forever a favorite

The Christmas Miracle:

I think this will forever be a favorite in my book of Isaac memories.  

He loves to draw and color and I found this amidst his crayons a few days before Christmas.  I thought I'd put it on here for us all to see!

Thank You Pop Pop!

The long awaited removal of our disgusting carpet has finally come!  And boy am I ever glad!  No more food/smoothie/yogurt/milk etc ground into the carpet under our dining room table I can't even begin to convey my excitement and relief.  And who do we have to thank for it? 

 POP POP!  Thank you, Kerry, for all your hard work on our new tile flooring! (and our new french doors, light fixture, roof and fan;)  We really appreciate your generosity!   

Before:

I wish we had some more "before" pictures with all the new stains that we added to the carpet and the original set up with WAY too much furniture in the room.  This picture was taken before we bought the house.  It doesn't quite do it justice.

Goodbye Pop Pop!  We will miss you!

And so it begins!

The Christmas season is truly here and the parties have already begun!  Here are a few shots of what we've been up to already this December.

Here are the kids singing at the Ward Christmas Party.  I could hardly hide my enjoyment at watching my two children holding on tightly to each other as they sang.  It was too much for words.  Isaac was so proud to have Georgie next to him.  He invited her to come up and sing with him and put his arm tightly around her neck.  He kept peering down at her while they sang, giving her his cute little toothy grin and she hugged him back and constantly patted his tummy. 

A cute idea for school treats:

Isaac really enjoyed making and eating these!

Here we are with some friends at Joey's Medical Group Christmas Party.  

We had a really great time.

All Aglow!

We finally got around to decorating the tree on Sunday evening after our dinner of Potato Soup and Cornbread...yum!  Isaac was so excited he could hardly stop talking about it all day long!

Here's Georgie and the little puppy Mojo that we puppy sat for the week.  She tortured the poor little dog and carried him all over the house.  Surprisingly, Mojo loved her anyway and ran around at her feet whenever she allowed him to get down! 

We had Elder Urick and Elder Young over for Dinner that night as well.  I hope no other Missionary that we've known over the past few years reads this because I'm about to admit that Elder Urick is our favorite missionary EVER!  We LOVE him and will miss him dearly when he goes.  He is such a cool kid.

Pop Pop finally got some time with the grandkids!  Mimi and Gaga take a little more of their share;)

I thought this was a cute picture of Georgie and Jenny enjoying each other.   

O Tannenbaum

Hands down, my favorite Christmas tradition growing up was going to a real Christmas Tree farm and cutting down our own fresh tree.  I can almost feel the vibration of the long bumpy hayride that took us deep into the farm and dropped us off whenever we spotted something we liked.  I remember Mom and Dad sizing up each tree, checking for holes and height and then, finally, taking a saw to the perfect one.  With the big beauty strapped to the top of our big blue Suburban we headed home to decorate it while listening to Christmas music.  Slowly, over the years it became hard to find any Christmas tree farms at all until one year, despite our protests, Mom bought the enemy...a fake tree.  More than any other tradition, this is the one I would like to keep in my little family for as long as Christmas Tree farmers will let us.  My thoughtful neighbor, Josh, with no knowledge of my love for Christmas Tree farms, brought over a flyer advertising the last year in business for the local Christmas Tree farm.   I wouldn't have missed it for the world!  And so it became our Saturday afternoon activity with the Grandparents! 

Here are some pictures of the fun we had:

Hike and Hamburger Heaven

Hike and Hamburger Heaven

After our short hike and drive through the Oklahoma Wildlife Preserve we stopped in at the local, legendary hamburger joint, Meers.  Known for their Longhorn Beef raised and killed right on the sight, these Hamburgers were listed in Gourmet magazine as being one of the 10 best in the nation.   Here we all are after our big juicy meal:

And here we are after waiting in line for over an hour to get a table:

Loving my Lizzy:

And here are pictures of our hike.  Isaac and Georgie played Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker all the way down the mountain.  Isaac even stopped several times to hold Georgie's hand, help her down a steep step or just to check on "the Princess".   It was adorable.  

Pondering on the Mountain Top:

Some of my favorite people all in one place:

It truly was a joy to have both of our parents together.  If our siblings had been there it would have been perfect!  Thanks for coming you guys!  It meant a lot to us!

Post Thanksgiving Dinner

Post Thanksgiving Dinner

Is anyone else sick of hearing about how my camera is lost or broken?  I know I'm sick of breaking and losing it.  But that's what happened, once again, the day before our Thanksgiving feast.  Our trusty old camera (we can always trust that it will not be trusty) broke.  So how then did I take these pictures you are asking?  From my brand new camera that my husband had stashed in the "Christmas Closet"!  He deemed it necessary that he give and I receive a little bit early this year.  And I deemed him wise!  Thanks, Joey for my amazing camera! 

 I LOVE IT!

After a Turkey sedative...

Papa just can't resist a nap!

Reading stories before bed!

Goodbye kisses.

Gaga and Papa were forced to stay at a hotel because our house is so tiny!  But they were good sports, left late each night and came just as we were getting dressed each morning.  It was almost as if they slept with us every night.

These two kept us young and giggling the whole time.  Things were not nearly as fun on our Merback vacations when Jenny was on her mission.  We are soooo glad to have her back!  And Lizzy insisted on being our massage therapist the whole time...who's going to turn that down?  Not I!  

As you can see, I was unable to get any pictures of our actual feast because I had no camera.  But it was yummy!  Thanks Mom and Mimi for all your help!