Christmas Pictures

There is a full post below, I had to create a new one for a few more Christmas Pictures.

I Got Your Christmas Letter Right Here (HOL75)

House of Laughter 75

Merry Christmas! It will be eleven months until I have to hear the Amy Grant Christmas C.D. at work, or that maudlin Christmas Shoe song on the radio again! Rejoice all creatures in heaven and on Earth! (Seriously does anyone actually like that song?)

Like everyone else, we have been busy the last few weeks. We've had work parties, Church parties, School Parties, a visit from Gammy and G-Daddy where we visited Santa's Castle, along with the normal busyness of life. Unlike most, we have also been preparing to sell our house. (I wasn’t allowed to blog about it until the deed was done, and it finally closed last Friday.) To celebrate, we took a quick trip to Myrtle Beach for the weekend.

We visited Ripley’s Aquarium Saturday. Isaac was fascinated by the sharks and sea turtle. For some reason, he was also obsessed with a tank featuring clownfish and regal blue tangs (He never really explained why.) I was really proud when we walked into a small education room featuring what I thought was an aquarium full of only seaweed, and he immediately correctly identified that it in fact was a display of “Seahorses!”

When we came to the ray tank, Isaac decided it was time to growl at anything that swam by. Isaac and I petted the rays and baby hammerhead shark, while Nancy kept a safe distance from the tank. (She remembered what happened to Steve Irwin and wasn’t taking any chances.)

Our hotel featured a small indoor water park with a couple of slides, kiddie pool and a lazy river. Isaac found a raft shaped like a car that he “Drove” around the lazy river race track about 700 times.

Sunday morning, we went to the “House of Blues Sunday Morning Gospel Brunch.” There was a three piece gospel band playing old time hymns and the kitchen door was wide open with a buffet of great food inside. The Banana Bread Pudding was the clear winner at our table. The band played “Do Lord”, “I’ll Fly Away”, and “Give Me That Old Time Religion”. Isaac was being ugly to Nancy when the band began “This Little Light of Mine.” The singer walked around the tables as he sang, so I used that to scare Isaac into behaving.

“Isaac, that man saw you being ugly to your mom, and he is coming over to talk to you.”

Isaac looked at me incredulously as the man came towards out table.

“Isaac you made him mad by being ugly to your mom in his restaurant.”

The man was singing loudly and heading toward our table. Isaac ran over to me and climbed up on my lap, now seriously concerned. Nancy was smirking and clapping along as the man came right up to our table. Isaac was terrified, but being very quiet. The man stopped at our table and said, “Now this big guy here, he acts like he is babysitting, but he aint clapping, and if you aint clapping, that means you singing. What’s your name? Where you from?”

I told him, and then he gave me the mike and I belted out my best version of “This Little Light of Mine” to a receptive audience. It was the highlight of the trip for me. Isaac was very good for the rest of the day.

We left “House of Blues” with full bellies. Isaac took an extra biscuit with him and slowly ate it for the next hour, while pinching off little bits to feed to birds and fish. Nancy bought him a small stuffed tiger that he named “Biscuit Tiger”. Biscuit Tiger has a feature that most stuffed animals lack, small magnets in his paws and forehead that let him play “Peek a Boo”. For the rest of the day we heard “Where’s Biscuit Tiger?.....There he is!” Every few minutes. This is why no one you know with children is sane.

We drove back on Christmas Eve and went to church. Isaac was well behaved through the service. At the end of the Service, we stood in a circle around the inside of the church and sang “Silent Night”, and “Joy to the World” as we lit candles. That is the moment when Christmas is real to me. Isaac wanted to sing Happy Birthday, and so after everyone else sang, he and I sang Happy Birthday as well.

Santa came last night and ate the cookies we left out for him and left some presents for Isaac, Nancy and I. My folks gave him a camera, and when he learns to use it I will post some of the pictures here for you.

One of the traditions at our house is that baby Jesus is not placed in our nativity until Christmas Eve night. This morning at breakfast, Isaac commented “There’s Baby Jesus!” when he saw the new addition at the crèche.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and be sure to enjoy Boxing Day and have a Kwazy Kwanzaa!

Peace on Earth, Good will to all people.
Big Matt

P.S. Thanks for all of the Christmas cards! We haven’t managed to send any, so it’s not that we forgot you, we forgot everyone. Consider this our boring ass Christmas letter!

Sleeps With Fishes (HOL 74)

House of Laughter 74

It was inevitable. When I woke up last Saturday morning, I knew I was going to get sick some time this week. We had just replaced Isaac’s crib with a full size bed Friday night after a trial period of using the crib with one of the sides removed resulted in Isaac falling out of bed in the middle of the night for several nights in a row.

We set the full size bed and box spring on the floor with the cool “Eric Carle” sheets my mother had given him for his birthday. On Saturday morning, Nancy went to check on him and found that he had thrown up in the middle of the night and slept/ rolled around in it. After stripping the bed and bathing the boy, Nancy gave Isaac a small amount of apple juice which was immediately returned to sender.

Several days later, Nancy came home in the middle of the day with similar symptoms. I knew I couldn’t be far behind. My turn lasted from Thursday through Friday. It is amazing what thirteen hours of sleep and a steady diet of ibuprofen and Pepto will do for you.

Nancy and I have been thinking about our vacation for 2008. We both love Key West, and are thinking about leaving Isaac with Nancy’s folks and spending a couple of days there together. (As a local once told me, “Key West is not a place to bring kids on a vacation. There are no playgrounds here, no theme parks here.” He then launched into an almost perfect one man rendition of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” on the violin, butt naked. Again, not a place for the wee ones.) As we pondered the details of our trip, we realized that we haven’t spent a night together without Isaac since he was born.

Without family nearby, it has just never come up. We’ve had babysitters and friends watch him, but we still have to prepare beforehand and then be home by a certain time. You can’t just go, stay out late, and then sleep in the next morning. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. Nancy and I still make time for each other, we are just more aware of that one small advantage that most of our friends with kids have.

Our friends, the McMullen’s had their son this week. I visited mother and son in the hospital on my lunch break. On the way back to work, I couldn’t get the songs “I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry”, and “Circle of Life” out of my head.

Since I was feeling better Saturday morning, I took Isaac out on some errands. Shortly after leaving the house, we stopped at a traffic light. As soon as it turned green, I heard a little voice behind me say “Come on people!”. (He must have learned this from Nancy.)

We stopped at a garage sale where I found a two gallon aquarium with pump and fish food for three dollars. Isaac and I set it up in his room, and went to Wal-Mart to buy a couple of goldfish. The lady in the pet department sealed them in the bag, and as we were walking out, Isaac kept asking “Are we going to eat them?”. Anyone with a small child is probably laughing right now. Don’t worry, it took Nancy a minute to figure out why he was asking that too.

Strength and Honor

Big Matt