The Spirit of Giving (Remix)

I figured I should tell you about Thanksgiving while it is still relevant.  Giving thanks for what we have should always be relevant, but you have to admit, now that Advent is upon us Thanksgiving seems like so long ago. Luckily for us we have plenty of photos to remind us.

We spent Thanksgiving with my folks down in Louisiana.  We left late Tuesday afternoon and arrived just past midnight.  We sure do enjoy nighttime drives.  The kids sleep and the adult talk.  And talk and talk and talk.  Sounds like a killer time, I know.

We spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in Houma.  And it was a great time.  Here it goes!

The weather has been quite nice here (and by this I mean I Gulf Coast area between here and there).  The nights are cold, the days are cool(er), sunshine is plentiful, and the breeze keeps on blowing.  The fruit has been plentiful at my parents' house.  The above picture is of lemons.  The one below is satsumas.

And a heads up for Grandma Tammy and Grandpa Dan.  The grapefruit is getting ready and I hope you are too.  So far they are really juicy, but a little tart.  Hopefully in the next few weeks they will sweeten up a bit and be perfect for your consumption.  

We had a couple of fires and roasted marshmallows.  The kids really enjoyed this.  We also discovered there is a right way and a wrong way to roast marshmallows and it greatly depends on who will be eating it and how picky they are about singed parts.  

And we got to spend some time with Aunt Liz.  And boy, has she grown!  

Mom got some bad news.  Actually, I don't know if she did or if this is just a poorly timed photo.  

This last run of photos is out of order.  I don't know why blogger chose to do this, but if I try to fix it and fail I will likely abandon this entry and you won't get to see any of it.  So consider this the remix part of the blog.

And so, in the spirit of giving thanks, here's where I thank my parents.  Thank you for your hospitality this time and every time.  Thank you for all the delicious food.  You sure know our favorites and have them on hand for us.  Thank you for the clean laundry!  Thank you for the love and attention that you show the kiddos.  Thank you for having cable TV and for recording the shows that we like (Parenthood and Duck Dynasty).  Thanks for the beautiful kitchen table!  Thanks for the shopping trips and the movie nights.  And most of all, thanks for supporting us and our dreams.  We sure do love you guys!

And now we will happily march into December.  I am particularly excited about this coming month.  Not only is this the first time we will have a Christmas tree in 5 years, but we are also having Christmas at our place with the Becker grandparents (wahoo!!!) !  And as if that weren't enough, my brother and his brood will stop in with my parents and the house will be full!!  Oh joy of joys!

60 Fun Things Update

It's been 10 days since I posted about the 60 fun things we are trying to do.  I'm crossing off the things we have done as we go along.  You can see it by revisiting the original post.  Here I'm just sharing some of the photos and details from our latest adventures.  In no particular order...

Beach fun--She finally learned to love the sand!

More museum fun, this time in Sugarland

Played with our cousins!

Found a new park with sweet hiking trails

Our trip to the zoo

Waiting for the bats to come out at Bat Fest

This is the rehearsal for the wedding, we forgot our camera for the actual event...

We still have a ways to go to complete this list.  It's exhausting to even think about it.  But it's a good kind of exhausting.  The kind of exhausting that makes you happy to be alive and happy to have a comfortable bed to fall into at the end of the day.

*Sidenote:  The best and most heartfelt wishes to my sister and new brother-in-law!  It was a beautiful wedding.  Thank you for allowing us to all have a special part in it.  And congrats to two of my sister-in-laws on the recent additions to their families!  We are so blessed!

Full Circle

Recently I've been pushing shopping carts down aisle after aisle looking for dinosaurs.  Nothing like hectic Christmas shopping to remind you of that Christmas feeling...

While browsing, I came across a keyboard that's shaped like a cat's face.  Annie took to it immediately.  For heaven's sake, it meows the notes!  I immediately realized that I've come full circle.

One Christmas, I received a Casio keyboard.  Man, I loved that thing.  Strange because we had a real piano.  That small, white, noise machine was so awesome!  Well, to me it was.  To my mom, it was just a small, white, noise machine.  There was a demo song programmed on the keyboard.  You can listen to it here (at the 0:35 mark).  I loved jammin' to that song.  Twenty something years later, my mom can still hum that song.  Perfectly.  Poor Mom.

While mulling over the idea of buying such a wretchedly awesome thing, a fellow shopper commented on how annoying toys with batteries were for the parents.  I agreed.  Then she proceeded to say something to the effect of "Well, I had to put up with it.  Now it's their turn."  Yep.  Full circle.

Another full circle moment: Orry brought home the note announcing the arrival of Santa's Gift Shop at his school.  Yep.  I remember picking out one mallard shaped wooden box for my dad.  Part of the reason I remember it so well is because he still has it.  (This should be the part where I apologize to my parents and simultaneously thank them for all they put with.)  So I shelled out some bucks for Orry to go and have that experience that I so dearly remember.  I told him to only get a gift for Isaac and Annie.  He came back with a 2" walking baseball, a baby rattle, and a gift for himself.  Oh, pay back is a...

But it's the Christmas season, after all.  A time of giving.  A time to celebrate and revel in the happiness of children.  And a time to really appreciate all that our parents did for us.  Nothing like paying your dues to get you into that Christmas spirit...

Deck the Halls With Ghosts So Spooky

It's been four years since we've decorated our house for Christmas.  And this year will make five.

I seems that we are always traveling during that holiday season.  And what's the point of buying and decorating a tree if you won't even be home to look at it.

I don't know what it is that kids love about decorating their houses for holidays.  Something to do with the twinkling lights, I'm sure.  I remember pressuring my own dad to put lights all over our house.  And I remember the sheer joy I felt when he finally got out the ladder and climbed on the roof, risking his neck to hang lights that would only have to be taken down less than a month later.  Ah, one of my happy memories.  Thanks, Dad.

So it comes as no surprise that Orry asked for "bat" lights when he began seeing other houses getting decked out for Halloween.

I love Halloween.  I love costumes.  I love candy.  I love Halloween.

So this year we have traded our "Christmas Decorating Fund" for a "Halloween Decorating Fund".  We carved our pumpkins with spooky ghosts and kitty-bats (Thanks, Grandma Tammy!).  We hung spider webs on our fence posts.  We even replaced our porch light with a black light.  We've got an orange string of lights for the porch and a spider string of lights for the window.  Our costumes are ready, though I won't tell you what they are just yet.  Okay, okay, here's a small preview because I'm sure you could have guessed it.

Orry had a really great time making our house "spooky".  He really loved putting the spiders in the cobwebs.  His pumpkin turned out pretty great too.  I'm not a 100% sure that the littler kids know exactly what's in store for them.  I am, however, 100% sure that this Halloween will be one heck of a treat!

His "pumpkin face"

We Are Thankful

Weekend before last we had the pleasure of having my parents, Mamita Donna and Poppa Jeffery, come for a visit.  It should go without saying that we had a wonderful time, but I'm going to say it anyway.  We had a wonderful time!  We went to a craft show, watched a killer football game (Geaux Tigers #1!!!), ate tacos from a food truck, went to church, saw Cars 2, went for a swim at the hotel pool, and walked among the butterflies.  

But of all the fun things that we do with our family, my favorite has to be gathering around the table and enjoying a meal together.  This time around we enjoyed hamburgers with all the trimmings.  Child and grown-up alike feasted that night.  All were satisfied.  None went hungry.  

Yes, some of us eat in our underoos...

During this time of year we are encouraged to slow down and give thanks for all the things that we have.  What time of year is it, you ask?  Well, I know it can be confusing.  Halloween is right around the corner.  And while the stores already have their twinkling lights wrapped around tall fir trees with golden presents shining from under their branches, Thanksgiving, that wonderful time of year when we gather around a table with our family, is only 37 days away.  While we do have costumes and candy and cobwebs and pumpkins on our minds, we are also taking time to give thanks for the things we have.

Orry's school is currently collecting canned goods for the local food bank and we are taking this opportunity to really help the kids understand just how fortunate we are.  We talk about the privilege of having clean water and the responsibility we have not to waste it or take it for granted.  We talk about the fresh vegetables and fruits we eat everyday and how lucky we are to be able to access and afford such commodities.  We also talk about sharing what we have with others.

I confess that I am guilty of giving all of my "back of the pantry" goods away whenever I get the chance.  You know, all those cans of baked beans, cooked spinach, and mixed vegetables that seem to hide in the back behind the more desirable items.  But I got to thinking, Shouldn't I be giving things that I myself would want to receive if the shoe were on the other foot?  And so I sent Orry and Troy to the store with specific instructions.  #1: Choose $10 worth of non-perishable food items. #2: Make sure that you pick things that you enjoy and that you think a boy just like you might like to eat.  They came back with a variety of things, but I know that Orry must have remembered rule #2 because he was sure to bring back some mandarin oranges.  He really wanted to give "a boy just like you" some fresh apples, but we had to remember rule #1.  

Being thankful for the things we have is something that we can do all year round.  Giving to our local food bank is also something that we can do all year round.  Hopefully, in this coming year we will do more of both. So tell me, what are you thankful for?

A Labor of Love

I hope you all thanked your mothers today for laboring on your behalf.  Your lives would be considerably less exciting if they hadn't done that...

Seriously.

I hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend.  We had a delightful time this weekend despite it having flown by so fast.  I guess that's what happens when you are really busy having fun.

Saturday we spent the morning at the beach.  It was a really windy day thanks to T.S. Lee.  The waves were pretty rough and sand was blown all over, but we still managed to build a small sandcastle and do other fun beachy things...

Another masterpiece

On Sunday we went to church.  After church we had a shopping errand to run and as we drove to the store we passed the dollar theater.  We saw that Kung Fu Panda 2 was playing and we made plans to go back in a couple of hours and watch it.  We have never taken our kids to the movies.  So this was really testing the waters.  I'm glad I had Troy with me.  He sure came in handy, putting Annie to sleep while the boys and I wiggled all around the row of seats, laughing at that fat panda.  Later that day we played outside since the weather has gotten down below the 100's recently.  

Oh, the joy of bubbles

And what did we do with our Labor Day?  We spent the morning at the zoo!  Again, since the weather was so "cool" we hit the road early to avoid the inevitable crowds and spent the morning watching elephants getting a bath and bats getting some brunch.  We went home for lunch and to get ready for our busy week coming up.  

Tomorrow, Isaac will start going to pre-preschool.  I'll have to pack his lunch and a few sets of clean clothes to change into.  He will also start following a routine.  This means a scheduled "rest" time and that means that he needed a nap mat.  So I made him one.

So I guess you can say that I labored on Labor Day.  But it was a small labor of love.  I'm sending my baby boy out into the world (kind of) and he needs something to remember me by.  Hopefully he'll look at the nap mat and remember me saying that the dots are "dinosaur green".  And if he doesn't remember me then, maybe he'll think of me when he eats his snacks and his lunch.  And if not then, then maybe when he puts on that dry pair of underwear and pants that I so lovingly packed him...

Like I said earlier, I hope you all thanked your mothers today...