Daltonisms

Yesterday... "Mom, where does Grandma live?"
"Which one?"
"Um, mine?"

Today, first thing this morning...
"Mom, guess what time it is!"
I assumed he would say time to open presents..."What time?"
"It's Christmas Eve!"
then, just a minute later...
"Did the Easter Bunny come?"

Silver Dollar City

The weekend before last we went to Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. It was going to be the last opportunity for us of the season to use our season tickets, and also the last decent day (weather wise) to spend the day there. It wasn't quite as warm as they had predicted, but it wasn't too terribly bad.

Here we are in front of the BIG Christmas tree! Dalton was just so awed by this tree!!

If you know Dalton, you know that he LOVES snowmen! They had them all over the park and of course we had to pose with just about every one of them!

Dalton went on his very first BIG BOY ride this time! Here's Dalton and Daddy, going into Fire in the Hole.

Went Dalton came out, he said that it was "so NOT cool" because it was so dark!

Then they rode on this thing...I think it was called High and Low? Basically you pull yourselves up to the top, then do a slow free fall back down.

And while Daddy and Dalton rode around (Dalton ALWAYS chooses Chris to ride with him...such favoritism!) Jackson and I just hung out and people watched!!

Here we were getting ready to go on the train. We always ride the train when we go, Dalton loves it.

Waiting in the train depot...

About half way through the train ride, they usually stop and do this little "hold up" skit, but for Christmas, they were telling the story of Jesus' birth. Dalton was enthralled.

A nice lady in front of us took this picture. It kind of cracks me up. Dalton looks all dopey, and Jackson is looking to the side like he doesn't like what's about to go down. HA!

It sure was beautiful! They had hundreds of thousands of lights strung, it was just gorgeous. I've never been to SDC around holiday time, and I highly recommend that you go! You will not be disappointed!!

Beautiful Day!

The weather was great today...it almost hit 60 degrees!! Dalton and I spent a lot of time playing in the yard... Jackson didn't get to go out, he was napping!!

A few fun pics... Jackson had the best time getting into this little box. It was so funny though because he'd step into it, and then he couldn't quite lift his feet high enough to step out and just stood there FOREVER!

Jackson admiring all the presents...

And here, he was determined to beat the snot out of this semi truck with a spatula!

"Here, Mom, you do it! It's fun!"

So while Jackson napped today, Dalton and I went out to play (well, Dalton played. I, unfortunately, spent most of my time scooping poop!). These are our newest foster dogs, Joe and Cooper. We've had them almost two months already, but most of that time they were being treated for a ton of different intestinal parasites, ear mites, etc, so today was the first day that Dalton really got to spend any real time with them.

Aren't they adorable?!? They are brothers, about a year old. They do almost everything together, and groom each other and sleep together. It's funny because sometimes they are like synchronized dogs...they wag their tails at the same time, the same direction, stretch at the same time, so on and so forth. This is Cooper below... (Cooper is a little lighter colored than Joe).

They followed Dalton ALL OVER the yard. They did so well with him, and I was kind of surprised really. Joe has a bad habit of jumping up on me (Cooper does so much better, he will sit down when gets in front of you), but neither one ever tried to jump on Dalton or knock him down. They just followed him around wanting to be petted and give kisses.

See what I mean about synchronized dogs? Their tails are wagging in the same direction, same time! They really are SO cute...you know, when they aren't chewing on something they shouldn't be!

So really just a great day... they are saying that we might get some snow on Christmas Eve (just a dusting, but hey, it's still a white Christmas, right?!?). Christmas dinner is at our house this year, although not all of my local family will be here.

Dalton has this giant Santa head with a long 4 ft beard that counts down the days til Christmas. He moves the candy cane each day, and each morning the first words out of his mouth are "Six days to Christmas!" "Five days to Christmas!" and today it was "Four days to Christmas, just like me, I'm four, only FOUR DAYS!" He's just beside himself with excitement!

Dear Santa...

All of our Christmas cards should have reached their intended recipients by now, so now I can post this cutesie-tootsie picture!!


It was much harder than I thought it would be for the lady to get a good picture of both boys smiling, and with Santa NOT looking goofy. :)

Fun Times!

Just wanted to post some recent cute pictures!!

It's My Favorite Time of Year

Oh, how I love Christmas! It's always been my most favorite time of year. Even though it is usually crazy hectic (hence the lack of posting on my part lately!!), I just LOVE it. And it seems to be even better now that I have kids. It seems that you get to see everything again from a childs perspective. Dalton just loves to see all the lights, and talks about Santa all the time. And it just brings the excitement up a notch when you can see it all through your kids' eyes.

I love to decorate the tree every year. Surprisingly, we didn't have too much of an issue with the tree and Jackson this year. I thought he would try to pull it over, but for the most part he leaves it alone. We didn't get to put all the ornaments on this year. Anything breakable or anything with a hook had to be out of J's reach, so we left a good portion off. You'd also think that with all the dogs and cats running through our house, we'd have issues with them, but we don't. The only one that bothers the tree is our cat, Peanut, who occasionally tries to eat the branches. We usually find pieces hacked up on the carpet later on!

Now, I love the trees that have a theme. You have people that do a "black and white" tree, or "pink" tree, or a "ribbon" tree, or whatever, and the tree is all done up in the same color or whatnot. And I think that's really pretty and all...but, me? I love to have all different decorations.


Because when we pull those ornaments out of the attic and start decorating the tree, each one has its own story. Each one, I can tell you where it came from or who gave it to us, and when. Here are some of my favorites on our tree...

This was for Jackson's first Christmas.

And this is one that I bought for us in 2007. I also got one for each of the grandparents that year.

This was Dalton's first Christmas in 2005, which was a gift from Chris's dad and step-mom, Dennis and Jil.

I got this one for Chris one of the first years we were married.

And of course, you can't have a tree without Sally from Cars! A gift for Dalton from Dennis and Jil. We also have Lightning on the other side of the tree.

This one was a gift from my old boss at Wal-Mart, Paul.

This was also a gift from Dennis and Jil. Dalton when he was two.

And these were for Jackson.

These two little ice skaters were made by Chris's grandmother.

We bought this one a couple summers ago when we went to Colorado for Chris's brother's wedding.

This one was a gift two years ago from a woman in my rescue group, Leann.

And we bought this one when we went to Lake Tahoe for vacation in 2004.

Every year, Chris's mom, Patty, gets us an ornament from Pier One. They are glass, and painted on the INSIDE of the ornament. These have always been my favorites, because they are so pretty. I broke one this year on accident (well, of COURSE I didn't do it on purpose, people!) and I was SO disappointed. It was from 2007 and you can't replace it. I love the boxes they come in, too, each one comes in its own little padded box, covered in beautiful fabric.

But I think that THIS ONE is my most favorite. It's not really super special, I mean, it isn't made of gold, it wasn't given to me by a king or anything. And it's not like it's the most ridiculously expensive or even the prettiest one on the tree...

Last year my vet called me and told me that they had a man who was going into a nursing home. He was only 45, but had terminal cancer, and he had three dogs that were his entire life, and asked if we could help him. I called him and talked to him numerous times. His name was John. He was SUCH a nice man. He had a pug, a little mixed mutt, and a large lab/great pyrenees mix. Another rescue took the pug. And we found a foster home for his little mix mutt, and they ended up falling in love with her and adopting her. His large dog found a home in Mountain Home, AR (about three hours away), and I drove the dog over there. John cried when I came to pick up the dogs. He loved them so much, they were always his best friends. When I took them with me, he gave me a package with this ornament in it. He told me it was nothing special, that he had picked it up in Canada when he was on vacation once. Said that he couldn't offer me anything, but so appreciated me helping him find loving homes for his dogs, that he wanted me to have it. I was told later by the people that adopted the large dog that for three weeks the dog laid on the floor in the kitchen and hardly ever did anything. He ate and went out and then came in and laid on the floor and never did anything. Then one day the dog got up, and played with the other dogs, and loved all over the owners. That same day, I got a call from John's sister, and she said that she was so glad that John knew we found all the dogs homes, and that he had just passed away that morning.

It's a sad story, but it's the story that belongs to that ornament, and I will NEVER forget it. Every time I take that ornament out and put it on the tree, I will think of that young, 45 year old man, who was faced with knowing he was dying, and cried when he parted with his best friends, but did what was best for them. It's my favorite ornament on the tree, bar none.