A Christmas Survey, I need your help!

With this being Gus' first Christmas, J and I have been trying to come up with our own family traditions to start this year. We wanted to do something new/different than what our families currently do but we are having a hard time. I thought it might be neat to see what some of your holiday traditions are and maybe we could borrow some of your ideas! So if you have a minute or two please let me know what your family does now or did when you were little that makes Christmas special to you. Thanks!

Santa Claus has come to Town!

Despite the dreary, cold weather last Friday, Gus and I struck out in search of Santa. After picking up our friends Amy and Noah, we headed off to the annual kids Christmas party at our local bank. The boys are invited because they hold savings accounts there. We had to stand in line for an extremely long time, considering we were holding 17 pounds and a diaper bag, but it was worth it. Gus was worn out and was on the verge of drifting off to sleep by the time we reached the front of the line, but he didn't mind Santa at all. He just sat in his lap, blinking very slowly:) Noah on the other hand was somewhat interested in the strange man holding him and even threw out a few smiles for the camera. The boys were too cute in their matching santa "tiny elf" hats. Some of the goodies handed out were: red and green antlers, a book with an attached CD of Christmas songs, cookies and punch and a photo of you and Santa in a frame for the fridge.

It was fun to spend time with Amy and Noah AND Santa! I wonder how they'll be when they meet the Easter Bunny at the bank's annual Easter party?!! Something tells me their indifference to strangers won't last much longer.

On another note, Gus has really been enjoying the Christmas tree at his Mae Mae's house. This photo was taken during a diaper change and he just wouldn't sit still long enough for me to redress him because he needed to see about the tree! Fraiser's beware, Gus is on the loose!

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday was my 4th wedding anniversary! I don't know where the last 4 years have gone, but I am looking forward to the next four more than ever. J and I don't usually give gifts for anniversaries because Christmas is so close. So last night we called Mae Mae to babysit and we headed out to eat. We decided on MTs Chophouse and were pleased that we did. It is a very nice restaurant and the food was delicious, pricey but delicious. It is one of those special occasions only places and we were way out of our league! J is so hilarious, he asked for ketchup to go on his steak and, after they looked at him funny, they did bring him a small dish on a platter. I don't know what those waitors thought about us, but hopefully we gave them a few laughs! The steaks were Wagyu, which is occording to our waitor, the America version of Kobe beef and they were very tender. The macaroni and cheese was my favorite, if any of you go make sure you get it. It has four different cheeses, absolute heaven!! Everything was good though that we tried so I would recommend this restaurant to anyone looking for a special night out.
God blessed me with the sweetest man and I look forward to each and every day we get to spend together. I love you J.

The Crawler!

While our Thanksgiving was plagued with sickness and injury (don't worry we're all ok now!), one good thing did take place: my baby is crawling!!

He just started, on the floor, in front of all of the aunts and grandmas the night before Thanksgiving. At first it wasn't too pretty but he has really improved over the past few days. He is already getting into things in the house and heads straight for the Christmas tree every time he sees it! He also is pulling up in the crib, much to his father and my surprise! You should have seen how fast we made it into his room when we saw him pull up on the monitor. We had to lower that mattress down right then and there. I know that as he gets into everything I'll be wishing for my immobile child back but right now it is pretty exciting around our house. He is real proud of himself and especially enjoys all of the applause he gets, I think he learned that from Allie!! HA!

Wedding Photos

I know that it has been over a month since my brother's wedding and I haven't shared a picture with you all. Lynsey's Aunt Cindy took the photos and they are wonderful. She just finished all of the editing this past week and I snagged this photo of our family!

This was the only picture of us all we had taken before Gus zonked out on us and took a much needed nap! I think the picture turned out great. The hard part will be trying to pick out which pictures I want to frame!

Many Thanks

Today is my last day at work and therefore my last day with a computer until next Monday, therefore I am going to cover all the bases for this weekend in this post. First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I hope that you have a wonderful and safe day with lots of fattening foods and plenty of family to share it with. I myself will be with my family this year for lunch and am excited about the traditional goodies we'll have to eat, especially the fried turkey breast which is my favorite! I also have always been in charge of decorating the table with leaves, vines, berries and other items found in nature so I look forward to that too. Gus will be passed around more than the turkey I'm sure, as this is his first Thanksgiving and he has too many aunts and cousins to visit with. So I'm willing to bet there will be lots of picture taking and sugar stealing!

Also up this weekend is the annual Ayers' girls Christmas tree shopping trip. I am so excited about starting to decorate for Christmas and the tree is my favorite way to start. This will be my first Christmas in our new house and I can't wait to see it dressed in red and green!

The Gators also have to play the Seminoles on Saturday and as always you just never know what will happen when those two teams play. Hopefully it will be a good game, and by good I mean as long as the Gators win I don't care what the score is! HA!

Go Gators!!

I just wanted to share some photos of the little hunter with you all. We had a fun time this weekend, except for a few mosquito bites! Gus enjoyed riding in the truck without being in the carseat and he loves being outside in general. We started out the day all bundled up,

He did start out with shoes but they didn't last long! This next photo is one of my favorites, as you can see J. and I didn't do a lot of hunting, just playing with Gus. Gus liked to play with the little boy in the truck mirror.

We stopped at lunch for a picnic and Gus was able to stretch out on the dog box and lose some of his clothes!

After lunch Gus wanted to help Daddy drive.

All in all we had a great day together, even though there were no big kills :) We did discover all kinds of things that we need in the hunting truck that we had forgotten (wipes being the biggest oops, thankfully Aunt Lynsey had some in their truck), but we'll get the hang of it hopefully before the season is out! Next year he'll be wanting to ride with Papa and Mae Mae instead of Momma and Daddy, so we better enjoy him while I can.