Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Our Thanksgiving seemed pretty quick, given the fact that Jay woke up at 5:30 Friday morning to get up to go to work. I was really hoping to have just one day for us with the kids, but... Imagine my excitement when Jay called later that morning to say he was coming home! :) It had started raining pretty hard so his guys were unable to hang Christmas lights. God is good!

Anyway, when Jay got home, we decided it would be a perfect time to put up our new Christmas tree. Jay got into the attic and pulled down all of the decorations. Truett was in awe of it all. He kept asking, "Is that for me? Is it? Is it? Is it?" He wanted to touch and hold and play with everything. He was pretty quick to put his own personal touch on things, too.

Truett got out the condiment ramikins and placed them on the snowmen's noses

Once Jay set up the tree, he started unwrapping the ornaments.

The before photo

It's always so great unwrapping the ornaments each year. My mom started a tradition when I was born and each year for Christmas, she buys her kids a Christmas tree ornament. Then, when Jay and I got married, she bought us the angel for the top of our tree. That way, as newlyweds on our frst Christmas, we had ornaments for our first tree.

I really love our tree because there's not really a 'theme' but each ornament is special.

My "Baby's First Christmas" ornament from 1977

The cross-stitched ornament from 1982 that my mom made

A Jimminy Cricket ornament my mom bought for me one year in Disney World

Truett's first Christmas ornament

Now our tree is also adorned with ornaments that Truett made for us last year at school.

Truett helped me decorate the tree and he actually did a pretty good job. At first, he kept putting ornaments on the same branch, but once I told him to put the ornaments in empty spots, he started getting the hang of it.

While we were decorating, I noticed Truett had put all of his Sesame Street ornaments on the same branch, so I spread them out. We continued to decorate the tree and a little while later, I noticed that the Ernie, Cookie Monster, Elmo and Big Bird had somehow found their way back to each other. I guess Truett had decided that they looked best that way.

The after photo

Looks like the Christmas season is officially here!

Busted...In More Ways Than One

*CAUTION - Photos are graphic!

So, this morning, after getting Truett dressed and ready for the day, I went into Emma's room and started dressing her. During that time, Truett took it upon himself to get a black sharpie from the office desk and color on his clothes.

As I came around the corner, he knew his cover was blown and he was busted, so in a mad dash to try to play 'innocent', he jumped up and went to run away. Unfortunately, he slipped on the bottom of his sweat pants and fell off of the couch, landing on his face and busted his lip.

Both his top and bottom lip were busted and his two front teeth were hit pretty hard.




I called Jay to come home from work and called Truett's dentist (who is out of town for the holidays, of course!). I was passed on to the dentist on call who asked a bunch of questions about what Truett's teeth looked like. After 'assessing' the damages over the phone, the dentist told me to just keep an eye on his little teeth for the next 24 hours and for the next week or so, to keep Truett on soft foods and drinking through straws.

So, today for lunch, Truett enjoyed mashed potatoes, a jello cup, a chocolate pudding cup and some applesauce. Yum!

Here's Truett after enjoying his chocolate pudding cup!

The More Thanks, The Better

This is a longer post, but when you have 2 Thanksgiving celebrations, what do you expect? Not to mention the fact that I can talk, if I'm given the challenge! :)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. We always celebrate any holiday the weekend before the actual day with Jay's family so we had our Praytor Thanksgiving with Gramma, PaPaw, Uncle Jim and Dakota (Aunt Stephy was with her grandmother at the hospital) last weekend.

Jay worked that day (Christmas light season is here!) so we didn't go to the Praytors' until that afternoon. When we got there, Gramma had had everything pretty much warmed up and ready for us to eat.

Truett helping Gramma get the food ready for us to eat.

Before we ate, Gramma read a Thanksgiving prayer to us from a prayer book she has and we said our blessing (which I always look forward to because Dakota and Truett are given the chance to thank God for things they are thankful for...Jay, Emma and I made Truett's list!) Then we all had a yummy dinner together.

Afterwards Truett and Dakota and I played upstairs for a little bit while Emma stayed downstairs and let everyone have their turn holding her.

Uncle Jim and Emma

Truett loves playing with Dakota and I think Dakota likes playing with Truett, too, because it gives Dakota a chance to be in charge, for once! :)

Truett dressing up as an 'astronaut'.

We finished off the night with some apple spice cake and pumpkin pie that Gramma had made. DELICIOUS!

The Goulas Thanksgiving was a little different this year. Usually, MawMaw (my mom's mom) and some other member of my mom's family (Uncle Timmy, Aunt Fran, etc...) come to Dallas for Thanksgiving. This year, no one was coming so we were flying solo. This is a bit strange for us because we're used to a big group gathered together for the big holidays.

Since we were 'loners' for Thanksgiving, my mom thought it would be a good idea to go to a soup kitchen or something to serve food to the needy. We looked into it and decided to head to Cornerstone Baptist Church in Dallas.

Jay and I dropped off the kids at Gramma and PaPaw's house yesterday morning and then met my family at my mom's house. We loaded up in two cars and headed to Dallas. When we pulled up to the church, there was a HUGE tent set up in the parking lot and TONS of people waiting in line. When we walked up to try to figure out where we were supposed to go, we realized that the loooong line of who we thought were people waiting to be fed was actually a loooong line of people who were waiting to serve! We stood in line with the other volunteers for 20-30 minutes and were then told that all of the volunteer positions had been filled. It was a little bit of a let down that we weren't able to serve like we had planned, but it was great to know that those who were in need of a hot meal yesterday were going to get one.

When we got back to the car, Jay and I realized that we were together without our kids and still had a few hours until his parents expected us back! We immediately started running down the 'To-Do' lists in our heads to see if there was anything that could be checked off. We decided to head to Garden Ridge and look at the Christmas trees. Nannie Em and Nannie Sarah were with us, so they came along for the ride. We ended up finding a great Christmas tree on sale, along with other decorations that were 50% off.

We loaded our purchases in the car and headed to my mom's. We usually have Thanksgiving lunch which means that all morning, my mom is running around in the kitchen, stressing out that lunch isn't going to be ready in time. Since we thought we were going to be serving lunch at the church, we decided to do Thanksgiving dinner, instead. It was actually very nice because my mom had plenty of time to cook and get things ready. My dad and John went to play tennis and Jay had gone to pick up the kids from his mom's housek, so my sisters and I actually got to spend some time with my mom. It was really nice.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty laid back. Once Emma and Truett went down for their naps, Jay and my dad followed suit. To pass the time, my mom, Emily, Sarah, John and I all played Loaded Questions (fun!!!!).

Around 4:00, my cousin, Jill (who lives in Dallas) showed up with her kiddos - Cameron, Zack and Luke. About that time Truett woke up from his nap and thought he had died and gone to Heaven! The kids ran around and played outside. They even stayed still long enough to have themselves traced in chalk on the sidewalk.

Cameron and Emma

Jill and Emma

Truett tracing Uncle John with chalk

The Praytors showed up around 5:30 and we all had dinner together.

Everything was absolutely delicious! MawMaw has done a wonderful job of passing down her recipes and techniques...she better watch out - my mom might out do her one of these days. :) We even found Truett sneaking an extra piece of pecan pie!

After dinner, we just sat around, visited and "watched" football.

It was a great way to spend our day. We are definitely blessed and enjoy having a day that allows us to stop and give thanks for all that we have. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

This is the Thanksgiving placemat Truett made at school...LOVE IT!

Silent Night

Emma slept through the night last night! I fed her and put her down at 10 o'clock last night and she didn't wake up until 5:30 this morning. After she ate, she and I went back to bed and slept until Truett woke up at 7:40! I will pray for many more nights and mornings like this. God is good!

A Ton of Fun

When I was putting Truett down for his nap today, I told him that when he woke up, we'd go to the park. There is a little park around the corner from our house. I really like it because it's big enough for Truett to run around and play, but small enough for me to see him at all times (no need for me to follow him around everywhere!).

Anyway, he must have been dreaming about it because as soon as he woke up, he ran to me and said, "Mama, I waked up! Let's go to the park now." As we were heading out the door, Uncle John called to invite us over for gumbo! Needless to say, we had a change of plans. :)

It actually worked out well for us because Truett had just informed me that he didn't want to go to the park by our house because there isn't a sandbox or a train there. Are you kidding me? He's going to be picky about the playgrounds he goes to??? Anyway, we headed to Coppell and Uncle John met us at Mockingbird Elementary to play on the playground there.

Truett had a blast! He (in his own words) "lubs, lubs, lubs" (loves, loves, loves) Uncle John. Truett was so fired up when we pulled up and he saw John there. He and John ran around and played the whole time.

Whatever piece of playground equipment John was on, Truett wanted to be on it, too.

Truett's favorite thing was the pony. I think he just liked the fact that it was something he could get on and off of by himself.

They played for about an hour and then we headed to LeeLa' and PaGou's house for supper.

When we got there, Nannie Sarah and Aunt Emily showed up. Everyone took turns passing Emma around, being that the new thing to do with her is to see who can make her smile. Then, Emily and Sarah spent the rest of the evening playing with Truett, or at least making him THINK they were playing with him. :) In the car, on the way home, Truett said, "Dat (yes, he says 'dat') was so ton (fun) today at LeeLa's house."

Thank you Uncle John, Nannie Sarah, Aunt Emily, LeeLa' and PaGou for always making it so much 'ton'! We "lub, lub, lub" you "dery, dery" much!