Christmas 2008

A few of the highlights in terms of Aaron's gifts:

A tricycle from Great Gi Gi and Papa Ken (my grandparents)....

Cousin Brynn got a matching pink and purple one too.
A wonderful, extremely life-like Dirt Devil kid's vacuum; as you can well imagine, Aaron is heaven with this toy. (Yay for Target's Christmas Eve clearance - only $7!)

This gift is for Lee and my benefit as well.... They call it a bear buddy, but let's be honest - it's a leash for a child.

Thanks Grandma Debbe and Papa Bob =) (We can't wait to get the sandbox up and running from them as well!)

And of course, the police car from GG and Grandpa Tim.... Often we can't decide if we want to play with this or the vacuum.

Oh yes, and I can't forget - we had a white elephant gift exchange amongst my cousins and Lee ended up with a "Talking Jesus" doll. Aaron is somewhat intrigued, yet also creeped out at this bearded figure who quotes Bible verses when his back is pressed. I stuck it in the back of the police car and told Aaron to be sure to "take Jesus wherever he goes." I was laughing so hard at my own joke and Aaron was just smiling up at me wondering why is mom is so very odd and easily amused....

It just looks so funny to me.

We hope you all had a very merry Christmas! As we enjoyed the day and pondered on this past year with our son, we are in constant awe of the sacrifice God made for US in sending His own one and only son to earth to ultimately die for us. This is TRULY the best gift of all and we eagerly pray and await the day that Aaron will grasp and recognize this great truth for himself.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Car

This video is a little long- it is mostly for GG and Grandpa Tim in Florida.  Thanks for the car GG and Grandpa!  Your Grandson loves it!!!  Merry Christmas.

Big Foot

Breaking in the wedding shoes for Uncle Kyle's wedding in a few weeks....

..... um, that are a flippin' size 7!!!!!!! You can imagine my surprise when the salesman fitted him and told me he needed at least a 6.5 while I was holding a box of size 6 that I thought would be just fine. To put it in perspective, my little cousin Noah is over two and a half and in this size currently. I guess between Lee's big feet and my long toes, Aaron just didn't have a chance at normal sized feet.... I hope he can even walk down the aisle in these clunkers....

Also, you may have noticed in these pictures and previous posts, how shaggy Aaron was getting. Haircuts have been relatively traumatic experiences as of late so we've been avoiding them and using it as an excuse to see how his hair may look long. I couldn't stand it any longer and had a gift card from Aaron's birthday (Thank you Aunt Julie!) to Lollilocks.

As long as he could hold Daddy's hand, he was FINE. They did a great job on his hair and with him. It was a great environment and we are SO going back there.

Fun in December

We have a conglomeration of pictures to post and catch up on.... (The flu continued to run it's course in our family this week so we are finally recovered. Sigh.)

Saturday night, we took a group of our college students out for a formal evening with dinner at Anzio's Landing and watching "The Christmas Carol" at Hale Theatre. It was a lot of fun with them!

On Sunday, we baked Lee's mom's famous sugar cookies....

Aaron quite enjoyed them.

And with all the rain, sometimes we get antsy.... =) We decided to just go outside and play in the puddles anyway - We were soaked, but oh so much fun. (Sorry - these pics aren't the clearest as I took them with my cell phone)

Little Helper

Aaron and I had a nasty bout with the flu this week.... You know the kind where you lose track of how many times you are at the toilet puking thinking you are going to die, or even wishing you could? Yeah, that kind. Arg. I have never been so sick in my entire life. Thank you to my mom and Lee for helping take care of us - They were wonderful and I would have never made it otherwise.

So I felt like I lost two days this week in addition to not keeping up with anything around the house, and boy, it was a disaster zone around here. I was feeling quite overwhelmed and tired as we had many people that were going to be coming in and out of our house this weekend so it needed to be cleaned and managed. But then I realized how I have such a wonderful helper that loves to jump in there with me and clean....

Look at that intense focus while he dusts.... Incredible =)
Thanks for all your help and encouragement this week Buddy.... And for even patting my back when I leaned over the toilet to puke. =) Didn't get a picture of that one....

Christmas lights at Church

Just something kind of cool - Many of you know my dad's hobby with Christmas lights every year at our church. The local Fox news station did a little diddy on it yesterday morning... Click on the link below and then click on the video clip labeled "Red Mountain Community Church." (Also, if you click on the little symbol left of the volume, it will go into full screen mode so you can see it better.)
http://media.myfoxphoenix.com/KSAZ/christmas_guide/lights.html

Weekend

Friday night was our annual Women's Christmas Dinner at church. It is always a fun night - good to hang out with my friends and female family members, as well as enjoy some wonderful food (cooked by someone else =) ) and sit through an entertaining program....

The boys stayed home and had pizza together....

Then on Saturday, Lee competed in Dawn to Dusk - a day-long bike race with his friend and fellow pastor, Carlyle. They are studly riders and got second place in their division!

I personally think it was the cowboy mustache Lee was sporting that made the key difference in the race - That's why I made him shave it off before church this morning.... =)

Decorating the Christmas Tree

It was so nice to have a little helper this year to hand us ornaments out of the box....

Check out one of Aaron's early Christmas presents that came in the mail yesterday - His Great Grandpa Nussbaum in Canada made him this awesome little stool...

He loves it, and especially loves to be brave and stand on top of it! =)

Yard project

Lee took a few days off this week to work on our backyard. One of the main projects he is prepping for is pouring a large slab of concrete on the side yard where nothing grows - the motivating factor for concrete is for a few toys that Aaron will be getting for Christmas from both sets of grandparents (I can't say what the toys are just in case Aaron reads this - don't want to spoil his Christmas =) ) Anyway, it sure is exciting to help Daddy work in the backyard!

Look at that muddy rear end! The ironic thing is that it pretty much looked like that on the inside of his pants when I took this picture because he decided to poop after being out there 10 minutes....

Yet another funny face photographed....

Anyway, I will post pics on the finished product, whenever that may be.... Probably a few weeks away =)

South Bend Friends

Our friends from South Bend, Nate and Kristie, were in town this week and came over. It was ESPECIALLY special as we got to meet their new little Lily who is 6 weeks old.....

I think she liked me - She spit up on me a couple of times and then went to sleep.

It was fun to catch up with them and meet Lily. Aaron was fairly intrigued and even tried to say "baby" a couple of times. Don't worry everyone - We still don't have the "itch" yet that seems to be fairly contagious around here.... =)

Annual Church College/High School Turkey Bowl

Check out this studly quarterback...

And one "wanna-be" quarterback....

This is a such a fun tradition for our church - We always have good memories every year, as well as some sore muscles....

Friends and Funny Faces

Some of Aaron's and my friends were planning a rendezvous at the play area in San Tan village, so we decided to join up with them....

People have been telilng me lately that Aaron makes the funniest faces - I have been noticing this more when I go through a series of pictures like today and I realize what I've captured....

Sidenote - I love how baby Tessa looks like she is just chilling all by her lonesome on the grass behind Aaron. It was just cracking me up tonight.... Don't worry - her mom is only a little over an arm's length away....

The transition is complete.

Thank you Lord for pappy-free sleep and these small victories.... =)

The time has come....

.....to say goodbye. A day that we were dreading, (esp. because of those of you that have gone before us in this =) ) but I knew it wasn't going to get any easier. At least the first 24 hours are over (we have made it through one night and two naps), but we still have a ways to go until the transition is official. Oh the joys of growing up.... Though I'm sure this is NOTHING compared to the frustations of potty-training.

Any advice, encouragement, prayers you offer on this behalf are greatly appreciated. =)

Fare thee well, dear pappy - you have served us well.

Weekend

Not sure if our weekend will be exciting to any of you, but nevertheless it will be posted.... =) (Unfortunately, to make it even less exciting, I was lazy about taking pictures for most of it.) On Friday, Lee and I took a late date celebrating his birthday and went out to lunch at Crackers and borrowed my Uncle Keith's 1965 sweet Ford Mustang for the afternoon. It was nice to have that time together since his birthday is on Halloween and it was a busy day....

Sunday morning, I went and ran a 10K race with my friend Katie. Fortunately she is not as lame as me and brought her camera for pictures....

We had fun together and I was pleased to run it in around 54 minutes. If you enjoy running at all, you should try one of these little races as it is a fun competition - there are all kinds of sizes, shapes, and abilities out there running. =) I have to say, it was pretty weird to run without pushing my little guy in a jogging stroller!

And speaking of Aaron, he was sick in the beginning of the week with a fairly nasty cough and cold, but is doing much better and seemed to kick it really quickly!

Anyway, those are the highlights around here. Thanks for reading and humoring us with your interest! =)