Still Catching up...December and Christmas 2008

December was a super busy and super fun month for us....here's the rundown.

We finally made it to Sheri and Shawn Garber's annual Holiday Party this year...we had been MIA for the past three years due to pregnancies and babies. It was so much fun catching up with everyone and meeting some new friends.

We went with Erin and Thatcher to get pictures of the boys with Santa. Conley did great! I think since he was watching Grayson and saw that Grayson was fine, he was fine. Although he did give Santa a once over, like "what the heck is this?"

We were supposed to go out t dinner with a bunch of old friends from EDS since Dwight was in town for a few days...it takes an act of God for all of us to come together now since we all have little ones. So what happens right as the babysitter shows up? Conley (under Jon's watch - suspect? Just kidding...or am I? hee hee) falls and smacks his forehead on the tile. A ginormous goose eggs erupts from his forehead. Needless to say, we missed out on the dinner that we had been looking forward to for a week....nevermind the fact that it took me 4 days to finally find a babysitter for the occassion. Oh well...that's life as a parent...rule #1 - always be flexible and plan to cancel at the last minute!

The Rusters hosted a Christmas Pajama Party for the kiddos that was super fun. We had a special surprise guest show up, much to the kids' delight. Justin, Hailey, and Michael came up to visit us that same weekend...we really enjoyed their visit. The boys love them! Conley was a little cranky (ok, a LOT cranky) that Sunday...little did we know that he had a double ear infection - his first one!

Grayson had his school Christmas program and he did SO much better than he did at his Spring program earlier in the year. He really got into it and he had the privelege of shaking the jingle bells center stage. He was such a ham! All the kids were so cute! Afterwards, his class had their little Christmas party together. Grayson really loves his teachers, Mrs. Tonya and Mrs. Betty.

We had Grandpa's (Great-Grandpa) birthday party and the ADR Inc. (family company) Christmas party. And somewhere along the way, Grayson decided to try on one of Mimi's high-heeled boots.

We had so much fun at Christmas this year! It was the first year that Grayson really, really anticipated Christmas and showed no fear of Santa. He told Santa exactly what he wanted for Christmas - a big, big truck and cars, of course! This was also Conley's first Christmas, which made it even more special for us. Grayson and I made cookies for Santa for the first time this year and Grayson was very excited to see that Santa had come and gobbled up almost all of the cookies and milk we left for him. The boys were on present overload - there were so many presents! (Good thing Grayson helped me pick out stuff he wanted to donate to the kids without any toys beforehand - what a sweet boy!) At one point, Grayson just stopped opening presents because he was too busy playing with the stuff he had already ripped into to care about the remaining unopened presents. And that was just at our house! We still had more to come at Mimi and Grandpa's house. Conley, on the other hand, had just as much fun with the paper and ribbons...good thing since Grayson ended up taking Conley's new toys as his own. When we told Grayson that the toys were Conley's, he responded by saying, "he's sharing them with me!", to which we had to laugh since we are always telling Grayson to share.

Sweet-mares, Mommy

Lately, Grayson has been waking up crying and when we go up to check on him, we ask him if he had a nightmare or a bad dream, to which he usually replies, "yeah", between the sobs. So pitiful. So now when we put him to bed, after we say our prayer together, we tell him to have sweet dreams. He responds by saying, "No, have sweet-mares, Mommy!", and starts cracking up. How funny is that? I love it.

Lecture audio for Jon's MBA MicroEco class

All, there are three different links for the class audio (3 sessions). Just click the links in order to hear the audio. You should probably ignore my notes (not great), although they will light up according to the timeline. Given the size of the room, the audio is not that great, but you should be able to hear it.

http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=Z9GLqCq1CkXR

http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=Hg5hBPJVRBWS

http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=G5Kn8BrDnnn8

Thanksgiving at the Ranch

Thanksgiving at the ranch was lots of fun. Grayson is at the age that he can really enjoy the surroundings out there. The road trip down was pretty nice...Conley refrained from the constant screaming he did on our last trip to the ranch last May, and we stopped over in Fredericksburg for a stretch and some lunch. They had all of the Christmas decorations out already and it was fun to walk around.

Memaw, Pawpaw, and Willow were waiting for us when we arrived and greeted us with open arms and a few sniffs all around.

Grayson enjoyed riding the tractor with Pawpaw and Conley enjoyed his first ride in the Mule.

We went for a hike across the ranch and Grayson had fun playing with his stick sword and finding an empty turtle shell along the way.

Our ride home was not as calm as the ride down. Conley was not a happy camper and would not take a nap. About 2-1/2 hours into the ride home, when we stopped for a potty break and some snacks we found out why! That poor baby had a big poopy diaper and his little bottom was just stewing in it! Tell me I didn't feel like a lousy mommy! The whole time I just kept saying that he was so tired and he'll fall alseep soon - boy was I wrong! But, we did make it home safely and it was nice to have seen the family, even if our time together was short.

Time to play catch up...

Okay, okay...so it's been a while since our last post (uh, Thanksgiving anyone?). It feels like it has been a non-stop rollercoaster ride since the holidays came upon us, and the post-holiday months have been much of the same, not leaving much time for me to get off the rollercoaster and update everyone on the latest happenings. And believe me, SO much has happened, funny and otherwise! I don't think I'll be able to write about everything, but the next few posts will represent my valiant attempt to condense the last 3 or so months into quick entertainment!

Getting ready for the roadtrip...

So, why am I on here posting a new blog entry when I should be packing feverishly to make sure everyone has all that they need for our road trip to see Jon's parents? Call it procrastination...it's my weakness! I figured I hadn't posted an entry in a while, so why not now? The days since my last entry have proved to be pretty uneventful, which is a good thing these days. We're looking forward to going down to the ranch in Kerrville and hanging out with Jon's family, eating a lot of food, and watching some UT football. I'm sure there will be more to report once we get back. Road trips always make for some interesting incidents when you travel with a two-year old.

One funny thing that Grayson has been doing lately is staying up waaaaaaaay past his bedtime after it's supposed to be lights out. We really have no idea what time he actually goes to sleep. We'll go up and check on him before we go to bed and his little lamp on his nightstand will be on and his books scaterred around him in the bed. I guess we should go and check on him like 10 minutes after putting him to bed to make sure we enforce lights out? He started doing the same thing at naptime today, too, so he's really not getting the sleep he should be getting. Who knew that 2-year olds could be so sneaky?

Happy Turkey Day to everyone! More posts to come...

The Dilemma

Lately, Grayson has been pushing and "beating up" on Conley a little more than usual. Most of the time, I don't actually catch him in the act; he always seems to wait until I have my backed turned before he initiates contact. But for the times when I do catch him in action, he gets put in time out as a consequence. For all of the other times, the scenario ususally goes something like this - Conley starts screaming, I run over to see what happened, I question Grayson, and with some prodding he will ususally tell me that he either hit Conley, took a toy away from Conley, or that he pushed Conley. Now here's the dilemma...he knows that he gets put in timeout for doing those things to Conley. But, when I ask him and he tells me the truth about what he did, do I still put him in time out? We want to encourage him to tell us the truth, but soon he will start to figure out that when he tells us what he did to Conley, he gets in trouble. Ahhh, so there's the rub! I feel he should be in timeout still, since he knows that those things are not allowed, but I hate the thought of the timeout discouraging his telling of the truth. What would you do?