Wrapping Presents

Ryan and I wrapped all our presents yesterday afternoon. Ryan was especially helpful with the tape; he loved it! Hard to believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Merry Christmas to all!!

Santa Claus

Finally! A cute picture of Ryan with Santa Claus! For whatever reason, Ryan wants nothing to do with him. He starts crying long before we even get to Santa's lap. But this Santa was a good one and he hid behind the tree while we got Ryan to sit down and play with the ornament. Ryan never knew he was there! Hooray for really good Santas that love kids and love being Santa! Merry Christmas!!

Movies

I've talked about this with a few friends, but never actually done it. So here it is. A list of all our movies. If you are interested in borrowing any, just let me know and I'll get it to you. And there's no late fees!

DVD:
Shrek
Shrek II
The Rock
The Five People you Met in Heaven
Armageddon
The Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers 2000
The Sixth Sense
Moulin Rouge
Top Gun
Fever Pitch
The Green Mile
Spanglish
Dreamer
The American President
Romeo and Juliet (1997 Leonardo Dicaprio)
The Thomas Crown Affair
Sweet November
Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Sweet Home Alabama
Jurassic Park
Phantom of the Opera
The Terminal
What Dreams May Come
Good Will Hunting
Big Daddy


VHS:
For Love of the Game
The Land Before Time
The Lion King
Swiss Family Robinson
The Family Man
Independence Day
Shawshank Redemption
Instinct
Cheaper By the Dozen
Cider House Rules
Dogma
Jerry Maguire
The Patriot
Happy Gilmore
Field of Dreams
A Beautiful Mind
Patch Adams
The Rookie
Awakenings
Men in Black
At First Sight
Good Morning Vietnam
Die Hard with a Vengeance
Save the Last Dance
Rain Man
The Legend of Bagger Vance
Dead Poets Society
Coyote Ugly
13 Going on 30
Ever After
Amistad
Pay it Forward
Finding Forrester
Dances with Wolves
The Fisher King

Christmas Eve

What an awesome invite card, they must have a really good marketing director at that church! Hehe.

Anyways, seriously, Christmas Eve is only eight days away, wow! It's hard to believe how fast this year is going. We're looking forward to this Christmas since Ryan is nearly 15 months old and much more into things this year. I am anxious to see what he does with all the presents and paper. And I'm also excited about spending time with family and friends - we'll have 16 people on Christmas day! And a second Christmas on the 27th! We've been very blessed and we are happy to be spending Christmas with lots of people we love.

And hey, if you're looking for something to do Christmas Eve, I'll be hanging out at Mountain Lake!

Christmas lights

Farah wrote a post a few days ago about Christmas trees and why she enjoyed them so much. I have to agree about the ornaments and the significance and history behind each one. But after thinking about it, I've decided the Christmas lights are my favorite part of December. On trees, on houses, wherever. I think it's partly from my memories of driving around with my parents on Christmas eve to see all the lights; it was our special family thing. To me the lights are so beautiful and peaceful and innocent. I'm not really sure how to best describe the feelings, but I think it's an innate and childlike wonder that we are born with. And if you don't believe me, ask Ryan...

Reindeer

Today Ryan and I went to visit the reindeer! We went with our friends, Beth and Peyton, and had a blast. At first Ryan thought the reindeer were a little scary and cried for a minute. But he calmed down and by the end I think he actually liked them. We had a fun time with the reindeer, and also spending time with our friends. We lunched at Chick-fil-a and both babies were on their best behavior and received lots of attention and compliments from the staff there (I love Chick-fil-a, they are always so nice!). We're enjoying December and we wish everyone a Merry Christmas!!

our tree!

Because our apartment is so small and we share it with a 14 month old, a dog, and a cat, we decided not to try to do a tree this year. But Coleson surprised me this afternoon with the perfect artifical tree! It's three feet tall, pre-lit, and looks great on our end table (above the reach of Ryan). And we even rigged it up to the light switch, so you can flip it on as soon as you walk in the door. It only holds a few ornaments, so we picked just the favorites - Ryan's 1st Christmas ornaments and our first Christmas from the year we got married. It's super cute and I love it! Thanks Coleson! Merry Christmas!

Seven and counting

Ryan's finally getting another tooth. He has been stuck at six for probably five months now. But alas, yesterday another bottom one broke through. So now we're at seven. I still don't think he has any back molars, but it's really hard to tell. For some crazy reason he just doesn't like to open his mouth and let me look and feel around. I don't know why... :)

Thankful for our families

The whole gang at Jim and Barbara's on Thanksgiving

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Visiting with Clay and Jo-Ann on Saturday

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! We had a great time visiting with all our family (We missed you Laura, Brian, and Jennifer!). We are blessed to have so many people in our lives to share special times with. We love our family and we loved seeing everyone over the last few days.

Destin

We took a quick trip to Destin last weekend. We left Thursday after work and came back Saturday night. It was wonderful though! The weather was cold and super windy, but we had fun anyways. We did a little shopping, ate some good food (my favorite Destin dining spot is always Whataburger! yum!), walked the beach, and even saw Santa. Notice though that I didn't post any pictures of Santa - yep that's right, for the second year in a row Ryan cried when he saw him. Oh well! We love having a special place so close and thanks to Nana and Pop-Pop for letting us use the house and for watching Sampson so we could go!