On the road

We're leaving tomorrow morning to start our journey to Arkansas to spend Christmas with David's parents. Kyle, of course, is thrilled at the idea of staying in a hotel tomorrow night and I think that, for now, has overshadowed the excitement of Christmas. He's been down with a fever/virus thing since Thursday so I'll probably try and get him into the weekend clinic at his doctor's office just to make sure he doesn't have a sinus or ear infection before we leave. I have a sneaking suspicion that it may be just a wee bit crowded today with other parents doing the same thing!

Last night David and I watched "Christmas Vacation" then put out all of Kyle's presents and decided what to wrap and what would be from...well, you know who. I think Kyle is getting a nice variety of presents this year and will have some money from my parents to spend how he wants after the holidays. Tony is getting money (big surprise for a teenage boy) a new Nike hoodie, and Kyle bought him a funny driving calendar. Tony will be flying into Arkansas on December 26 so keep your fingers crossed the Nebraska weather cooperates and his flights are all on time!

Merry Christmas and thanks for reading! For your viewing pleasure - another installment of the Dancing with Kyle series!

Christmas Spirit

Ho! Ho! Ho! Tonight was my Sunday school class Christmas party - it's women only and a lot of fun. The group had been looking for someone to help this holiday season and I suggested someone I know and the love just flowed...I collected $200 plus a grocery store gift card!!!! My friend is going to be so shocked and I know the money and gift card will go a L O N G way in helping her and her two kids this holiday season. It's amazing how a little bit from a lot of people adds up to so much! What a wonderful time of year.

I'm also excited because tomorrow morning when Kyle wakes up he'll be surprised to find 25+ new books in his room. One of the girls in my class gave me two big bags of so-close-to-new books that are just perfect for Kyle right now! Her son has outgrown them and she knew we would love them. I thought about wrapping them up as a Christmas present, but I just don't think I can wait to start reading them with him.

Yippee!

Christmas Crazy

When I was growing up we had two trees - one in our living room and one in our dining room, both of which were in big windows that faced the street. The one in the dining room had been my grandmother's tree and she LOVED red. The whole tree was decorated in red - red lights, red feather garland, red birds, red decorations. Some of her decorations were the craziest things I had ever seen. I loved that tree - it was garish, but I loved it! The living room tree was the family tree - the one with macaroni ornaments, personalized ornaments, souvenirs, multi-colored lights, etc. It was not a theme tree by any means. That's the kind of tree we have now - it's a giant tree and I don't have nearly enough stuff to fill it up, but almost every piece that goes on it has a story. We have a box with ornaments from various countries that David's mom collected for us when they were on vacation in 2001...a vacation they cut short when Kyle came early! My favorite is the Swedish girl...who I'm sure has a name...because she always reminds me of my friend Heather. We have ornaments from Disney World, one from Topeka, various penguin ones from years and years ago. The bows that go on top, which are missing at the moment because they need to be fixed, were made by my friend Tonya when I couldn't find anything I liked to go on the top of the tree. And of course now we have awesome ornaments that Kyle has made - with many more to come I'm sure.

I also have a small snowman collection which makes me laugh now that we live in Georgia! In fact today when we were watching College Gameday on ESPN I was shivering in empathy with all the fans at Arrowhead Stadium for the Kansas-Missouri football game tonight. It was misting, snowing and blowing all at once! It's a lovely day here!

Nope, my tree will never make the cover of "House Beautiful" but it's beautiful to me!

Super Mario Kyle

Halloween was great! Angela put together Kyle's costume for him...a costume he has been talking about for months and months. Everywhere we went people would say, "Hey, it's Mario" or "Where's Luigi" - almost to the point that Kyle would get embarrassed about it. The funniest was when a girl down the street said "Where's Luigi?" and Kyle said, "Right, like I haven't heard that one before." Sarcasm...hmmm...I wonder where he got that from????? Of course those not "in the know" when it comes to video game culture, pretty much think he was a hobo!

I will say Halloween in Georgia is certainly different than Halloween in Nebraska - I mean I seriously doubt anyone's costume is going to be hidden by a parka and boots in Georgia!