Getting Ready for Christmas

I love Christmas. I love decorating the house, making cookies, Christmas parties, Christmas music, Christmas food, and especially the original reason for Christmas: the birth of Jesus. Here are some of my favorite decorative things about Christmas:

Maggie being old enough to help and enjoy decorating the tree. Here she is with Daddy hanging up her 1st ornament:
Our tree. It's small, but the only ornaments on it are ones I've collected over the years or inherited from family. I love every ornament on that tree!
One of my favorite ornaments. A reminder that I get to go home at Christmas this year.
And, our stockings. This is a family tradition on my Mom's side of the family. I remade mine and made a new one for Tyler the year we got married, and I had a great time making Maggie's last year for her first Christmas.
Lights on the house. Tyler did a good job putting them up.
A Wreath on the door. I love the green ribbon and putting our intial on the wreath.

Raking leaves

Friday after Thanksgiving Tyler tackled all the leaves in the yard. Having 4 dogwoods, 2 HUGE maples and several smaller maples makes for a LOT of leaves to get rid of every fall. Think of it like this: there are enough leaves from just the 2 big maples in the back to fill up a regular size bedroom with about 3-4 feet of leaves.

He spent almost all day Friday sweeping leaves off the driveway and redistributing them across the yard so he could mulch them all up with the mower. There is no way we could've bagged them all, and without a blower the redistribution takes a lot of arm work. Maggie and I went outside for a while to "help". Maggie likes to do what Daddy does, so we gave her a broom and off to work she went! It was really cute.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

There is so much to be thankful for this year! I can't even begin to list our blessings. I guess in short I am thankful for God's provision in our lives: good health, Tyler's career, Maggie is growing, a great house to live in and cars that work, a wonderful church to attend, awesome friends and most importantly Gods work and presence in our lives through Christ.

This year our friends Jamin & Christie and their two girls, Nyah and Aubrey, joined us and the Christians for our annnual Thanksgiving dinner. Jamin & Christie moved to Michigan this past spring, so we were really glad they could make it down.

Aubrey, playing with the top to the booster seat during dinner.
Jamin and Seth hamming it up for the camera.
Christie, Nyah and Jamin.
Tyler - really looking forward to turkey!
Alright, not the best picture of Maggie, but the only one I took. I guess I was too busy eating!
Seth, Dixie and Zayli - staples of our Thanksgiving. Every year except one we have had Thanksgiving together since we moved to Nashville. They are great friends!

Who said you could be there?

Blitz decided he needed to take a nap in Maggie's crib. He hasn't done that since before she was born. Idiot. He just laid there while I took pictures, and didn't even get up until I shooed him out.

Trying to take a family pic for Christmas Cards

By the way, how DO you get a 22-month old child to pose for a picture? The picture going out with our Christmas card/letter has Tyler and I smiling, but not her!!! Stinker! Here are some outtakes from our friend Seth taking our pictures:

Sometimes I just LOVE Wal-Mart!

Seriously. A lot of the time I shop there because it is cheap, even though the lines can be a mess. But, this find in the children's shoe aisle has quieted my distress!!! They were only $10, and they had them in her size. They also fit perfectly and don't slip off. These are Maggie's "dress brown" shoes for this fall and winter. And I love-love-love them.

It's Fall!

Fall came about a month late here in Nashville. Typically most of the leaves are off the trees by Halloween, but the drought we had this summer messed things up a bit. I was afraid the leaves on our trees would just shrivel and fall off instead of turning beautiful shades of orange and red, but last week they gave quite a show.
One of the young maples in the back yard.
The dogwoods in front didn't disappoint - I didn't get a picture of them at their best...
Across the street from us.

Guess who I saw at Wal-Mart today?

Supermodel Niki Taylor. She gave me her cart as Maggie and I ran in through some serious rain. No joke! She lives in the area, I guess. I checked out her fan website, and her management company is right down the street from BPSM/Wells Fargo, where I used to work before Maggie was born. Other famous person I saw at Wal-Mart (3 years ago): Alan Jackson. He also lives in the area and had his tour bus pull right up to the main entrance. Anyway, thought that was fun. =)

Potty-Training Update

So, you may have noticed I haven't posted any updates. Well, I don't want to bore everyone with this topic, but we do have lots of progress. At home Maggie is pants-off 100% of the time. She will use her potty chair faithfully for both #1 & #2. She just runs around in sweaters and slippers. We've not had so much luck with panties. She knows she can't pee in them, so the last time we tried them she took them off but didn't make it to the potty chair- she peed on her rug in her room. And, when she's got a diaper or pull-up on, she will announce her business but it's too late to get her to the potty. We aren't going to push it any farther for now, but after her birthday we'll reevaluate.

Just for Uncle Zach

Last night she was saggin' something terrible. Maggie's right at the stage where her 18-month clothes are getting too small and her 24-month clothes are too big, so we are in the land of in-between. And, she put on her hat that way, backwards and cocked to the side.

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

You may know the ending to the quote above: "When first we practise to deceive!" by Sir Walter Scott. Wednesday morning was the first time Maggie out and out lied and tried to deceive me. We are still doing the pants-off potty training, so first thing in the morning off goes her PJ bottoms and diaper. She really wanted the M&M's on top of the bookshelf, and I told her she had to go potty before she could have any... Off I go to the kitchen to get our breakfast ready, and in she runs, "I pee-pees! I pee-pees!"

So I went back to the living room where her potty chair is set up, and sure enough, there's tissue in it (we're working on the hygiene portion of potty training). BUT - that tissue is dry. Dry as a bone. Not a sprinkle of tinkle was in that potty. She had crumpled up a tissue and put it in her potty chair to make it look like she had used it so she could get M&M's! During this quick investigation she is practically frantic with the "I pee-pees!" chant, and so I ask her in a stern voice, "Maggie, did you go pee-pee on the potty?" I even lifted up the tissue and showed her that there was NO pee in the potty.

She got REALLY mad when I told her that she had not gone pee and that she could not have M&M's, and pitched a BIG BIG BIG fit right then and there. You could tell that she was mad that she didn't get the candy, and even madder that she got caught. I gave her a spank for the fit-pitching, I was pretty bowled over at the deception part of it all! Wow! And all that just for 2 lousy M&M's.
Said potty chair.
M&M's jar on top of the bookcase.