To Texas we will go...

We are almost all packed for our trip. I've noticed that I am quite capable of handling all the details without Tim - it just takes me 3 times as long to get anything done! I've pretty much been packing and getting organized since Tim left on Saturday. But I think I'm almost there. Thankfully Mark has been "helping" me pack our suitcase. In addition to all the clothes I've packed he has added:
-a washcloth
-2 couch pillows
-Dad's slippers
-a few dishtowels
-a Christmas ornament
-a Thomas DVD

Basically, anything laying in the living room that wasn't already in the suitcase. As you can imagine, it was very helpful of him. I guess I should just be glad he isn't taking things out.

I'll be gone for a couple of weeks but will hopefully post a few updates while we are traveling. In the meantime, I hear mexican food calling my name from Dallas...gotta go finish packing!

Caution...

If you hear your 3 year old singing "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" and substituting his little brother's name in the song, the answer to the following question should probably be no.

5 little Lukie's jumping on the bed
1 fell off and bumped his head
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said
No more Lukie's jumping on the bed!

4 little Lukie's jumping on the bed...

3 little Lukie's jumping on the bed...

Mommy, can Lukie come play on my bed with me?

I'm gonna go with no on this one. What you think folks?

It was looking a lot like Christmas...

Welcome to our new home!

I've been intending to do this for several weeks now, but I thought I'd post a few pictures of our home decorated for the season before I take it all down. Plus, I've hardly posted any pics of our new house here in Georgia so this satisfies that need as well. Enjoy the short tour...

This is our entry table. It's one of my favorite spots this year.
I love the Luminous Nesting Bowls and the Celebration Wreath.



We haven't put curtains on our back doors, so I hung two fresh greenery wreaths. The sun shone on them every morning so the house smelled so nice all month.


This is my snowman collection on top of our media console.


We don't have a mantle so I improvised with an armoire and used my Holiday Tabletop Tree to decorate the large space.


One of my favorite features of our house is the tall ceilings and space above the kitchen cabinets. Here's one of the spaces that I decorated this Christmas.


My china hutch in the dining room.


I loved the way this turned out on my dining room buffet. It felt very whimsical and fun, yet still dressy enough for the dining room.


Our HUGE tree. Tim and I did not realize it was this big when we saw it in Hobby Lobby. But thankfully it fits and really was lovely in our living room this year. We just can't ever move to a house with smaller ceilings!

My Cathedral Luminary - so simple and elegant. I just love this!

Okay, so maybe I love it all. I wish I could tell you that I didn't go shopping yesterday and hit all the post-Christmas sales. I did though. But that just means that I have more beautiful decorations for next year. Christmas certainly isn't about the decorations, but there's just something so beautiful about celebrating the holiday in your home with your family. For me, this is what our new home looks like. I hope your home gives you the same warm, comfortable feeling however it's decorated and wherever you are.

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours felt especially precious as Tim left this morning for a patrol. He'll be gone about 7 weeks, then home for 3 and gone again for 9 more weeks. We were so blessed to have this time together just the four of us before he left.

We went to Christmas Eve service as a family. Tim had Mark and I had Luke. If you were to think I got the better deal, you'd be wrong! Mark was so good. He sat in the entire service and listened and sang the carols. He was quiet and (mostly) still. Luke, on the other hand, spent the entire service in the lobby. He was so disagreeable and loud. We then went to a neighbor's house for a time of meeting our new neighbors and visiting. There were quite a few kids and the boys enjoyed playing with all kinds of new toys. The boys then opened one present each, put out milk and cookies for Santa and went to bed.

The boys "on the go!"

Christmas morning started early, but Mark didn't remember it was Christmas so he happily played in his room until 7:15 when we all got up. The boys got their presents from Santa and we enjoyed a yummy breakfast. We had Texas grapefruit, (Thanks Mimi and Papaw!) Chile Cheese Bites, Crescent Roll Cinnamon Rolls and Eggnog Lattes.

Luke enjoying his cinnamon rolls!

Mark was nearly too excited to eat.

It took us 3 hours to open presents because the boys wanted to stop and play with all their new toys. But that's okay because we didn't have anything else to do Christmas morning. We watched our new Thomas DVDs and spent all morning in our pajamas. So fun!

Luke loves Thomas as much as Mark.

After a yummy Christmas Dinner, we all napped and had a leisurely afternoon. We played outside for a while, in the dirt of course. I think Santa should have brought a sandbox for the boys. All they want to do is dig in the sandy dirt!

Reading one of our new books

Our makeshift sandbox requires us to take off our clothes before we go inside.
Good thing our neighbors can't see!

After baths and dinner we ventured out of the house to look at Christmas lights. It was the perfect end to a wonderful Christmas. As blessed as we feel for having the gift of family time together, nothing compares to the gift we have in Christ. The Incarnation is the most miraculous and wonderful of all gifts. Nothing else can compare. It is our prayer that you know the gift of Christ this blessed Christmas season!

Merry Christmas!

The First Crazy Episode...

When you talk to a customer service representative you are almost always warned that, "This call may be recorded for training purposes." I'm pretty sure that a phone call I made in October 2003 was indeed recorded and is now part of the American Express employee training program. It was the first time I ever went "crazy submarine lady" on anyone. Please understand that I'm not proud of this story. I share it only to establish a reference point for the beginning of this blog.

Tim and I had married about 6 weeks earlier and he had just deployed for 6 months at sea. Anytime your husband is gone is difficult. But there are unique challenges when stationed on a submarine doing whatever it was that they were doing. It means no contact until they pull into port. For that deployment it was about 45 days at a time. No phone calls, no instant messaging and no emails. Life just goes on. And for me, life was going on at Lowe's. We had purchased a new home and needed a washer and dryer. I was trying to buy them. American Express was making that difficult. Apparently, their "no pre-set spending limits" policy was not as direct as it appeared. Because I had recently been added to the account and because my husband had never charged that much in one month the card had been suspended. So, I call customer service to try and get this all straightened out...

"Hi. I'm calling to ask a few questions about our account and change our billing address."
"Are you the account owner?"
"No, I'm his wife."
"Well, you'll have to have Timothy call back to that."
"Actually, my husband is deployed on a submarine and can't call right now. I just need to change our billing address and make sure that I can still use the card."
"I can't do that for you. Timothy is going to need to do that."
"He's deployed right now - on a submarine. He can't call. If I don't change the billing address I don't know how I'm going to know what to pay you."
"Mam, you just need to have him call us and we'll take care of it."
"He's on a submarine!"
"I understand, mam. Just have him call us and we can change it."
"What part of submarine don't you understand? He's under the water in the middle of the ocean!"
"Mam, please stop yelling at me. I need to speak with your husband..."
"I'd like to speak with him too, but he's on a submarine!"
"I'm going to need you to stop yelling mam so that I can help you."
"Help me? You aren't helping me! You keep telling me to have my husband call you. Don't you think I would do that if he weren't on a submarine?!?!"

This continued for a while. Finally, I think he got tired of the crying and yelling so he transferred me to his supervisor. After more tears and a little more yelling I was able to change our billing address and unsuspend our account. In hindsight, I probably should have hung up and tried calling back when I wasn't so upset. But then I wouldn't have this amusing little tale for you to laugh about and I never would have earned the "Crazy Submarine Lady" nickname. So, if you ever go to work for American Express and you hear this call "for training purposes," you'll know my side of the story.