Merry Christmas

From our family!

It's been a little while!

I realized today that people are beginning to receive our Christmas cards in the mail and some might be checking out our website...and I haven't updated it in several weeks! Here are some things going on with us.

Tim has completed this semester, and passed everything! So he is a 2nd semester P3. We officially have only a year and half left. In January, he starts a six week rotation, then has six weeks off, then another six week rotation, THEN he starts rotations full time (9-5, M-F) from May 09-May 10. It was so wonderful to just spend time together this weekend without the stress of him having to study or work on school work. We watched movies Friday and Saturday night. On Saturday, we just got out and drove around in some of the fun neighborhoods around here and went to several stores just to be around the hustle and bustle of the weekend before Christmas! Then last night, we got together with some of our friends from Church and my Bible study. The husbands played video games and the wives played Chicken Foot. It was so fun!

This week, I only have to work two days (Praise the Lord!). The doctor I work for always goes to Thailand for 3 weeks in December/January to visit his family and it is so nice that it falls right at Christmas and New Year's. So, we don't have any patients to see, just phones to answer! Tim is working several days this week at the CVS. On Wednesday, I plan to get out (because I'm crazy like that) and go to grocery store to get everything for our Christmas dinner and I might even decide to go to Target, just to walk around and enjoy that wonderful Target smell (by that, I mean the smell of the Target popcorn I will be carrying around!). After Tim gets off work, we will go to our church's Christmas Eve service. I am looking forward to that.

Next week, I just work Monday and Tuesday, also. So, after I get off work on Tuesday, we are headed to NWA to see my family. My parents have surprised us with a trip to Branson for us and my brother and sister-in-law. We will head up there Wednesday afternoon and come back Friday evening. We are looking forward to shopping and relaxing. I consider anytime I get to stay in a hotel room a vacation...I'm pretty sure I get that from my mom! We will head back home on Saturday, then normal life starts back again. I'm already thinking of when the soonest I could take a vacation in January is...how bad is that?!

I will try to post again before Christmas, but if I don't, Tim and I wish a very merry Christmas to you and your families. We pray you remember the true reason for the season, as we celebrate the birth of our glorious Savior! Enjoy a time of reflection on that very first Christmas.

'Tis the season for Christmas parties!

We had our Sunday School class Christmas party this past Saturday night. We are truly blessed that we found our church. It took us almost two years to find it, but it is everything we prayed for. I have really connected with the ladies in our class and Tim definitely has a lot in common with the guys. We also love the praise and worship. This was our first Sunday School class Christmas party to go to together and it was great!

We took pictures in front of the fireplace at the house where the party was held.

The guys, fellowshippin'!

All the wonderful food!

Wednesday I have my office Christmas party, Friday we have our CPFI Christmas party, Saturday I have a Christmas Tea with the SS ladies, and at some point we have the CVS Christmas party...have I mentioned that I LOVE Christmas?!

Oh and we are totally supposed to get snow tonight! This will be the first snow this winter, which is really odd here. If I wake up and there is no white stuff on the ground, I am going to be disappointed!

Thanksgiving

I know it is a week late, but here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend. I didn't end up taking that many, but I will share with you the ones I do have! We went to Dallas to be with Tim's family and we had a great time. Our niece and nephew are getting so big and we love spending time with them. However, it did reinforce our feelings about not having kids for a very long time! Darlene, my sister-in-law, did a great job with the meal! And, as always, we loved the leftovers!!

Us with Ethan

Lizzie with her Uncle Tim

We had just found out the turkey was done!

Our Little Christmas Present

Name this item...

UPDATE:
Ok, so you would think that since it's on a pan, it must be something edible, right?! Wrong!! It is an oven mitt that didn't even go into the oven. It went in the drawer under the oven, you know the one to store extra pans in...if you have an electric stove!! If you have a gas stove (like we do), things like rubber and wooden handled things should NOT go in that drawer. I had stacked two pans on top of each other with an oven mitt in between them and put them in that "drawer". Tim decided while I was at work to heat up the oven to make something and the whole house filled with the horrid smell of burning rubber. And that marvelous smell did not leave our house for a good 3 days! Unfortunately, I cannot say this is the first time I did this. The last time I had stored our grill spatula in the drawer and the wooden handle on it actually caught fire. Finally, after this happening twice (ok, three times!), I decided to take everything out of it. You know what I found? A removable piece of metal with the words "Not for storage" underneath! Now they tell me!!

Go ahead, start guessing! And there will be extra points for whoever can guess the story that went along with it!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...after a near tragedy!

We decided to go ahead and decorate for Christmas today, since we won't be home most of next weekend to do it. So, Tim went out to the garage to pull out all of the Christmas decorations and the tree. As soon as he brought them in, they were empty and things were put all around the house. I got our handrails decorated outside.

It was a little sad because last year, we had a great porch with posts and rails and I was able to put up all the garland and bows and lights, and this year I don't really have that great of a place to decorate outside. Then, I decorated the mantle with the vases that I put together with the cranberry looking filler with the candles.

I had seen this done with real cranberries as a table centerpiece and realized that I could do that myself! I decided to not use real cranberries, but I think it looks pretty good! Then, we put up the tree.

Tim put the star on top and I began looking for our ornaments. For some reason they were not packed in the large plastic tubs with the rest of my decorations. After going back and looking in the garage about 3 more times to see if there were any tubs that we had missed or if they were in a box that we had packed when we moved, I began to get a little worried that we had lost all of our ornaments in the last move. I went and looked through my office closet to see if I might have packed them away in there or in the hall closet...nothing. At this point, I am crying and telling Tim something like, "Everyone is going to be so mad at me because I lost our childhood". You see, we both have all of our childhood ornaments that we made or were given to us that we have always used on our Christmas tree. We also have two hand painted ornaments that my wonderful sister-in-law, Natalie, made us. One the year we got engaged and the other the year we got married. I cherish those ornaments because they are so personalized and I know how much time and love went into them. Then, I was trying to figure out how I was going to call my mom to tell her I had lost all of my ornaments. I just knew she was going to be so mad at me and it was going to be like the Christmas ornament disaster when my brother, Ryan, had made my mom a glass ornament in art class and my mom dropped it on the kitchen floor and it shattered, causing everyone to cry. Yes, it was going to be that disastrous. Then, while I'm crying on the couch, Tim says that we should go look through his closet and see if they might be there. This entire time we had been looking for a plastic tub filled with tissue wrapped ornaments, because that is how we both remembered me packing the ornaments up...two years ago. We had totally forgotten that I bought these great little ornament organizers last year. So, of course, the last place we would have looked for them (the bottom of Tim's closet) was where they were, in the perfect little ornament organizer!! I was so relieved! We put the ornaments on the tree and reminisced about each of the ornaments we put up.

We are not done with the decorating yet. There are some glass ornaments that I found that I just love that I want to hang on our tree as filler since I had forgotten how bare our little tree is! I'm also going to attempt to do the curled ribbon on our tree this year. Natalie is so good at it, and I'm sure it will end up looking like ribbon threw up on our tree, but I'm sure going to try! I absolutely love Christmas! Right now, I am sitting on the couch with the lights out, enjoying our lit tree and mantle. It's so perfect!

What a gassy boy!

This morning, while I was at the computer doing some work, Leo was here:

While Tim and Annie were here:Leo has the ability to make human sounding toots. Sometimes he does it when he's climbing up on something and sometimes he just does it while he's laying somewhere, but it ALWAYS surprises him. Usually he tilts his head looking at us like one of us did it. This morning, he was laying there when he let out an unusually loud toot and I guess it scared him, or he was doing a really good job of trying to put the blame on someone else, but he just started barking so loudly at the noise. I couldn't help but laugh at him! He was very concerned by what that loud horn sound was!! I calmed him down and he laid back down, only to begin his quieter, stinky little toots! Poor boy, must take after his daddy!!

Our Guest Room

If you come visit, here is where you will stay:

This is my great-grandmother's furniture that was made in the late 1800's. The milk glass lamps and the pieces on the shelves were my other great-grandmother's.

This picture was my grandparents'. It was in their living room above their couch. I used to sit on my grandfather's lap in that room and talk to him about what I thought the people were doing. I have very vivid memories, even though I was only about 3 or 4, of that picture in that room. I am so glad my grandmother gave it to me!

Here is the dresser that I am using as my desk. The guest room is also used as my Mary Kay office.

I really love this room because of what all of these items mean to me. I love having little treasures from different sides of my family.

You know I can't end this post without some pictures of the dogs! Here you go:

I am so sorry this picture is sideways, it is not nearly as funny. You must tilt your head sideways so that you can see that Leo is sitting like a person!

Here is Annie in her new sweater right after she ate a pack of gum that Tim left out!

Long Shory Stort

We had a little issue last night. Well, actually, we have been having issues for about a month and a half with the washer and dryer combo that is in our house. I have been having to call our landlord pretty much every other day for this long explaining that our dryer had broken again! So, finally, Saturday they delivered a new washer and dryer combo to us. We were so glad, because now we wouldn't have to call our landlords anymore...until last night. Yes, last night, as I was doing the dishes, what was in the toilet 30 minutes before, was suddenly in the bathtub...and the pipes were gurgling. Tim and I looked at the tub kind of in disbelief as we both realized this meant we probably weren't going to be able to go to the bathroom at all that night since the water in the toilet had risen so much and was not showing any signs of going down. After calling my dad, we realized we were going to have to call our landlords yet again to tell them what was happening. Tim told me it was my turn to call them since he had just done it the last time. I promptly told him I would not do it, we would just wait it out. Yes, apparently I had decided that I was not going to go to the bathroom at our house anymore. I don't really know what I thought that would accomplish, since we wouldn't be able to wash clothes or do dishes, since the dishwater from the sink was backing up into the washing machine. It was quite a mess, but Tim decided he would call our landlord's son, who handles all of the problems when they are out of town (which is pretty much all the time). So he calls and is trying to figure out a delicate way to explain what was in our bathtub. So, as I am telling Tim what to say as he is talking to this guy (I tend to do this a lot and it is not appreciated very much!), Tim realizes how he wants to word it, and it comes out like this: "Well, long shory stort, what was flushed down our toilet is in our bathtub now". Yes, he said "long shory stort" and I lost it. I think it was because I was so upset that another thing was wrong with the house and was going to put us in an uncomfortable situation, but I died laughing. Tim didn't even realize what he had said until after he hung and I told him. He was a little embarassed at the fact that he was trying to really sound like he knew what he was talking about and ended up sounding as though he was drunk!

But, long shory stort, Roto-Rooter came today and took care of the problem. So, if you decide to come visit us, you can totally use the bathroom!!

Oh, Leo!

We have known for quite a while that Leo does not like it when we hug. We will stand in the middle of the living room and hug in front of him just to make him upset. He howls and growls and barks at us until we stop. At one point this weekend, he actually sat between us on the floor as we were standing, trying to separate us! What we haven't been able to figure out is if he doesn't like the fact that I am hugging Tim or that Tim is hugging me. Well, we figured it out today! Tim had a knot in his back, so while I was home at lunch, I rubbed it a little as we were standing in the hallway. Leo just sat there and looked at us, so we decided to try a little experiment. I turned around and Tim started rubbing my back. Instantly, Leo was up howling and whining and jumping at Tim. Apparently he is quite protective of his mommy!

And I was doing so well...

I went almost a month without a post! Darn it! Well, nothing too exciting has been happening with us. Tim started back on his rotation this week. This one is more interesting than his last one. He will get to observe some surgeries as well as make trips to the PICU and NICU.

I am so excited about Christmas being around the corner. It is all I can do to not go ahead and decorate now! I love the whole "feeling" of Christmas. Christmas was NEVER about gifts when I was growing up, and I am so grateful to my parents for making it like that. We always did a Christmas advent and read the Christmas story before doing anything on Christmas day. I hope our children grow up knowing that we observe Jesus' birthday on Christmas and that is really what it's all about. What am I doing talking about all this....you'll hear enough about it from me next month!

My parents came this weekend and brought the rest of my great-grandmother's furniture to finish off the guest bedroom. I am using the dresser as my desk now, and it looks so good in there! My great-grandmother, Grandma Pug, is the one who first started my love of cooking. The first thing I ever made was in her kitchen. She was so special to me and I miss her very much.

Well, I'm sorry this post is rather boring. We really need some excitement around here!! :-)

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Today it has not gotten above 45 degrees and has been pouring down rain...and I love it! I came home after work and made some chicken tortilla soup and intend to snuggle up on the couch with Leo and Annie tonight. I love the winter, and it looks like it's coming early this year!

This is why our dogs are not allowed to go outside when it rains...our backyard turns into a mud pit!

'Tis the season for Annie's sweater! Poor girl just goes around the house shivering.

Leo likes to watch the rain just like his mommy! (Note the cardboard, thanks to his excitement last week)

And not a single picture!

Tim and I were able to go to Siloam Springs to go to Homecoming weekend at JBU this weekend. We don't really go to the Homecoming activities, we just see all of our friends! We had a wonderful time. Tim was able to spend time with the guys watching football and doing guy things. I was able to have dinner with my dear friends, Mandy and Katie, on Friday night. Then Saturday, Mandy and I had lunch together, then spent about an hour or so in a Sonic stall, drinking Diet Cokes and catching up! We used to go to Happy Hour at Sonic our Jr and Sr year. It was nice to just catch up with her about everything that has been going on over the past 2 years. Saturday night, Tim and I went to dinner with our best friend, Dusty, and his wife Angela. We went to a great little restaurant that they have found. I was so glad to be able to spend time with Angela, since we really didn't know her! She is so sweet and is so great for Dusty! He is truly happy, and we are so thrilled for him. On Sunday, I was able to spend the day with my mom and catch up with her. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of this weekend! What was I thinking?! I'm so disappointed in myself!

A great weekend!

On a sidenote to what I am going to write about, it has been quite an evening. Leo broke yet another window pane in our front window and our washing machine overflowed and covered the kitchen with about 1/4 inch of water! Fun fun day!

Anyways, Willy, Darlene, Ethan, and Elizabeth came for a visit this weekend. We had a wonderful time. I just love spending time with our precious niece and nephew! Elizabeth is getting so big and her smile is the sweetest thing you have ever seen. Ethan is so animated and excited about everything. From the time he found out that we would be going to a pumpkin patch this weekend, he talked about it like crazy! The dogs loved having the kids around...even though Elizabeth wasn't so sure about Leo. Here are some pictures from the weekend. Like I said, we had a great time and I really wish it was more convenient for them to come out more often.

Enjoy these pictures from this past weekend, as well as pictures of our newly rearranged living room (done to try to prevent Leo from breaking anymore windows!!

Working hard on that water pump

On the cow train

In the "corn maze"

At the corn shoot

Two scary scarecrows

At the pumpkin patch

Ethan with his loot

"Where are they going, guys?"

Our new layout for the living room. Hopefully, no more windows will be broken!

And of course, some cute ones of our babies!

Does this look comfortable?

Daddy's Little Girl!

"I hate when he takes out the trash and doesn't let me go with him!"

Superdog to the rescue!

Oh, the joy of chewies!

So, I bought the pups some chewies today. I haven't gotten them any for a very long time because Annie will steal Leo's, which will cause him to yelp at a very high pitch for long periods of time. Or, Leo will have both of them and Annie will want one, so she barks and growls at him until he runs off with his tail between his legs and she takes both of them. Then the cycle starts all over again! Anyway, I gave them each a chewie at lunch and they are loving them! So far, no fights, but I think Leo was paranoid that Annie was going to take his, so he burried it. Here is a picture of where he decided would be the best hiding place:

This is exactly the way it was when we walked into the room:

They just love their chewies!