Merry Christmas to All

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!!






It was a Batman Christmas at the Tanners house!

A nasty virus

I hope that 'bug' had fun wreaking havoc on the family. Days after we were all together for Thanksgiving, everyone in the Tanner family came down with varying degrees of a cold virus. For me, it started out with a major sore throat, of which I have had for a total of 12 days now!! It's like a thousand tiny razor blades every time I swallow. (I know what you're thinking - it's probably strep... nope! The strep test was negative).

Of all the lovely symptoms I had, (congestion, coughing, headaches, fatigue, etc), the absolute worst was the fact that I completely lost my voice for an entire week!! Do you know how annoying and frustrating it is trying to communicate when you don't have a voice?!?! Especially when you are the mom to a 3-year old! (It's really hard to yell when nothing comes out!)

So, even though the strep test was negative, the doc still wrote me a script for an antibiotic. But after seven days, I still wasn't getting any better, which only proves that it was, in fact, a virus.

But there is good news - I think I am finally on the mend. My voice is starting to come back, thankfully. Greg has been congested and coughing as well. Being sick sucks... and now I'm so far behind ... Christmas is only 2 weeks away! Aaaahhhhhhh!!!!!

Thanksgiving Pics - Part 2

After Chattanooga, we headed to North Carolina. We were staying in a cabin a few miles from Joy's house in Bakersville. I'll spare you the gory details of our travels there, but it involves dark, windy roads and a carsick 3-year old. Not fun.

The cabin was gorgeous...

But it was SUPER cold! There was still snow on the mountains...

Luke has seen snow before, but never enough to throw snowballs...

...learning some bad things from Grampa....

... probably shouldn't throw snowballs at Gramma...

now that's a cheeseball ...

But check out that view!!!

Too bad we didn't bring our chainsaw to take a Christmas tree home with us...

Now that's what I call frame-worthy...

Enjoying apple crumble with Aunt Joy...

He loves Joy's dog, Amber, whom he used to call "Hamber" and also "Amburger".

Thanksgiving Pics - Part 1

Over the course of the Thanksgiving weekend, I took 200+ pictures. Not all were blog-worthy, (lucky for you), so I will post just my favorites here:

First, we went to Chattanooga to have lunch with my family.

That baby is Charley, my cousin Whitney and Jeff's baby. So I guess that would make Luke and Charley 2nd cousins ... ?? I don't really know how all that works. But he loved Charley!!

That's Aunt Martha holding Charley...

And Cousin Gregg holding Charley...

And Mimi holding Charley .... (I sense a theme here...)

There's Whitney and Jeff ... (Charley's Mommy and Daddy)...

Where's Luke?

He's chilling out with Aunt Nancy on the couch...

And now let me introduce Bella ... (a Great Dane)

This is Luke running from Bella...

Luke pretended like he was scared of Bella ... but he liked her so much he even shared Woofie with her...

This is Bella's Mommy and Daddy ... (my cousin Drew and Dianna)...

Group Photo...


And the whole 'fandamly'! :)

Happy Thanksgiving

First, please let me apologize because it's been almost 2 months since I last posted. I just got out of the habit of blogging. I still took pictures, but never got around to posting them. So I will try to catch you up on everything ....


Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was very busy - lots of driving - down to Chattanooga and back; then over to North Carolina and back. I took over 200 pictures in 3 days. I promise to post those this week.



It was very cold in North Carolina - we even played in the snow! But unfortunately, now I think we are paying the price for it. Luke has a cough and a very snotty nose. For me, it's my throat - a thousand tiny razor blades and an all-over body ache. Not good. I don't have time to be sick.

Luke's School Program

They did a little Thanksgiving program at school. All the classes had a different song to sing.

Just ask him to sing either of his songs for you ... he knows them very well.

(Sung to The Farmer in the Dell)...

"Thanksgiving time is here.

Thanksgiving time is here.

Gather 'round and share the feast.

Thanksgiving time is here."

(Sung to Row, Row, Row Your Boat)...

"Snowflakes are falling down,

Falling on the ground.

Hurling, tumbling, (something he can't say or I can't understand)...

Falling on the ground."

But what I find hilarious... as you'll see all the kids have pilgrim hats on but Luke refused to take his toboggan off. So he's the only kid dressed for winter. Everyone else is dressed for Thanksgiving.

Halloween

Last year after Halloween, I bought a pirate costume at Old Navy for 75% off! I was so proud of myself. I stuck it in the closet ... and then nearly forgot about it this year. As Halloween was approaching, Luke was getting the usual question, "What are you going to be for Halloween?" I tried preparing him, telling him that he was going to be a pirate. But he would always answer the question differently, sometimes saying he was going to be a scary monster. Whatever.

On Halloween morning, we were getting ready for school, and we'd had the pirate costume on for a total of 60 seconds before he wanted it off. (Good thing I only paid about $4 for it)!! He says he wants to wear his Woody costume. Rewind a couple of weeks, we were at a children's clothing sale and I saw 2 costumes - Woody and Buzz - for $2 each. I thought that would be fun to dress up in and wear around the house. I never dreamed he would want to wear it for Halloween. If I'd known that, I would have gotten him the accessories to go with it - a cowboy hat, maybe a horse on a stick, etc. So anyways, he wore Woody to school and then over to my office to trick or treat there. By the time we got home, he wanted to be Buzz. So we put the Buzz costume on to walk around the neighborhood in. (I never got a picture of him in the pirate costume or the Woody costume - oh well).

So in one day, the kid wore 3 different Halloween costumes. I resisted the urge to buy a Halloween costume on sale after Halloween this year since who knows what he will want next year! Instead the day after Halloween, we were at WalMart and I found these Batman pajamas, a mask and gloves, all for less than $12! He wouldn't take them off for the rest of the weekend.

"I'm Batman!"

Pumpkin Time!

It was time to find a pumpkin, so we went to this little house down off Middlebrook Pike...

Below, it looks like Luke is pointing at the scarecrow ... but what he's really pointing at are his "glubs". The kid LOVES gloves!

Too cute!

He was a little scared of this HUGE ghost....

WHOA! That pumpkin is as big as he is!!!

And here's the simple little jack-o-lantern we made - nothing fancy...

... but Luke had fun helping. We also roasted the pumpkin seeds and ate them later!

Veggie Tales - LIVE!

The sign for Veggie Tales LIVE went up about 4 weeks ago. We had to pass the sign every day on the way home. Luke would see the sign and ask to go to Veggie Tales every day! I had to keep telling him that the show wasn't til October 3rd. Of course, a 3-year old doesn't understand time. So every day I promised I would take him but he had to wait.

Well, being the procrastinator that I am, I wait til the day before to call and get tickets. The 6:30pm show was SOLD OUT! Yep - I was gonna be in trouble! Oh, but the 1pm show was still available. Now, mind you, we are talking about a Friday. I hadn't planned on taking off from work to go see the Veggie Tales, but it looked like I was going to have to. So on Friday, I take Luke to school, I go to work, and then at 12:30 I pick him up from school and head over to the Knoxville Christian Center.


That's Bob (the tomato) and Larry (the cucumber)


He LOVED it!


At times though, he was more interested in the other kids around him. Here he is playing with the 10-month old sitting behind us.


Yes, we actually paid money to go see people dressed in vegetable costumes dance and sing on stage. (In my opinion, this was worse than the night we saw The Backyardigans Live).


Isn't that cute? They all laid on the floor together during one part of the show. I think Luke even started it.


This was cool. They sang and danced to the old '70s song 'Car Wash' and blew bubbles out in the crowd.

I guess it's no secret that I would have rather seen The Wiggles. At least they are real people. I just can't get over the big funny costumes. But Luke loved it - costumes and all. And that alone was worth going. I knew there was no way I could tell him 'sorry, it's sold out.'

Next time, though, I will just avoid the sign. That way, he won't even know about it in the first place!!