The Lights on Main Street

A few weeks before Christmas, Matt and I took Sam down to Grapevine Main Street to see the lights. They have a great light show to music. Also, they sprayed the grass so that it looks like it has had a dusting of snow. The entire downtown was transformed into a little Winter Wonderland. Sam loved it! He wasn't too sure about the loud music and flashing lights but he loved the deer displayed in a little booth with elves. He spotted them from afar and shouted "DEER!" and took off running. Just like his Daddy only he sweetly waves and says, "Hi Deer!" instead of shooting them, eating them and mouting them on the wall.

I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged so here it goes...

8 things I did today:
1. Worked out
2. Painted my nails and toes
3. Got Sam to take a nap!!!!! Woo Hoo!
4. Started making Crock Pot Taco Soup
5. Talked to my mom on the phone
6. Picked up the house
7. Folded clothes while watching LA Ink
8. Made a master To Do list

8 favorite restaurants *If you have ever gone to eat with Sam you know why we don't go out to eat much...see the post from the Gaylord and it should give you some idea.
1. Chipotle
2. Benihanas
3. Pei Wei
4. Any "good" tearoom
5. Krispy Kreme (Does that count?)
6. Toll House Cookie Store (What about this one?)
7. Chili's
8. La Hacienda

8 Shows I watch:
1. The Biggest Loser
2. ER
3. Scrubs
4. So You Think You Can Dance
5. Jon & Kate + 8
6. LA and/or Miami Ink
7. Friday Night Lights
8. 24

8 things I wish for:
1. To be organized all throughout the house
2. To remain motivated to work out
3. For Sam to be a better sleeper
4. For the market/economy to improve
5. For Sam and Matt to have a smidgen of an idea about how much I deeply love them
6. For everyone to have a close relationship with their mom like I have with my mom
7. For Sam to remain healthy
8. For some sort of cause or cure to be determined for Autism

8 things I look forward to:
1. Ski trip in March
2. Trying for baby #2 in the summer
3. Summer Vacation...Switzerland? Italy? Mexico? (Gotta love Edward Jones!)
4. Going to the Mavs game with my hubby on Thursday
5. Getting organized
6. Having a real conversation with Sam
7. My hair appointment on Friday (Honestly my roots are like 3" deep!)
8. My finger to have feeling again and be back to normal.

Tags: Coco, Heather, Michelle, April, Sarah, Brooks, Wendy, Melissa, Brigette, Shoshana

To all of my friends, family and fellow Blogging BFFs...

I have officially been MIA for a good while now. The last of the Christmas rush got the best of me and unfortunately left no time to blog. (The finger injury put me a bit behind on wrapping and such) Then, we left for Alabama on the 26th to visit my hubby's family. We had a great time but we did not have access to the internet. Sooooo, I am very behind with events to blog etc. I am going to officially undo all of my holiday cheer from my blog from the poll to the music to the background pic and will be posting like a maniac over the next few days :)

1st Double Stuffed Oreo

Recently, Sam had his 1st Double Stuffed Oreo. As to be expected, he carefully scraped every last speck of icing off with his finger. It was like the Everlasting Gobstopper of Oreos. It went on forever. The pictures speak for themselves...

Trip to See Santa at the Gaylord...Well, Kinda

The other night, we went to the Gaylord to see Santa which is where we went last year. (See pic) I pictured us strolling through the hotel, sipping our coffee, hand in hand while looking at the lights and discussing our many blessings. Well, I could just show you the following 3 pictures without any other explanation and you can probably tell how the night went...

Mistake #1 - I gave him a sucker at 8:30 at night.

Mistake #2 - I let his feet touch the floor....and he's off...

Honestly, the back of his head is all I saw of him the entire night. Poor Daddy was sweatin' 5 minutes into our arrival and I was chasing the 2 of them down while pushing the stroller with one hand (bum finger, remember?) and coffee sloshin' & flyin' everywhere (and we were going to stroll, remember?).

What? His Face? He didn't mean to stop long enough for his face to be seen. Hurry, this never happened...

However, Sam got to ride on an escalator for the first time without a stroller.

The decorations were amazing and Sam had a great time to say the least. We decided to postpone the visit with Santa once the meltdowns began and try again for another day. (another day, another post)

Well, all I can say is Live and Learn!

Getting Ready for Christmas

Ok, I have had my decorations up since before Thanksgiving and I am just now blogging them. Since the main reason that I blog is to journal and/or scrapbook these wonderful times with my sweet SamBo, I decided better late than never. Sooo, here are some pics of the process and the results :)

Getting it all down...
As we were getting down the decorations from the attic, Sammy found a little red rocking horse. It's really small and supposed to be used for decoration, not as a toy. I laughed out loud when I turned around and found his little bottom wedged in it, rocking back and forth.

The outside...
After getting everything down, it was time to decorate the outside of the house. The plan was for Matt to do the outside while I did the tree. As it turned out, Matt finished the outside as planned and I successfully spent the entire day complaining about how I didn't want to go inside and "fluff" the incredibly painful, stiff artificial branches.

Sam sat in the back of Daddy's truck and watched as Matt did the work.

This was Sam's reaction when we turned on the lights. We switched to colored lights this year in efforts to make it more gingerbread like. Sam thought there were little "ball balls" as he calls them, all around the house.

Next, it was time to decorate the tree...
I love this picture and his sweet little hand. (Although he looks like he is innocently placing an ornament amist the tree, he is most likely getting a good grip so he can rip it off)

Later, I walked up and found him looking at this sweet little picture of himself from last year and saying, "Sssssss". That's how he says Sam. It's an ornament that says, "Baby's 1st Christmas".

While I was doing the awful chore of fluffing the mashed down branches, he came over and had a little seat in my lap.

After the beat down of the branches was finished, I bit the bullet and decorated it. Sam helped :)

This year, I added big candy-like pieces to go with the whimsical candy house theme.

At first glance, this seems like a sweet little picture of a sweet little boy. If you look a little closer, you can see that little mischevious gleam in his eye that says, "Go ahead and go back in the kitchen, I'm not going to do anything."
All finished. We added new stockings this year but didn't manage to get the names on them. Oh well, maybe next year.
This T'was The Night Before Christmas book was the first one that my dad started reading when my oldest brother was an infant. He's 42 now and my dad has read us the story every Christmas Eve since then (another post to come after Christmas this year)