New Year, New State, New Blog!

We've started a new blog to chronicle our adventures in Texas. Join us and see what we're up to by clicking on the picture or the link below. See you soon!

http://wendingourwayhome.blogspot.com/

A Whirlwind of Flurries

So, what's new with us?

Well, there's this:

But that's old turkey, right? As if we didn't indulge enough in our Thanksgiving bird over the course of several days, we decided to eat more in the form of turkey legs a few weekends later- as evidenced by this:

We enjoyed it here...

at the Renaissance Festival in Hammond.

Even Emily was getting into the turkey leg eating action.

The boy's favorite event overall was the hand-to-hand high speed knight combat. Scott, Aaron and Troy were mesmerised and especially thought it was something else when one of the fighters took off his helmet and was sporting a nice sized goose egg that was bleeding. Boys!

We meandered around eating samples of sugared nuts, listened to harpsichord and watched various acts such as the one above where a juggler was standing on a ball and was thrown fiery torches from audience volunteers.

The girls especially liked cheering for these guys:

The jousters. Calyn was super excited to cheer her knight on in the jousting tournament.

After the jousting, we gathered around another juggler and watched as he stood on a plank as he balanced on a PVC pipe on top of a wooden chest WHILE juggling a machete, a torch on fire and some one's shoe from the audience. Impressive.

One of the last shows we went to go see (before the boys got their fill of hand-to-hand combat one last time) was the Birds of Prey show where they talk about different birds and their habitat. They also show some flying demonstrations of how they hunt which was pretty interesting.

And yesterday morning I finished baking up some Christmas goodies.

Here's one of the finished plates: Chocolate-Peppermint Cookie trees, Russian Tea Cakes and Butter Cookies with a snowman relief pressed into the unbaked dough from House on the Hill.

What else... today IT SNOWED!!! Having lived in Alaska for 15 years, I sure do miss the snow sometimes and I especially miss a white Christmas. The snow today did my heart good.

Our pool side gazebo was decked out in the sparkly white stuff. I love that fluff!

P.S. Just thought you might be interested in what our future home that we're building will look like. Isn't it pretty? I am so excited!

It's your turn- what's new with you?

Language on the Pioneer Front

This past week, it seems like Peyton has had all kinds of things to say. For those of you who have toddlers Peyton's age that are already talking and have been, then hats off to you. Peyton has been a little slow to adopt formal language on his own. He's been seeing a speech therapist once a week for an hour to help him build his vocabulary. Here are the things he says so far {keeping in mind that this is to the best of his ability to communicate}:

Mama
Dada
Elmo {thanks Calyn :-0}
Bah {Ball}
Up-ah {Up- as in "pick me up"}
Sss sss {kisses}
All done {this one is a little muffled but he makes the same intonation}
Gah {frog}
Deedee {bunny}
Moh {more, said accompanied with sign language}
Nigh Nigh {Night, night- he also uses this to say goodbye and waves while he says it}
Uckie {duckie}
Shoes
Ap-pul {apple}
Hiyyyee! {hi shouted really loud to Troy or I when we come home or rescue him from his crib}
Ayton {Peyton}
Ohh-wah! {he also learned this from Calyn- she blows kisses and makes the sound for them and now he does it too}

Not bad considering he could only say Mama a few months ago and I don't think he even knew that it meant me! We love to hear all of his new words- they are so cute!

Speaking of Blessings...

What a blessing that Christian is up and running again! Heavenly Father definitely has a hand in all things and he certainly had a hand in preserving Stephanie and Christian. I am inspired by their love and example and for the faith and prayers that have buoyed them up and set them back on their feet. It is truly a miracle.

New Orleans- Crime Capital of the Nation and Turkey Day Preparations

Yep- We live in the hotbed of crime and violence according to a new ranking of America's most dangerous cities. Troy and I heard this on the news two nights ago and we both just looked at each other like, "Can you believe this?" I guess it was determined based on the 19,000-plus incidences of six major crimes {including 209 murder cases} in 2007.

209! Can you believe that?! They said that the data is drawn from FBI statistics on murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft. I have some experience with burglary from our truck break in from last year. If I escape this heck hole with nothing more than getting my truck broken into, I will consider myself lucky.

My goal was to get the heck out of dodge before Peyton went to school and thankfully, I will get my wish next month. I am really excited for the little guy because the public school he will be going to in Texas is considered exemplary. I don't think any public school in New Orleans would fit that title. Maybe some of the private schools, but not the public ones. Troy grew up and went to school here all the way from elementary to college, and while he turned out ok, even he's noticed that since he's graduated the schools have gone down hill.

So anyway, not only is this our last Thanksgiving and Christmas in New Orleans, it's also our last holiday season in an apartment! We will live in an apartment in Texas for about 4 months while our house is being built and then we will move into our first home. We are super excited! By the time the next baby comes we'll be in a house and have a back yard for Peyton. We'll also be a complete little family {all done with babies after this!} so it's nice to know that our house will accommodate all 4 of us {3 bedrooms upstairs- one room for each kid plus a spare room and the master bedroom downstairs}.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we are all set. The turkey is brining in the refrigerator, I am making a pumpkin pie and cranberry relish today and there will be rolls, cornbread stuffing, corn and peas, mashed potatoes and gravy tomorrow. Yum-yummy! Since it is only three and a half of us {Troy, his Mom Linda, myself and Peyton} I will only be making one pie- I wasn't as ambitious as Amy who made five. Five! They sound delicious though, Amy.

We have so many things to be thankful for this year- a new baby, a new job for Troy, a new state of residence next year, our first home together and new friends to be made {since I didn't do so well on the friend front while living here- I made a few good friends but not as many as I would like to have since my heart was just never into it and because I never felt like this was home}. I hope you are counting your blessings too. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

My Little Sock Monkey

Haven't you heard? The newest fashion is to go dressed with one arm in your shirt and one arm out...

Like this! Apparently this fad has been in style since February of this year. You should totally try it. {And send me pictures!}

Our little monkey has been living up to his name lately...

A few weeks ago, after he kept fussing about something in the kitchen, Troy picked him up and carried him over to the counter to find out what he wanted. On the counter was a whole cluster of bananas, and our little monkey wasted no time in leaning over and grabbing his prize.

The only problem was that he didn't know it had to be peeled before it was enjoyed. Before we could stop him or at least give him a hand, he bit into the outer peel and took out a nice big chunk. Obviously, this was not the taste he was expecting from the disappointed and pretty disgusted face he gave us. After Troy and I got over our giggles, we opened up the banana and let him have at it. I think we have a real Curious George in the house!

My Winning Weekend- By Troy

So last week, Lexi entered me into several online sweepstakes to win tickets to the LSU game , a new movie release, and the Jerry Springer show. Unfortunately, due to an unlucky period in my life in which I deliberately walked under ladders while holding a black cat and breaking mirrors, I only won the tickets to see LSU and the new James Bond movie before it was released. Of course, even though I had to give up my dream of chanting "JER-RY! JER-RY!" while the father of the baby of a red neck crossing dressing, hermaphrodite, former stripper and KKK member was determined, I was able to take some comfort in knowing that at least I would get to see a cool new movie and march to Death Valley to watch LSU crush some loser team (whose players may have had one or more family members appearing on the aforementioned episode of Jerry Springer).

Anyway, turns out the free ticket said LSU was playing me- Troy. Didn't I tell you I had bad luck? Not being one to back down from a challenge, I decided to single handedly take on LSU. However, upon seeing my resolve, LSU attempted to soften me up by giving me a bunch of free stuff like LSU shirts and hats, ipod accessories, a beach towel and bag, and $1000 in Taco Bell Bucks (which is worth like $30 in American money or 125 burritos and 2 orders of cinnamon twists). LSU also said I would get to hang out with the band during pregame (which means "before the game" in Tiger language I guess) and then march to the LSU Stadium in front of the band and stand on the sidelines before kickoff.

Prior to the game, LSU made good on its promise and let me hang out and watch the band warm up. Warming up was critical if I was going to be at my best versus LSU... and because it was like zero degrees kelvin outside that night.



They also let me hang out with their mascot, Mike the Tiger, who I suspected may have been a girl under that costume in light of her height, mid chest protrusions, and the fact that she smelled like Stetson for women (an unforgettable smell that is just too good for any store other than Walmart or an Arabian French Market vendor stand). Either way, I gave Jerry's number to Mike, or Micala as she later asked to be called. Stay tuned for that episode. Maybe I'll get to go to THAT one.



After hanging out with the cross dressing mascot, we marched down the hill with the non-dressing golden girls who were freezing the skin off what used to be their butts. Apparently, a shimmery bathing suit, hair extensions, fish net stockings, and spray on tan are not enough to shield an anorexic person's vital organs from the elements.



As you can see in the picture above it was either snowing on the Golden Girls or the ghosts of former Golden Girls who also froze to death were manifesting themselves as light orbs. I'll defer to Lexi, the ghost hunter on that one. However, judging by Lexi's smile below and the absence of the orbs in the picture, I must conclude that the orbs were either ghosts or smudges on the lens. Of course, logic tells me that it was more than likely ghosts.



Next, it was on to watch LSU warm up. By this point it was -1 degrees kelvin so we all needed to
warm up again. During warm up, I realized that LSU players are a lot bigger in person, except for Trindon Holliday who was about as tall as Micala...hmmm. Of course, you normally wouldn't be able to tell since Trindon is so fast. In fact, the picture below was taken of Trindon using ultra high speed digital film because he was actually invisible to the naked eye.



Trindon is also in the picture below, but the idiot taking the picture forgot to put it on high speed.



Next we got to watch the Band march onto to the field with a noticeably taller, more masculine Mascot with a purple jersey, who also goes by the name of Mike. I knew they were just screwing with me at this point. So I decided it was time to throw down.



However, the throw down had to wait until another riveting performance by the Frozen Girls who were suffering from hypothermic tremors by that point. Of course, that is the price they pay for breaking fashion rule #1- Don't wear a bathing suit, even a glittery one, when it is frickin freezin outside.



So as I said, I was pretty mad by the start of the game so I went out there and basically embarrassed LSU. In fact, I was up 24 to 3 but I decided I was hungry so I wanted to go use my Taco Bell bucks. Once I left, I listened on the radio while LSU supposedly staged some kind of amazing comeback. Some comeback! I wasn't even playing anymore. Oh well, they can have their stupid victory, I got Taco Bell in my warm vehicle.



In the end, I guess we all had a winning weekend...except for the Golden Girl pictured above, who died shortly after that photo was taken and now resides as a light orb near the stadium.

A Minimal Christmas

I adore Christmas. I love all of the twinkling lights, the decorations, the Christmas music {in moderation} and the general feeling of goodwill to all. I also love giving and gifting. I love to hunt for the perfect gift and I will usually agonize over if it is the perfect thing. I just love to see the look of surprise and joy on some one's face and the feeling you get when you know you've given the very best thing.

So this year, it is very hard for me to say that we will be having a very minimal Christmas due to the fact that we are moving. We will need every extra penny since we are moving on the 27th of December to pay for a moving truck, gas money, last minute cleaning responsibilities for our old apartment as well as setting up our new place by stocking the pantry and filling the refrigerator with new condiments {since we will not be lugging ketchup and mustard to Texas}.

Troy, Peyton and I will most likely only exchange stockings this year since we will literally be in the midst of packing on Christmas Day. We also will have our hands full with all of the things we have accumulated over three years time! So needless to say, we do not need to add to that stuff with more packages under the tree. As much as it will kill me to not be able to Christmas shop for all of our friends AND family, I hope that you will understand why we will not be giving OR receiving gifts this Christmas season.

We would however appreciate a phone call, a Christmas card, an email or a visit to hear how you're doing. We also never turn down tasty goodies and treats :-)

Sorry to be the Grinch this year, but we will be back to our usual holly jolly selves next year when we're hopefully in our first home! I hope you all have a very merry holiday season!

P.S. This goes for everyone- yes, even you Mom and Dad {who spoiled us to pieces enough for six Christmas's while they were here last} Linda, Bruce and Chris, and the rest of the family. We love you and expect a phone call or a visit from each of you in lieu of gifts! :-)