Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas! Every year my mom makes apple French toast for breakfast, and we all open our presents. It's not joyful chaos around my house like it is at my in-laws. We only have three kids in my family, and so we've always taken turns and watched each other open presents. It was a little more bedlam because now it's three of us and our spouses plus a grandchild. It was lots of fun.

Drew, however, did not quite get the concept of ripping the wrapping paper, which I thought he would enjoy immensely. He enjoyed the tissue paper littering the floor after the presents much more.

Besides his Superman beanie and gloves, he got several outfits, a nativity book and finger puppets, a shape ball, a big plush basketball and a little doggie in a doghouse.

My grandparents got Drew this cute little FisherPrice set called "Drew and his Rescue Chopper." How fun! It's still at my parents house awaiting shipping to OKC along with most of our other presents. I got new clothes, socks, etc., and Brent got the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD. Then my parents so generously gave us the gift of part of our plane tickets out there, which was my favorite gift of all. It was a great trip home, and very needed. We miss all of you so much!

Wow, Drew really is super. Look at those muscles...

Snow day...

We flew to Utah on Dec. 22, and Dec. 23 was snowy! I went to get some essentials at the store, but other than that, we just got ready for Christmas and stayed off the streets. But Christmas Eve was beautiful! Brent and my brother, Tyler, and his wife, Lindsey, took Drew outside to enjoy the snow.

They pulled Drew around my parents' front yard on a tube, then Tyler and Brent piled up the snow in a pile to make Drew a mini-snow hill. He didn't act really excited at first, but as soon as he got down the hill, he was saying "more, more!" He loved it!

My mom bought him this cute little blue coat for Christmas. He also got a Superman beanie and gloves. He had a blast until his pants got soaked through and he was cold. I wish I had this picture a few weeks earlier -- this would have been on our Christmas cards. It's my new favorite picture of Drew.

He also made this cute little snow angel after I went in the house. Next to it my brother made a big one, but you can't really see the proportions. But trust me, it was cute!

My sister, Sarah, and her hubby, Brennon, traded around their work schedules so they could be with us for Christmas Eve. My grandparents also came over and we had a great evening reading the Christmas story, playing a Christmas game and just being with each other.

These aren't 3D glasses. They're Christmas light glasses. When you look at lights, little images or words appear around each light. My mom bought them for us to go to Temple Square with one year, and we teased her they were too dorky to wear in public. We laugh a lot when we pull them out. Drew liked trying them on, although we couldn't get him to look at the lights.

Back to OKC...

Ahhhhhh, we're back home. Of course our trip went way too fast, but it's always nice to be back in your own house/apartment/bed. Drew was excited to see all his toys.

It was a stark change coming from snowy northern Utah to sunny Oklahoma. We traveled on a good day -- just clouds, no flurries -- and came back to a glorious 77 degrees. Needless to say, we spent some time outside (at the zoo again).

Thanks everyone for making time to see us. We were so glad to see everyone (except Erin and Dave who I'm missing more than ever). We were very lucky to be able to fly out so we didn't have to drive. And we had so much fun!

Drew was pretty good for all our flights. Here's him looking out the window at the plane before his first flight.

Happy 2009! I guess it's back to school...

It's finally over!!!

Can I get a Yeeee-haw? Brent is done! We survived (barely) our first semester of dental school. Brent finished his last test yesterday morning. Unfortunately, we all have colds and are not enjoying the moment as much as we would like.
We went out to dinner last night to celebrate the occasion. Now we're just hanging out and trying to get our house in order before we head home for Christmas, which is in just five more days...

I'm in the cantata performance tomorrow night, and I'm a little nervous. We had a good, but extremely exhausting and long, rehearsal this morning. Now I just have to survive the performance. As most of you know, anytime I have some kind of performance, I am ALWAYS sick, so it's fitting that I'm perfectly, miserably entrenched in tissues and nose spray. Yuck!

I wrote a Christmas story to share with my girls in Young Women's tomorrow. Check it out on my other blog: megtalbot.blogspot.com.
Merry Christmas! We can't wait to see all those of you waiting for us in Utah!

Early visit from Santa...

That's right: The big man in red has already been to our house, although I'm sure Drew will get another visit at his grandmas' houses. And he wasn't too sneaky about it either...

For the Staples Society at OU College of Denstristry, Brent was recruited to play the jolly saint. It was quite a chore getting him all dressed up, and that was just to make sure everything fit ok. Then he had to do it all over again at the elementary school where they passed out presents. Brent said it was a lot of fun, and the kids loved him! The school had some underpriviledged kids; Brent said they asked for things like coats and shoes, although a lot of them wanted videogames and skateboards, too. They passed out stockings to some of the younger kids, and then they had some fun presents, like basketballs, for the older kids. A local TV station even interviewed Brent, but we haven't been able to find the interview. :(

Unfortunately, Drew didn't like the whole Santa thing much, so this is the only picture I could get of him -- ready to run away!

So I decided we should do Christmas early because A) it's less time I have to wait for Brent and Drew to open their presents, and you all know how impatient I get about stuff like that, and B) so we could enjoy it before we go home for the holidays.

It wasn't a big thing, but it was a lot of fun. I have to admit that while I got all my shopping done a few weeks ago, you wouldn't know it was Christmas at our house. We haven't bothered with any decorations or a tree.

Santa brought Drew some more books, and Drew's favorite present is "The Ten Friendly Fireflies" book. You count up the number of fireflies, and you push a button to make them light up. Drew thinks it's the coolest thing ever!

Then from us he received some more books (what can I say? the kid loves books!) and a little magnet doodle thing. But the biggest present...

is a potty! I know Drew's no where close to potty training, but I got it for a decent price and I thought it would be fun for him to open it. It's in the bathroom to plant the idea of him one day using the potty. He knows the sign and he knows what it is (he comes in and tells me every time he sees me go into the bathroom). It's a cool little thing because you can remove the seat and use it on the big potty and it also turns into a stepping stool so he can wash his hands and maybe brush his teeth.

I got Brent some shirts and Wall-E, and he got me some new earphones for my iPod and a couple of movies. But it's definitely more fun to watch Drew open his presents. I can't wait for next Christmas -- I've already got his present for that. He's getting a MegaBlocks set. I wanted to get it for him this year, decided he was too young and I wasn't going to get them, and then I found them for a really good price. But for now, he'll have to be happy with a potty. :) Ahhhhh, the simple joys of my little boy. He'll probably think we're crazy when he's older.

Back to work...

We loved having a break over Thanksgiving -- although it wasn't really a break for me so much as it was having Brent home from school. We went to the zoo when Brent got done with school early on Tuesday. As you can see, we've still had lovely weather. The zoo was pretty empty, so we let Drew run around. He helped us push the stroller and climbed on the statues (this is a chimpanzee).

We spent Wednesday cleaning, and our house really needed it. It's nice to have a clean house; now I'm just trying to keep it that way. We had a nice Thanksgiving (see previous post). Then on Friday we hit the Cowboy Museum (see post before the last one), and went to the light parade. Now that was an adventure! We invited our friends Brian and JQ Hanson and their little boy, Joey, to see the parade with us. I thought it would be in Bricktown on the little canal. Not so much -- it was on the actual river that runs through the city. Still, we thought it would be fun. We found a Little Caesar's nearby on the Internet so we could go get pizza and go to the parade. We've had problems with the Internet being very innacurate and restaurants just not being there. Such was the case, AGAIN! Luckily I had brought our phone book, but the next closest one was quite a trip. We ended up getting to the park by the river just as the parade was supposed to start, and our friends were trying to find the park where we had agreed to watch the parade. The evening just got more ridiculous:
First off, it was VERY cold! We had brought some warm things, but not enough. We were freezing!

We tried to keep Drew bundled up, but no such luck. His little nose got so red.

The second thing, we get to the park, put down our blanket and sit down to eat our pizza. And ouch! The ground was covered in stickers! These were weedy little things that were extremely sharp and stuck to everything. They were all over my shoes, got on our blanket, in my coat, in my hoodie, EVERYWHERE! We tried to keep Drew in the stroller as long as possible because we didn't want him covered with the little evil plants, but again, no such luck. We did keep him mostly unharmed, but he still fell down a couple of times.

Our friends finally found us, and luckily the parade hadn't started yet. They were just in time for some fireworks, which was fun. We had to wait around probably another 10 or 15 minutes after that for the parade to start, and it was lame! The boats were too small, didn't have enough lights and were on the other side of the river. We felt bad ditching our friends, but Drew was cold and ornery, so we left.

(Doesn't this picture look just like my sister? This is a totally Sarah face, and Drew looks just like her!)

Drew must have enjoyed the whole advernture despite our mishaps. He was in a great mood. When we got home, we shared some grapes and then he wore the bowl like a hat.

Such a character! What would we do for entertainment without our little Drewby bear?

Our break is over, so I guess it's back to "work" for all of us.

Ahhhhhh, Thanksgiving...

We had a great Thanksgiving. Our friends Marcus and Turia Pope, and Turia's sister, Jessica, came over and we enjoyed a big meal together. Marcus just graduated from dental school in Virginia and he's at OU doing a residency. They had a turkey, and Turia made a from-scratch pumpkin pie that was to die for! That made things really easy for us; we had a table, so they came over to our place, and I got all the easy stuff, like potatoes, stuffing and rolls.

It got too hot in the house with all the cooking, so Brent and Drew spent some time "sweeping" the deck.

Drew, the smart little turkey, is now tall enough to reach our dead-bolt locks. Nothing keeps in the apartment any more, except for a stern, "You stay in here!" I don't mind so much if he goes out on the deck. We've tried as much to make it a safe place for him, but he loves to play with Brent's grill, and we have wooden posts. There's a spot on the middle post where the wood is splintered a little bit, so he'll pull off wood chunks or paint chips and eat them. :(

Drew didn't eat much, but he loved having people over. Our friends have a 10-month-old son who is pulling himself up and crawling around. Drew got down and wanted to crawl with him; he couldn't figure out why Elian wasn't chasing-crawling after him. Of course, we ate way too much, but it was delicious. I think I felt full for three days. Hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!