Christmakkuh

Thanks, Jacksons, for all of your awesomeness.

We will miss you! See you in April for East-over? Pass-ter?

Whatever, it'll be great.

O Tannenbaum

Our first excursion out into the woods to cut down our own tree! Turns out Idaho is home to the awesome Ponderosa Pine, which must be the type of tree that Charlie Brown picked out because...

look how cute!

 *not shown: Luke's naked bum as he pees in the woods. 

Gingerbread Madness

i.e. Mostly candy eating by the boys.

Ken's contribution: the poor gingerbread man fell off of the roof while he was hanging Christmas lights.

Luke's been asking when we are going to eat it every day since!

Still Giving Thanks...

...since it doesn't officially happen until you blog about it.

And a big thanks to Mere Mere and Opa D for joining us! Especially for 

my and Luke's first turkey trot

our first Texas football game (go Rice Owls), and lots of board games and baseball playing and general merriment with the boys.

Hope we didn't wear you out too badly. 

Christmas Miracle

So this happened...

I must have finally gotten used to Houston weather, because we've been frozen for about three days!

Harvey, a world series win, and now snow. What's next Houston?

Bigger'n Dallas

Way way way before the holiday madness began, like a month ago, the boys and I drove Kenny up to  Dallas for a conference (a game one, not a business one) and then headed over to our swanky downtown hotel for some leisure time of our own. 

We walked the length of the cute little downtown area, visited the 6th Floor Museum, met up with some old friends, toured the arboretum, and ate some delicious, delicious food.

As usual, the boys made sure that Dallas would remember them.

For example: when we arrived at our awesome, valet-only, big and fancy hotel after a good four hours of driving or so and were handing our car keys over, I looked around and realized that our car (which is not normally the poster-child for cleanliness) was absolutely trashed, inside and out. And as the kind valet staff tried to help me out of the car, there were so many little things that I was trying to stuff into bags and haul upstairs that two or three gentlemen were picking things up with me, asking "is this coming with you?" over and over. To top it all off, as we were getting the boys out, both had filthy faces and clothes, courtesy of some road trip suckers. Thankfully, we got to relive the mortification everyday as they would bring our car around to the front--made especially embarrassing by the fact that every single other car brought around was luxury, and the front of the hotel was flanked by two or three of the owner's personal collector cars at all times. The boys also had a grand old time providing entertainment for the valet staff in the form of wrestling matches in the middle of the entrance door. 

The exact view (one floor up) Lee Harvey Oswald had when he took his shot (or did he...).

The Sixth Floor Museum was really pretty awesome. They're going for a reverent, library-like quiet and everyone is given headphones and a little player, so for the first hour or so the boys really did pretty well! Baby D had my headset and Luke had his own, so the silence was only broken by Luke occasionally coming up to me and yelling (since he headphones on), "Which number are you on??"But after that everything spiraled, and there was wrestling and running and yelling and crawling under the partitions to try to scare the other patrons. Good thing they were the only kids in there. 

We'd hate to have any competition.

19 Months

 

Baby D is such a charmer. He is the master of imitation and picks up hilarious little sayings and intonations that we have no idea where he picked up. For example: after asking a question starting with "who wants to.." Derek will say with perfect sing-song pitch, "ME!" Or if he finds a basket or bag or bucket or something with a handle, he'll hang it on his arm and walk around the house telling everyone "Bye!" and asking for kisses, then head for the door as if he is headed off to work. 

He is also extremely expressive, as several strangers have commented in passing, which probably contributes to the fact that he still hasn't really learned any new words--his face just kind of does all of the talking. 

His obsession with animals has intensified and he will make a beeline for any dog he sees. Dogs aren't a huge fan of Derek though, because he will get really close, shriek, then back away, and do it over and over until the dog is totally disconcerted. At least people think he's funny. 

Derek is quite the little bruiser (and has the body for it, too!). He now enjoys wrestling with Luke (usually) and is often the instigator, whether Luke likes it or not. After his first day in nursery one of the leaders commented that "he may be small but he sure can handle himself. He doesn't take anything from anybody." Apparently he and a three-year-old were in a tug-of-war over a truck for a few minutes, resulting in Derek being dragged around on the ground because he wouldn't let go. Guess who ended up with the truck?