Favorite Christmas Moment

Well, one of my favorites.

When I was a kid, Santa always put an apple and an orange in our stockings.  It’s a tradition I have started as well.  Never before have the kids really noticed the apple and the orange.  It’s always just a blip on the Christmas radar.  I mean, who is going to notice an apple when there are candy and toys to be had?  Logan notices, that’s who.  And as you will see, he was appalled that Santa would put something so preposterous in a stocking!

That boy cracks me up!

Happy Birthday Connor

At 12:13 p.m., Christmas Eve 2002, our lives were forever changed as this little bundle joined our family.

Like any mom, I’ve spent the day reflecting on that day 6 years ago, reflecting on the boy he is, and dreaming of what his future holds.  I remember so vividly the long 18 hours in the hospital leading up to his birth.  I remember the joy as we first saw him, and then the fear as we realized he was struggling to breathe.  I remember his little cleft chin, just like his daddy’s.  And I remember that he peed on the nurses and we all laughed, but it was nervous laughter because we could all see his chest retracting with each and every breath he took.  It was overwhelming, numbing almost, to hold my new baby for less than a minute and then have him whisked off the NICU.  I remember praying, pleading with God to make him better, but at the same time knowing with complete faith that he was going to be fine.  He had so many people praying over him for those 4 days in the hospital, those 4 days that at the time felt like an eternity, but in retrospect went by in a flash.  Just like the last 6 years have gone by.  Six years old?  How is that even possible?!

I am so incredibly proud of the ways he is growing.  I love his tender heart, his creative spirit, his boundless energy, his passion, the way he is so particular about everything and is confident in his likes and dislikes.  I love the way he is expressing himself more and more with his words and less and less with his hands.  I love the way his love for Jesus is growing, the way his mind works, his endless questions about everything and anything.  I love that he never gets bored because there is just too much going on in that little mind of his.  I love how sweet he is to Camryn and how Logan is fast becoming one of his favorite people to play with.

Connor, as we go into this next year of your life, always remember this:

“He will not let your foot slip-
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you-
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm-
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore. ”
–Psalm 121:3-8

Happy Birthday, my sweet boy!

I wore a patch when I was a kid

I had a lazy eye, and I remember that I had to wear a patch to try to strengthen my bad eye.  That was sometime around 1985-ish.

I thought I was going to have to relive my patch days, but opthamolagy has come a long way.  Turns out that they have bandages now that look just like a contact lens.  You want to know how I know this?

This little peanut:

Did this to me yesterday.

(click if you want to see the ugliest pictue ever even bigger.)

The story: I was walking along, and Camryn’s little finger (which apparently had a razor attached to the end of it) poked right into my unsuspecting eye.  Let me just say that it hurt like a you-know-what and I had a really hard time contorlling my tongue as I crumbled to the ground.  3 hours later, I could still not open my eye and couldn’t find any relief from the pain, so I called the family doctor, my brother.  He said I needed to go see an eye doctor, and hooked me up with an appointment.  But unfortunately, there were no openings (even with the “I’m an ER doctor” string pulling…) until this morning.  I really wasn’t sure how I was going to manage through the night.  But luckily, we had a vicodin left over from something…ah, sweet mind numbing relief.  Me and Vic were friends last night, and I am so grateful that I hadn’t cleaned out the medicine cabinet recently.

I woke up this morning to an eye that still wouldn’t open, and still in pain.  It was slightly better than yesterday, but I was still miserable.  I finally got called back to see the doctor, and the first thing he did was put numbing drops in my eye.  I wanted to hug the man.  It’s like when you are in the throws of labor and you taste the sweet nectar of the epidural.

I have a corneal abrasion, and in the words of the doctor, “she really got you good!”  He used tweezers to remove some tissue, put in a contact lens bandage, hooked me up with two different kinds of eye drops, scheduled me for follow up on Friday, and sent me on my merry way.  And merry I was.  Those numbing drops didn’t wear off for another hour. (and the whole time he was removing tissue from my eye ball, I just kept thinking about how amazingly steady his hand was!  I was super impressed…and thankful for that steady hand!)

Tonight, it’s better but still sore.  Now it just feels like the aftermath of when you get something in your eye and rub it a lot.  The most annoying thing is I can’t see very well.  My right eye is my strong eye, and it’s the injured one.  Even with my glasses on, everything is still blurry.  And my eyes get really tired quickly.  Just typing this has made my eyes tired.  And I’m super duper light sensitive.  I felt like a movie star today because I wore huge sunglasses all day, even inside.  It sure does look better though.

Last night, 6 hours post eye poking.  This is me, opening my eyes as wide as possible.

Tonight, 30 hours post eye poking.

(come on, blog friends…tell me I’m pretty even with the squinty eye…and zits…awesome.  maybe when I’m 30 I’ll stop getting zits?  One can hope, right!)

Number 9

December 18, 1999

December 18th-ish, 2008

On this, our 9th year as Mr. and Mrs., I didn’t get to see my love.  But he is home now (I’m not publishing this until he gets home, so if you are a stalker, my man is here to protect me now!)  And it’s vacation time!  17 days of no work, no school, family time, Christmas time, and fun!

In honor of our 9th year, here are 9 of my favorite mwt and dwt memories. (in no particular order)

1. December 24, 2002; March 22, 2005; July 13, 2008.  The days our love was tangible in the form of our babies.

2. Our cruise in the spring of 2004.  It was the first big vacation we took together, and I loved every second of it.

3. Until we had kids, we went out to eat and to a movie almost every weekend.  I loved it. Weekly date night.

4. He asked me to marry him by carving it into a tree.

5. Playing sports together, just the two of us.  In college, we played raquetball.  We went through a tennis phase.  We threw the football and played volleyball in the parking lot adjacent to our first apartment.  We played soccer where I was the goalie and he tried to score on me.  We worked out at the Cal Tech gym together.

6. His infamous garlic pasta.  He surprised me with dinner once during our first year, which was so sweet.  Only he didn’t realize that a clove of garlic wasn’t the entire head of garlic.  We stunk for days and days…it still makes me laugh and it’s one of those stories that we talk about all the time.

7. Shopping for our first house together.  After 6 years of graduate school and itty bitty apartment living, I felt like a queen buying our first house.

8. Our itty bitty apartments.  Such warm and fuzzy feelings when I think about 15B Champion, 17 Champion, and 1001 E. Villa #4 and #11.

9. The few times we drove between California and Texas.  Seeing how much I hate long car rides, it’s weird that this would make the list.  But being on a long car ride with my favorite person in the world is alright, and even a little bit fun.

one line blogs i mean to write

**Today Connor’s teacher gave me a small gift for helping her; she gave me Bath and Body Works Aroma Therapy Stress Relief Body Wash and Lotion.  Is it really that obvious?

**One day last week, I bought a package of these:

The next day, they were gone.  Have I mentioned that I tend to be a stress eater?

**Really, I’m not that stressed out…well, maybe a little bit.  But when I start to get really frazzled, I remind myself just how blessed i am to have my babies and this crazy life.

And then I eat a Christmas tree cake.

And take a bath with my new stess relief products.

An oldie but a goodie

Need a little bit of Christmas cheer? This ought to do it!

I can’t get over how little he was! He’s grown SO much in the last 2 years. (It’s a video in case it isn’t showing up on a reader.)

Or maybe this cozy little princess will make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

I love my Christmas tree.  There is nothing like the evenings when the house is all quiet, Derek and I are relaxing, and I get to look at this.

Tonight, Derek and I also did this.

I want you to know something about the above picture.   We were making smores over the fireplace, which if you havn’t done this season, you should.  I had the tripod out to take some tree pictures, so I turned it around to capture us.  Oh, and capture us it did.  It captured my undies, to be exact.  Apparently, I need to be a little careful with how I sit in the pants.  Nothing makes you feel cooler than seeing a big wad of granny panty hanging out the top of your wind pants.  Awesome.

The other night, we were cozy inside while it looked like this outside.

I still can’t believe it snowed in Houston!

I hope you all have a cozy, Christmas-y weekend.

New Tradition

On Saturday, we loaded up the troops and headed to the farm to choose the Griswold Thurman Family Christmas Tree.  It was such a fun day, and I’m going to make sure that this is a new tradition.

Before I post a crazy amount of pictures (I took over 200!  I didn’t keep them all, but it’s still a little out of control.), let me just say that I can totally relate to Clark Griswold.  We’re standing out there in this big field of trees, and in our minds we know we want a 6 foot or under tree.  But that size does not look big at all out there, especially if you are me and spatial relations are always a challenge.  I thought our tree was a little wimpy, but in our house it looks way bigger.  This is our very first real Christmas tree, and I love it with my whole heart.

Okay, pictures.  There’s a lot, just a warning.

The farm was about 40 minutes from our house.  Poor little guy was tuckered out before we even got there!  We arrived at about 3 p.m. I sat in the car and fed Camryn and Logan took a little power nap.  He is just so dang cute!  I couldn’t resist taking pictures of him.

That pouty mouth and lashes…I just wanted to smoosh him with kisses!

Once he woke up, he joined Connor on the hay bales.  The kids had the best time playing on them.

Daddy’s girl.  I love taking pictures of the two of them together.

On the ride out to the trees.  It was super, super bumpy!

Measuring to find the perfect tree.

We found it!  Connor wanted to stand guard.

But Logan was not impressed.  This was the tree he wanted.  I’m pretty sure it was like 8 or 9 feet tall.  And it probably housed a rogue squirrel, just like the infamous Griswold tree.

The best picture of all 3 in front of our tree.

Timber!

The boys hard at work.

Still working, dragging it to the end of a row.

Self portrait of the Camster and I.

Family photo op!

Can you see something odd in this picture?  Cracks me up that we have a little stowaway.  I think it would be hilarious to use this as our Christmas card.

Sweet girl in one of her sassy holiday outfits.  She is so fun to dress up!

She has the bluest eyes!

After cutting down the tree, it was back to the hay bales for some more fun.

Logan was thrilled when I asked him to stop for a picture.

Self portrait of us.

I decided to play on the hay, too.

I thought about jumping, but once I was up there, I decided that was not a good idea at all.  Instead we slid down.  I like this picture, blurred, chopped, and all.

I was very very glad the tree didn’t fly off the roof of the car.

And that was the end!  I know I already said it, but it was so, so fun.  It was a great day!