Christmas LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!

As I drove home from Waco on Thursday, I passed Santa's Wonderland. To my shock, Jonathan agreed to take us on Friday night. First mistake, we didn't leave until 7pm. Second mistake, we didn't factor in the one HOUR line we had to wait in. We didn't get home until after 11pm!

It was neat but, sadly, we were all too tired and grumpy to enjoy it.

I don't think I'll ever get Jonathan to agree to go back.
Saturday morning, the neighborhood next door had real snow! We piggybacked with Aubrey and Brynley to get in on the action. I couldn't get this photo to rotate. We kept laughing at Ace because he kept falling and sliding on the ice.

He was such a BULLY! Once we taught him how to throw a snowball, he was pelting everyone! Jonathan's jeans were soaked and he was throwing them at complete strangers (luckily, they thought it was funny). Yes, his face has mud all down the right side! The edges of the snow turned to mush and he dove into it a couple of times.

Saturday night, we headed to Granny's for our annual Christmas get-together with about 30 to 40 of our aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins. Brookelyn started reading to Ace. They were soooo cute.

Waiting to open presents on Uncle Allen's lap.

All the fun made us ready for Christmas. Ace's presents are purchased and I've scheduled the delivery of his big boy bed next week! Now, if he will just kick this awful cold that has settled into his chest, everything will be Merry.

Let's EAT!

Our breakfast room is really tiny...it's really more of an empty corner at the end of the kitchen. Not great for feeding our families when they come into town. So, I've been wanting a banquette that would give our breakfast room more space and seat more if we squoosh together.

Ta Da! My wonderful husband agreed and it was installed today.

It is still awaiting cushions (to be finished shortly by the upholsterer).

You can kind of tell from this photo that he tried to match the face of the banquette to the style of our kitchen cabinets.
From above with storage lift-tops open.

I couldn't believe he even finished out the insides!

I'd say we gained about 2 more feet in the kitchen, making the space feel a lot smaller.

Now I have storage for all of my serving dishes that I rarely get to use.

Only problem: Ace's favorite place to play is the window sills. I don't know how he'll react now that he can't reach them. Hopefully we'll adapt and find another place to crash his monster trucks.

Yippee! Finally, a contractor that does a COMPLETE job that I am COMPLETELY happy with. I had almost given up hope. (Must be because he's got a lucky name: Jonathon.)

The Big 3-0!

Jonathan is 30 today!

And he's been mine for the past 10 of those 30 years!

Gabby and Pops took him to dinner at Goodsons on Wednesday night

(which is where the photos were taken).

The funniest thing was, before any singing or mention of a birthday, look what Ace did to his roll! He started singing "Happy Birthday" all on his own before the restaurant waiters even came out. So funny.

I got him a tee time at our neighborhood golf course but he said it was too cold and has opted for a raincheck and to leave the bed for only one short hour to go to a birthday lunch at Texadelphia. It's now 4:15 and I'm hoping he gets up in time for our dinner reservations at The Yardhouse...and that he has an appetite! But, if this is what he really wants to do on his birthday, who am I to argue?

Happy Birthday Handsome!

We love Christmas around here!

We love the airplane inflatable from Honey and Sashi.

We love catching snow on our tongues.

(Though you can't even tell it was snowing in this photo!)
We love church Christmas events with pony rides.

We love our cousins!

We love a good, live manger.

We love Christmas carols and trees!

We LOVE Santa Claus.

(Santa asked what Ace wanted and Ace responded, "A present."

Duh, Santa.)

We love Christmas cookies...well, we love the icing.

And we love Christmas lights. Jonathan tooks us on a ride to see all the lights in the surrounding neighborhood this weekend and Ace went nuts. At one point he said, "Momma, we need to go find Baby Jesus...and Mommy Jesus...and Daddy Jesus." Thank goodness someone had a manger in their front yard and we found them.

Our latest...

I have been on house-arrest since starting to potty train Ace the week before Thanksgiving but it hasn't left any time to blog. Here's some photos of what we've been up to.

Honey and Sashi drove in for Thanksgiving and B and Uncle James joined us for an ENORMOUS meal of Greenberg turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, cranberry cool whip salad, pecan & pumpkin pie, mac and cheese, okra, ham, cornbread dressing and rolls! No one needs that much food.

Our little man is so loved. He camped out on the couch with Sashi most of the week.

Ace lovin' on his Hula.
And, yes, the potty-shot. Those are stickers on his legs. He LOVES getting stickers for going pee-pee. He gets wooden trains for going poop (because that doesn't happen as often.)

This one is from this morning. He was writing his letter to Santa. If you ask him what he wants, he will tell you, "The blue present." Whatever that means.

And this is just him singing to me at lunchtime. He loves to sing "I can only imagine" but I've yet to get that on video.

Potty Training...the first 4 hours

After much prayer for endurance and patience, I was ready to go this morning. I had three potty seats, a timer, stools, stickers, trains, juice and a new potty chart.

Ace blew all my prep to bits.

He has CRIED non-stop since waking up this morning. I was ready to GIVE UP but, sad to admit, I need a vacation and if potty training has to be my excuse, I'll keep after it.

He cried on and off the potty. Screamed when his trains went off the track. Yelled when I left the room. Threw himself on the floor when I went to get more juice. I mean, what has possessed my precious Ace?

So, the update so far is: no accidents. He's pee-peed four times on the potty. No poop. He loves his Diego undies (thanks LeeLee). And now he's playing in his crib in diapers (I'm keeping him in diapers for naps and nighttime) fixing to take his nap. (Although right now, I can hear him yelling through the monitor "I don't want my bed", "I want Diego pants.")

I'm taking a NAP!
Who said that mommies have to potty train? I want to wring their neck!
No, no. I am thankful for my precious little man and am lucky to be his momma.
But I would be willing to pay someone to do this for me. Hee. Hee.

Precious Praise

If I don't blog about this, it won't make it into Ace's yearbook so forgive my post without a video to go along. I'm desperately trying to get Ace's worship on video but he does most of his singing in the car or at bedtime when I'm without my camera.

Here's how he sings "Mighty to Save"

He is mighty to save, he is mighty to save.
Forever, father of dalmation.
He rose and conquered the grapes. Jesus conquered the grapes.

He sings "I can only imagine" by repeating "I can only imagine" a million times. He doesn't know any other of the words!

His other favorites right now:
Sing, sing, sing (Chris Tomlin)
Desert song (Hillsong) He calls it "Bring praise."

To hear him sing these just makes me melt.

The 5th Mile

I DID IT!

Background...I started running in college. I never paid attention to how far or fast I ran, only to the amount of time I spent on the treadmill. At my best, I would run for an hour. In January, when Leah and Allen decided to start training for their marathon, I decided to start tracking my stats and set a goal for myself: 5 miles at a pace of 6 miles an hour. DON'T LAUGH! I'm not athletic and I'm used to running at a pace of about 5.4.

Now it's November and I FINALLY ran 5 miles (at 5.9...time to attack my pace)! It feels like I finished a marathon. I have no aspirations of even running a half marathon much less a marathon. It's such a great feeling to achieve a goal no matter how inconsequential. I think I will bask in it for a while.

Now it seems like 5 miles is so small (although I've only done it once!). What shall my next goal be???!!!

Air Show

With a name like Ace, sometimes it's eerie how much he likes airplanes. Like his name was chosen for him. I know the Lord is going to give him a new name in Heaven but He's going to be hard pressed to find one more appropriate.

B promised to take Ace to see the Blue Angels two months ago and Ace has been able to talk of little else since. Here they are fixing to go into a plan that is used to monitor hurricanes.B even bought Ace earphones to protect his little ears from the loud engines. We wished we would have had some. You have no idea how loud these things are until you are right beside them.
Precious and SOOOOOOOO typical Ace.

It surprised me how much I liked looking at all of the old planes and watching them fly.

Ace loves his Uncle James.

A close second to airplanes, Ace loves cars and he ALWAYS points out a Hummer when he sees one. This little go-cart of a Hummer thrilled him.

Here, Ace is in the cockpit of the hurricane plane. He always insists on being buckled up whenever he's behind a wheel.

Our little pilot was pooped so he didn't actually get to see the Blue Angels fly. We won't miss it next year.

We had such a great time and Ace got to see a P-51 which is what his Paw Paw flew (my Mom's Dad). Turns out his great-grandpa on through Jonathan's dad was also a pilot. Maybe it's in the blood although, watching all of the planes do tricks and fly so fast, it will be terrifying if Ace does become a pilot. I wanted to lose my breakfast just watching. Can't wait to go back.

Trick or Treat

Pilot Ace started off Halloween at a Trunk-or-Treat down the highway. He loved going to each trunk and used his adorable manners telling everyone "thank you."

We came home, ate pizza, then started off again. I was a stewardess to his pilot. This photo doesn't show my enormous gold wings (courtesy of Honey). I tried to tease my hair but it only make me look like a stewardess-post-non-stop-24hr-flight-to-somewhere.

He was all grins even though most houses were out of candy by the time we set out. Our neighborhood kids must have started early this year. Ace really didn't care. He just loved walking around.

Here was his entourage: Honey in a crab costume and B as Frankenstein (not pictured: Gabby and Mommy - photographer).

Once we got back home, Ace had even more fun giving out candy to trick-or-treaters. He handed out hand-FULLS of candy and always picked one out for himself after closing the door. Pooped and in his Sashi's lap.

This is what happens when your toddler has too much candy. (In case you are wondering what he's yelling, he keeps saying, "Cheese" because I have the camera pointed at him. What a good boy!)

GREAT times!

Happy Halloween!

We've got our candy and our costumes and we're READY!

Hope yours is sweet and safe!

More Potty Talk

Three days in a row Ace has pee peed on the potty in the morning!

LeLe (Leah) gave him potty stickers and a potty chart last year for his birthday and we are just now getting it out. The potty chart sits above the toilet roll and Ace INSISTS on holding it too his chest and saying, "That's MY potty chart."

He gets one sticker on each hand and one on the chart for each success. Good thing LeLe gave us a pack of 124 dinosaur stickers.

He's so proud of himself and so am I. I think Thanksgiving is going to be the big week of concentrated training but, in the meantime, he gets put on the potty about four times a day to try. Wish me luck!!! (I'm hoping to get a poop soon. Every time he has a poopy diaper he raises his hiny out of his diaper saying, "Mommy get it, get it." As if he hasn't been in a poopy diaper for more than 5 minutes!)

Balloon Festival

Since I take all of our family photos with Ace's yearly scrapbook in mind, we came home from the Balloon Festival with over 100 photos! And we only stayed 4 hours! Here's Mr. Cute.

He got a lot of compliments on his jacket (thanks B!).
Jonathan did some fabulous photography of all the balloons in the air.

Daddy was a REALLY good sport to get up before 5am to get us out there to see the balloons launch.

Typical Ace at the moment. I can't get him to look at the camera like he used to. But I figure he'll still want pictures of him and his parents when he gets older.

Halfway through the balloon show, Ace decided he'd rather "hide" than watch. Luckily, we brought a blanket for him to hide under.

Future astronaut?

Future speaker?

The balloon launch was at the NASA offices. They opened their auditorium and guess who took right to the microphone and cried when I quit holding him up to it.

This kid loves a stage.

We had a great time but were sooooo pooped. I even fell asleep on the way home! So did Ace. And we BOTH took even longer naps when we got home. Jonathan and I thought Ace would have enjoyed the balloons a lot more than he did but we sure loved it.

This weekend, we're taking Ace to the air show and, since airplanes are Ace's favorite, we are expecting a big reaction.

"I Gotcha One."

Those are the sweetest words I'm hearing lately. I'll ask Ace, "Do you have a kiss for me?" He turns around and says, "I gotcha one" and puckers up the softest, sweetest lips for me.

Makes me MELT.

Eyes

Ace and I were driving home from Trunk-or-Treat last night

and this is what the sky looked like!

Pretty phenomenal.

It gave me a new mental picture for when I think about God watching over me.

HE DID IT!!!!!

Acey pee-peed in the potty last night!!!!!

I have been putting Ace on the potty every night before his bath. Usually he acts like I'm trying to put his hiny on hot coals. He stiffens his legs out straight, reaches for me and says, "nononononononononono." For a little while now, he has humored me and sat on the potty but he doesn't go and as soon as his toes hit the warm water he pees (so we drain the tub, refill and on and on). So, the other day I thought, "Hmmm, warm water."

Last night, I sat him on the potty and poured warm water on his "don't touch." (I've done this before with no results except for uncontrollable laughter - his and mine.) Nothing happened the first time I did it last night but the second time he peed!!! I scared him by jumping with joy so it stopped but once he looked down again he started going again. And it ALL went into the bowl!!!!!! We danced, we sang, we twirled around, he got chocolate, we called Honey and Sashi, we PARTIED.

Potty training is soooo close I can feel it. I'm scared of how it will affect my work day but we'll adjust, we always do.

Hearing him tell his Daddy "I pee-pee in the potty" was just the BEST. My little man is growing up and I can finally buy him the cutest undies ever.

YEAH ACE!

While Jonathan was away...

Aunt B was taking care of Ace last Saturday morning and Jonathan went for a run so I woke up early and DESTROYED our upstairs. Our attic has been bothering me forever. We have tons of boxes up there and we're always sucking in our guts and weaving between them when we have to get up there. Here's what it looked like once I got everything out of the attic.

I was just crossing my fingers that Jonathan wouldn't come home at this point.
I just HAD to take a photo after I emptied the attic. Too bad that I don't have a before photo!

I felt SOOOO accomplished afterwards. I put everything into plastic bins (on sale for $3.50 at Lowes) and put it back in the attic after the tailgate on Sunday. Now, I have an entire aisle to walk through stacked and labeled bins and even a free space to walk through.

And Jonathan didn't have to lift a finger!

(Can this count as an early birthday present for him?)

P.S. My thighs, behind and calves were on fire until Tuesday!