it makes the whole house look so much more festive!

Savannah's a Soccer Star!

Savannah made 3 goals in her last soccer game! Watch out Mia Hamm... here we come =)

Whenever you see tinsel...

Christmas is hard for me! It was Mama's favorite time of year. She would spend all year getting ready for it, really, buying lots of presents for everyone, big and small. She always wanted everyone to have a lot of things under the tree to open. In their house in Texas, she even had a "presents room." An oversized closet with everything imaginable used to wrap and hide the presents. I told Martha that I was feeling a little down and she wrote me the most touching email. (Hope she doesn't mind me sharing... but I thought it might be helpful to all of us that might be missing Mama, especially at this time of year.)

"One day we went to Big Lots in Independence in early November.
Christmas stuff was everywhere. She said, "I just love Christmas. Do
you think they celebrate Christmas in the spirit world?" I said I was
sure they did celebrate Christ's birth, though I wasn't sure they
decorated. She said, "Maybe they'll let me hang a little tinsel." As
we decorated our tree, I told Morgan, when you see tinsel, you never
know, maybe Ganmama hung it just for you."

I love that thought and it has made me smile in the last couple of days. So look for the tinsel.

Quote of the Day

Oliver: (pointing to the meat on his dinner plate) "Is dis horsey?"

Blogging Blahs

Sorry for the long break. Haven't been feeling up to it lately. We had a great (although expensive due to car repairs) trip to Oklahoma (see Leslie's blog for a better update). The horses were Savannah and Oliver's dream come true.

The day after we got home Ollie said, "Uh go home." I asked him what he meant since we were home and he replied,"Home with horses." Obviously he did fantastic on the long drive and would have enjoyed getting right back into the car to do it again. The girls did excellant, as well.

So we've been decorating.... The kids got excited and wanted to get started before I was ready.


Can't say I was excited about cleaning up that mess. I put all the lights on the tree, only to find that the strand didn't work... we decided to wait for another try on the next night. So Tyler tried his hand at it on Tuesday night. Plugged the lights in to make sure they worked, then hung them on the tree... only to find that they also didn't work. He said, "Suddenly this doesn't seem nearly as fun." So we decided to wait another night. Last night, I got all of the lights up and we were all decorating, having fun when we realized that Oliver had wandered away. Here is the condition we found him.

A whole tub of Vaseline on his head. Ever tried to wash away Vaseline? Mrs. Meyer's dish soap does not work. Shampoo does not work. Cornstarch doesn't work. Baking soda doesn't work. Goo Gone does a fair job. But of course then his entire body was coated as well. You know how water beads up on your car after you wax it? The same thing happens to skin coated in Vaseline!