New Year

Beauty in the Common Things: Manners. Some kids have never heard of them. Mine is still learning. We took are dogs to the vet and Grant kindly said, "Thank you doctor for taking care of my animals." Aww, so sweet and yet so random1

Listen In: Watching "Shrek Forever After". I love Gingy!

View from Kitchen Window: 2 dogs ready to come in and melting snow. Pictures of snow fun to come later.

We took a small vacation to Sea World on New Year's Eve. We joined up with my sister in law, Winonah, and my nephew Fletcher. Everything was still beautifully decorated for the holiday season.

First stop was the dolphin and baluga whale show. Here are the boys getting ready for the show. Fletcher is ready to rock out!
Dancing dolphins.

Too sweet.

Mmm....funnel cake!!!

The Shamu Show! That baby in the middle was born last January.

I did notice that none of thetrainers got in the water with the orca whales. Probably a new change since the incident this past year in Orlando.

Still a fun show to watch though! Isn't this every kids' dream job at some point?

Aww, adorable!

I wanted to take this whale home...so adorable!

Grant couldn't take his eyes off of him.

We then went to visit Cookie Monster. Winonah and Fletcher got a good picture with him.

I was happy Grant wasn't scared of him.

They had decorative snowmen all over this one side of the park. Here is Elvis:

This one is a shout out to my brother, The Blues Brothers:

Outside Shamu Stadium.

Some adorable "Happy Feet"

Grant was double fisting the cotton candy.

Otter performing on a ball? That is awesome!

The Sealion show included Santa at the end! What a surprise!

This walrus has got to be one of the more difficult to train.

After the sealion show, we ate a special dinner put on by Sea World. Winonah and Daniel went and rode the "Steel Eel" while the boys and I had some down time at the playground. Our last activity before Sea World's New Year's event was seeing "Polar Express" in 4D. The boys LOVED it! Here is everyone in their crazy glasses.

G like them better this way.

We got "VIP" access to the fireworks show at the end of the night. We sat on our Shamu blankets and waited for the show. Grant played with his new suitcase o' animals.

There goes the fireworks! It was a chilly night and a great end to a great (and LONG day).

Happy New Year!

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.