Christmas Part II

Beauty in the Common Things: Not really common here, but it just started snowing!!! I hope it sticks!

Listen In: We are watching "Couple's Retreat", so far so good.

Dinner Plans: Left overs...Pizza Hut!

I love sending out Christmas cards. Some people CLAIM to be too busy but I don't believe it. My sister took our pictures for our card this year. They took a total of 10 minutes and turned out great!

Here is the runner-up:

Here is the winner!

This picture I had to share...my cousin who passes through town every once in a while stopped for a day for a visit before Christmas. He gave Grant some dinosaur eggs. He was so excited about them and proud of them. He kept asking when they would hatch. Turns out they weren't dinosaur eggs after all...just full of sugar :)

Grant had surgery the day after "Christmas Part I". He had his adnoids taken out and tubes put in his ears. We went to a great ENT here where we live. It was a quick surgery. Lamb Chop and Puppy were anxiously awaiting his return to the recovery room.

It took awhile for him to get out of the anstesia, but we waited patiently.

We finally got home and Grant rested for quite a while and ate plenty of popsicles.

After a while, playing time came back to him, sort of....

Later that night he was caught jumping on his bed. Quick recovery :) The surgery already has seemed to improve his health.

The next day, Grant and I put together a gingerbread house. I iced everything and he stuck the candies everywhere. Students gave me candy and such, it was a great way to use them besides eating them!

Christmas Eve afternoon, we took Grant to see his first movie at a movie theater, "Yogi Bear". The movie was absolutely awful, but he pretty much made it through the movie. Afterwards, we played in the arcade.

Like father, like son.


Grant and Fletcher got to bowl some.

It was 'mini-lanes'. Adorable and just the right size!


This is PawPaw and Vivian. He was rocking her to sleep...sort of.


I kept taking pictures, and she gave me this look...just like her mother!
Here is Grant giving Vivian some more kisses :)
Daniel rocked her to sleep, and did this when she woke back up...aww.

When we got back from the movies on Christmas Eve, it was time to prep for Santa's arrival!

Here is Fletcher and Grant putting out the reindeer food in the yard.

Greg and my mom played Christmas carol duets on the piano. I love hearing my mom play on the grand piano!

MiMi did crafts with the boys. Here they are writing a letter to Santa and making mugs for Santa's beverage!


We made cookies for Santa to eat.


The boys loved rolling out the dough.

We also made a few for us to eat!

It was a late Christmas Eve night, but we made sure Santa got his letter, goodies, and was able to see the gingerbread house.
Before Grajt woke up, I snuck in the living room to see what Santa had left.

Can you believe Santa carried this large train table in his sleigh. He really must have plenty of magic!

Grajt was excited to see what Santa had left. Daniel and Grant spent most of the morning on the train table.

Santa also brought this neat firetruck puzzle. Its four feet long!

We had to pry Grant away from Santa's gifts to open the ones from us. Then we went to my parents to see what Fletcher and Vvivian got from Santa as well as open gifts from each other. It was a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

To end this long blog, I'll show you a project we finished over the break. Woodshop at the high school made these dog houses. They were unpainted when we got them, so I told Daniel we needed to paint it for our dog Honey. I helped paint the roof black, then left to play with Grant for a while. I come back and he painted the rest gold. GOLD! I was horrified and so angry about the super ghetto dog house. My Honey could NOT sleep in such a horrible thing! He just laughed at me and repainted it all.. Now Honey can sleep in a pretty place that is maroon.

Christmas Part I

Beauty in the Common Things: Grant made it through church today...yippee! Ok, so he got a little loud at times, but we are making progress!

View from the kitchen window: Well, I'm looking out my in-laws kitchen window and laughing. Their dog is sleeping on my husband's old comforter with Ninja Turtles on it. Oh, I bet Daniel was a cute Ninja Turtle!

Listen In: Veggie Tales on the tube and my son in whining about something. "Its beginning to look a lot like bed time..."

Dinner Plans: whatever it is, I'm not cooking it, so that is exciting!

We went to my in-laws this weekend right after we got out of school. I was so ready to have a break from these students. All week they have been crazy. I will enjoy the breather from teenagers for a while.

I just wrapped up my 9th class for my masters. I think I only have about 3 or 4 to go!

We spent Saturday morning opening presents, eating and then playing "Just Dance 2". Who doesn't love 'shaking it like a Poloroid picture'? I'll post pictures later of that ordeal.

A busy week is ahead of us, including Christmas Part II

Cowboys, Clownfish, & Christmas

Beauty in the Common Things: My husband taking on some extra 'chores'. Due to my recent injury...see below...Daniel has to do all the dishes, which he hates. So shout out to him, thanks!

Listen In: Watching "The Office" from Thursday for the second time. So good. "She's one sassy black lady!" Buhahahha!

View from the Kitchen Window: Christmas lights twinkling. I heart the holidays.

Dinner Plans: left overs from lunch with friends. Good times!

Fletcher came in a for a weekend visit (anticipation of this can be seen in the previous post). We visited the Dallas Children's Aquarium which recently got a makeover. It is small, but interesting.

They have a covered outdoor area where you can pet small sting-rays.

Awesome eel.

The stingrays were quite hungry.

Watching the anticpation of the stingrays was the best.

The lady in the background fed the sharks and stingrays while we watched. I decided it'd be a great job for Daniel. Fletcher and I liked it, too.

Fletcher loved this sea turtle. You can't see it, but it was handicapped. So sad!

Two cousins who had a good day!

The week before Thanksgiving, the stomach virus hit our house. It was a busy week that did not have a slot for the virus!

That Thursday, Daniel and I were to take my Sports and Entertainment Marketing class on a field trip to Cowboys Stadium for a tour. It had been in the works for months and I had 20 kids counting on going...Daniel and I could NOT get the virus! We had a great day with my students. All were well behaved and enjoyed the tour. Thursday evening is when Daniel got the virus. We were supposed to go on vacation that weekend, but we canceled in anticipation of the virus finally getting to me. I ended up being safe and we went on with our Thanksgiving plans as usual. We went to visit Daniel's family and had a good few days.

"Jerry's World"

Each student got a picture of themselves on the prestegious blue star. The photographer figured out that Daniel and I were married and made us pose like this. It was kind of embarassing to do in front of my students. Daniel is a huge Cowboys fan. I even looked into getting married at Texas Stadium when we looked into wedding venues. Yea, it was way too expensive and I'm not sure I would have anyway. All bathrooms in that place were scary!

View of the Ballpark in Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers. A possible field trip location for next semester? If I get brave enough again!

After tour, we took them to CiCi's Pizza. Some student told me the food was the best part of the field trip. Well, I was glad to spend 3 months planning this trip just so you could enjoy some pizza!! Anywho, most of the students were male...so guess what they did after eating.

You can tell Daniel was ready to go. So bored, he tried to ride the 'quarter' horse.

Back to school we went and prepared for a long week ahead of us. D and I sponsor a club at our high school called Interact which is a community service club affiliated with Rotary. Our fundraiser this year was "Breakfast with Santa". All week we prepared for the Saturday morning event. More members came to help out than expected, even parents showed up lend a hand (which is actually rare).

To advertise the event, we collaborated with FFA for float in our town's annual Christmas Parade of Lights.

Here is Corbin and Grant waiting for the parade to start. Haven't I seen this before???

Our float wasn't as decorated as some in the parade, but we got our point across. We handed out invitations and candy to the children for "Breakfast with Santa".

Here is Amber and I with our little ones. We kept them bundled during the parade as they yelled "Merry Christmas!" Grant enjoyed it so much. He didn't care about his hands freezing!

Quick Videos

This first one was the 2nd time this happened, so I had to get it on video. You see, my car is my stage, and my dance floor. I guess he's picking up on that as well! HAHA.



Thisone is what happened after I told him his cousin Fletcher was coming in tomorrow.

Halloween Weekend

Beauty in the Common Things: A good doctor. As a kid, I had to wait almost an hour just to get to the little room, then wait again to see the doctor. Now I get in the doctor, have time to flip through the front part of a People magazine and I'm in! Then I sit in a comfy room and see the doctor pretty quickly.

Listen In: My boys are playing hide and seek this early Saturday morning.

View from Kitchen Window: We are finally getting our new fence today. Looking forward to getting that done.

Last weekend we went back to our old stomping ground for SFA's homecoming. First stop was the big bonfire.

The next morning, we met friends for the annual homecoming parade. This is the first one I've actually been a spectator at. I've been in a few back in the day, but it was fun to watch and see Grant enjoy it. Here is the Yellow House's (the Church of Christ Student Union where Daniel and I met) float. The theme was "Lights, Camera, Axe'Em!", a Hollywood theme. The float is along the lines of Jurassic Park.

Here is Grant's favorite part, the Lumberjack band.

Daniel's sister, Erica, is now a freshman at SFA. She met us at the parade.

That afternoon, Grant and I had a great nap while Daniel and his Dad, and sister Erica went to the football game. We saw many friends that we miss and their kiddos. That night Erica showed me her dorm, where is actually where I lived, and is actually named after a relative of mine. This sign was on the wall of the dorm, and I thought it was pretty appropriate!

I learned many lessons while in college, some good, some not so good, and some just plain stupid, but I bet I'm not alone. In the end, I got my degree hanging on my wall, met life long friends, and met the man God made for me. Ok, enough of the reflecting...lets get back to the subject!

That evening we went to one of my favorite restaurants, one that I crave quite often, Szechuans Chinese Restaurant. Thanks to my in-laws for going with us, even though they aren't big Chinese food fans. In college, my friend Matt and I used to hit this place up about once a week and definatley before going to look at Christmas lights (an annual event for us). In this picture, Daniel is eating what the call the PooPoo Platter. Its basically some meat items with fire in the middle. Fun to say and fun to eat!

My sister went to SFA as well and we have mutual friends at the Yellow House. We were able to spend some time with them as well. Here is Vivian and Daniel hanging out. I love how they both have a little smirk on their face.

Speaking of Vivian, my mom sent me these pictures of her and Grant playing one day. Aren't these the sweetest. I'm confident that Grant will be a great big brother one day.


Ok, back to the weekend, we left SFA early to be back for Halloween festivities. First stop, Trunk or Treat. Mimi went with us while we left the men at home to watch the World Series. Grant wanted to wear his rooster costume, but it was covered in pizza sauce from children's day out. I found a train whistle for him to use with this conductor costume, so he then got easily excited to wear that.

We ran into Christine and Eric while we were there. Their little monkey kept trying to eat the Play-Do.

From there, we headed to another church's festival. Here is Grant checking out his finds.

Oh, those dimples!
The church had many games for the kids to play.

We were glad to see Corbin who invited us to come. They are so cute together!

Grant patiently waited for his turn to ride the horses. He kept turning around to me and saying, "It's my turn, Mommy."


Grant finally got his turn and he seemed like a natural. Of course, I had to pull him off as he was screaming for more.

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend. Nothing better than friends, family, and candy!!!

On This Farm There Was a Rooster...

Grant's Halloween costume was already purchased when we found out that Children's Day Out was having 'Noah's Ark Day' and he had to dress as an animal. My wheels got to turning and I knew I couldn't spend too much and it had to be simple as well as cool and comfortable for him to play in. I asked him several times what he wanted to be and he answered rooster (or as he says, 'woosta' in toddler talk). So to accomodate those dimples of his, I went out to seek the best way to make this costume. I have minimal sewing skills that I learned from my grandmother and home ec in high school. I have sewing machine I got for Christmas last year that I've used to hem pants during softball season, but nothing major can be done by me. So with the help of the internet, my mom, and the October edition of Parent's magazine, I came up with this mix to make an adorable and functional custom.

I started with a bright yellow $3 t-shirt from Wal-Mart, a white toddler hat from Ebay, and white sweatpants from an internet store.

I got white and yellow felt and cut 'feathers' basically in the shape of a leaf.

I cut a rooster comb out of red felt, stuffed it with pillow stuffing and sewed it to the top of the hat.

I made chicken feet by using orange felt and pillow stuffing and sewing it on the front of the sweatpants.

I sewed the felt feathers along with white craft feathers to the front of the shirt, making sure to cover the blue shark. I sewed it all by hand so it could be easily warn again with the feathers off. Grant wasn't interested in trying it on when I was done for a picture, so I conned my unhappy husband into doing it!

It took a while to convince Grajt to put it all on (and I had to take some feathers off around his neck) but we got it on and he loved it!

He ran around his classroom screaming "cocka cocka doo!"

It was a hit and Grant was one happy customer!