"The Six Day of Christmas?"

Seriously! Between my family and Cari's family, we're pretty numerous and equally as busy. So we have to find moments to celebrate the holidays when we can. Sometimes it seems like a runaway train! Here is a synopsis of what we have done this week:

Saturday night 12-20:

Mom and Keri came over Saturday night so we could have our own celebration since we don't normally see Mom on Christmas Day. It was a real fun time. They even brought dinner! Afterwards we had a few treats and opened some presents. Of course I taped the whole thing. Hey, I got a new toy and I'm gonna use it! I got some great Simpsons pajamas, a car washing kit for Zach and Emmy to use-I mean, for all of us to use ha ha. Plus we got some gift cards for some great places and Zach and Emmy got some great stuff too:


Simpsons pajamas...what'll they think of next!

Sunday afternoon 12-21:

We went to Grandma's house to get together with my dad and his family since they won't be there Christmas Day...again. I'm just assuming they'll never be there again. But they brought Boston Market for us and we had a nice time. I got some cool DS games and we got a Walmart gift card. Zach got the same pajamas my mom gave him but he needs them so we're keeping them:


Found that at Blockbuster one night and knew he would love it...and he did!

Sunday night 12-21:

Went to Aunt Glenda's for some ham! Everyone was actually there this time! Even cousin Josh. Miraculously he has upgraded his tent to a U-Haul so we're all pretty proud of him. After dinner we gathered around the table o' presents for our gift exchange game. You know, the one where you draw numbers and the higher the number the better. Emmy even wanted to play this year! I'm always impressed by her. She brought a target gift card and left with a giant pair of Dallas Maverick slippers! They're so cool looking. I may have to "borrow" them. Cari got some wine goblets that she assures me will look great on to pof our cupboards. And I got a gift card to Olive Garden! Emmy may want to "borrow" that one ha ha. Then, either before or after all that, Aunt Susie produced a tape of our Christmas Even back in 1984! Oh man was that tough to watch. Me and my bowl haircut. Of course, everyone else had one too ha ha. Man, brought back a lot of memories. Apparently my family put on a sketch of some sort and I disrupted everything by, "letting one go". What's funny is, I don't even remember doing that skit. Of course, I was only 10 at the time, but still...

Christmas Eve 12-24:

Went to church mass then went to the inlaws for some snacks and presents! What I had asked for I got! Some Tommy cologne, Dark Knight on DVD, and the prize: my very own Dallas Cowboys pullover fleece with pockets! I love it. Now all it has to do is get cold, which around here is easier said then done:


Pixos! Make anything with 'em! Emmy has enough Pixos to last her years.


Zach got some cool things too! But man...really trying to remember what they were. Too numerous to count!

Christmas Morning 12-25:

Ahh, the big day has arrived! And I do believe Zach and Emmy got everything under the sun!:


Girlcrush? Apparently it's a thing where girls can dye their hair. Oh joy. Glad we have that lol. Actually she tried it out and blue just might work for her on the day she interviews for the CEO position at Microsoft.


Hef? is that you? ha ha. I did get Cari a few things she had been wanting. A new 4GB MP3 player that plays videos and a new watch! I got a cool book featuring the country's most popular roadside attractions. Can't wait to look through it.

Christmas lunch 12-25:

Went to grandma and grandpa's house for a great lunch and a gift exchange Chinese style. We're so mean. We steal things from the smaller kids with no remorse or feeling. Emmy had a Bluetooth she had unwrapped and really lost it when it was stolen from her. We kept trying to explain to her she needed a cell phone to use it with and all she kept saying was "Well I can just use yours Mom!" Well, she wound up with a fondue set (our 3rd) and Cari and I wound up with a Target gift card. All in all, a fun time:


I'm to the right of the door on the porch. We took it outside since it decided to be 75 on Christmas!

Whew, what a week! Such a runaround it seems. I truly believe this was our best Christmas ever. We both have really good jobs, Zach is old enough to want to open presents instead of playing with things he already has. I have my new camcorder that i have been capturing all of this with. Now I just have to figure out what to do with all this footage. The software is making it very difficult to make a video CD, so...we shall see. I hope whoever reads this is creating memories of their own for this time of year. In the end, it will be all we take with us.

"Oh The Times...They are a-changin'..."

Seems like in the past I always put what I wanted for Christmas ahead of what other people wanted. Which is natural I guess, right? It's good to put ourselves first every now and then. The problem occurs when we stay in that train of thought too long and other things that should come first get pushed to the side. But this Christmas has been kind of different. I hate to say this about money, but it really does make the world go round. We didn't have a lot of it last year due to me not working, but it was still a great Christmas. Now this year we have significantly more then last year, but we're not doing anything different. Still looking for bargains, still keeping in mind not to go overboard because, and this is a secret about kids you may not have heard, they lose interest in things very quickly. So why get them everything under the sun and it all be for naught? I recently let Emily in on a Santa secret, which is the Santa at the mall is not in fact the real Santa. She was like "Really?". I did explain however that they work for Santa and represent him in the different malls of the world. I would rather her hear that from me then overhear someone say something that isn't true, right?

I LOVE my new camcorder!! It creates a new file everytime you turn the camera off so if you want to play back a certain part you don't have to forage your way through hours of tape. Instead you scroll to the scene you want and hit play and presto! I wanted this more then anything else, but it wasn't really for me personally. It was more for capturing the kids while they are kids so they never forget how to be kids when they are older. There's a tape of me out there somewhere as a kid and it never fails to entertain me. We would set up the projector and make a little snack plate and all gather around and watch the silent images flicker and it was just a nice time. I used to be so cute. And now...ehh. I'm not so bad though. Even with my crooked nose.

I've really been getting into the whole Facebook thing. There's tons of people I haven't seen in forever that we can stay in touch at our own speed. Which for me is s-l-o-o-o-w ha ha. My thought is, if we were really that close we never would have lost touch in the first place. But maybe that's not entirely fair. Or accurate. If things never changed, would life be any fun? The human race is probably the only species around that is not able to be content with what is around them. We always need to be making little changes, rearranging things, and as that goes, so does what we like, what we don't like, what we are willing to tolerate and what we aren't. Every other species knows only how to survive, and in order to do that, they rely on habit, hence the saying 'creatures of habit'. If we were that way, we would all drive the same car, live in the same house, and eat the same thing for dinner, because we would be surviving, and nothing more. But, fortunately for us, God gave us the gift of free will. The ability to make choices about everything around us, and then to change our mind. For me personally, I find myself rearranging my garage shelves (at least in my mind) constantly. I want to make them more in order, more perfect. Sometimes it's just good to have that option. Creativity drives the world forward, not money. When I was poor I would tell myself "Hey, I don't need a nice car or a nice house, etc..." But deep down I wanted all of those things. I guess when we can't have something we try to convince ourselves that we never really wanted it anyway. Kind of like the fox who couldn't have the grapes. man, that Aesop had a story about everything lol.


Let this be your Christmas message to everyone.

"Numero 34 Babee!!"

Yes, the time has come for me to age another year but still retain my boyish charm. I had a hard time coming up with things that I wanted just for myself. I mean there were a few things I wanted, but I didn't think I had a chance to get. One item was the JVC 30GB camcorder. Wal-Mart had them on sale on Thanksgiving for $249.99. So Cari goes down there at 5am to try and get one, only to come back disappointed. Or so she told me. Turns out she WAS able to get one and had everyone bald-face lie to me and tell me she wasn't able to. But she did. And man did we need one! My other one was made in 1999 and has been picked up (and dropped) by Zach AND Emily at some point in their childhood and would just shut off if you did something crazy with it like hold it very still or move it around a little. But this one is sweet:


Look how small it is! I can't take it anywhere until I get a super duper camera bag for it. But couldn't it just fit in my pocket? Well, I could...biut then I'd have a pocketful of glass and buttons and not happiness. I've taped a little bit but haven't really delved into the seemingly limitless world of possibilities. But the time is coming.

My Healthmarkets team even decorated my cubicle:



Weren't they sweet. They even gave me a money tree with $9 on it. I bought a steak and egg burrito from Jack In The Box. Have you tried one of these? I'm hooked! It's marinated steak, scrambled eggs, hash browns, chesse and chipotle sauce all mixed into a giant flour tortilla. The sauce is what makes it so good. They forgot the sauce like three times in a row so now I ask for a side of it. A little spicy but I'm a tough guy.

Emmy has finally completed her letter to Santa Claus! She really put a lot of work into it because she knows how much ol' Kris Kringle enjoys good penmanship:



I think that will be the best letter he gets all year.

On Dec 6 we went to Cari's Christmas Party. Talk about swanky. Country club, great dinner...felt like a date! Here are some of the gingerbread houses they had there:




Afterwards us and Branda and Jerramy went to the new Dave and Buster's they built in Arlington and had a lot of fun. They even got me a Chick Fil-A calendar and a $15 gift card! Plus I got a cordless screwdriver from the inlaws that I really wanted and needed since for some reason I never seem to have one when I need one! And we're having a birthday celebration with my mom next Sunday and my dad the Sunday after that, althought that's more of a Christmas get together too. Hopefully my wish list was received!!

"A Day With The Incredibles!"

That's right, due to Cari's winning ticket drawn at Kroger's Foodstore, we won tickets to Disney on Ice! Little did we know that those free tickets cost us over $100 in toys and snacks. The storyline was pretty creative actually. The Incredibles were planning a nice, quiet vacation to Disneyworld. Once they get there, they are selected as the Grand Marshalls of the nightly Parade of Lights. Before you know it, the bad guy from the movie (I forget his name) kidnaps Mickey and Minnie and with the help of Frozone, end up defeating him and freeing Mickey and Minnie. Here are a few pics:




It was really impressive. Zach's eyes didn't waiver from the ice all afternoon. Emmy was really into all of it as well. Apparently the skaters needed our help in order to free the captives. Really? Us?

"The Worst Gift Ever?"

This was the question posed to listeners of 1037 LiteFM the other night. I was driving home and people were calling in and telling stories of the worst gift they had ever received. I caught a few but the one that really took the cake was a gift from her inlaws: a VHS tape collection titled: "How To Save Your Marriage". OMG! In-laws got cajones' yes? I was blown away when I heard this. Why is it that some inlaws think your business is their business anyway? Marriage is hard enough without spectators watching at home and thinking, "I bet they really want to hear what I have to say about their life." Some day my Emmy will be married and I wonder if I will be a good father-in-law to her husband. What if she marries a slacker? What if everything about him is bad and Emmy just can't see it? Do I say something? I hate to instill 'complete mistrust towards all men' in her, but at the same time I want her to make great choices. I know she will.

I sent my wish list to a few people last week. Frankly it's becoming more difficult to pinpoint what I would like to get since God has blessed me with so much already. We're planning a vacation to New Mexico next spring which I could use frankly. Vacations are by far one of the most undervalued commodities in this world. People who don't take them find themselves waking up one morning burned out. Not me. I haven't gone out of town for a week in over 2 years. Hopefully that will all change in the coming years.

The worst gift I ever received? Ehh...I never consider any gift 'bad' per se, since the word gift means "from the heart"...I think it does anyway. I could be wrong. There have been some clothes I didn't care for, but that was a long time ago. People seem to know what I need to wear better then I do ha ha. Used to love getting, now I enjoy getting.

"The Girls Are Back In Town!...."

Well, from Azle to Arlington that is. Emmy and Cari came home from their luxurious weekend of relaxation and fun at the annual Girl Scout camping trip. And by luxorious, I mean they had a roof over their head and didn't have to go outside to use the can. When I picked them up Emmy wanted to stay longer and play and Cari couldn't get the car door open fast enough ha ha. It's a shame sometimes that things we loved to do when we were young are now work. I hope she had some fun though. Here are a few pix:


Emmy: "I didn't know we would be earning a badge in deerslaying..."
Girl Scout Leader: "Oh sure! Just look at Bambi burn!"
Rest of girls: (crying) "We killed Bambi!? Awwww...."
Girl Scout Leader: "Soup's on! Who wants white meat"


Cari: "So Emmy, how do you like your tofu S'More?"
Emmy: "Eww!! There's tofu in these things? What's tofu?"
Cari: "It's a mushroom-like substance that is supposed to be healthy for you!"
Emmy: "Ohhh...that isn't the answer I was looking for."


Girls: "Why do we have to hitchhike anyway?"
Girl Scout Leader: "Because we had to sell the van to pay for all that stuff we bought at the antique shop."
Girls: "And um...just how do you plan on getting that stuff home anyway?"
Girl Scout Leader: "Um...perhaps this plan should have been thought out a little better?"

Wow, that sounds like a real fun time! Much more fun then me and Zach had. All we did was go to Jack In The Box Friday night and watch Wiggles movies...then Saturday we woke up and had pancakes and went to see my dad or "Greendad" as we prefer to call him. I wanted to take Zach to the Galleria to see the Christmas tree but wouldn't ya know it he fell asleep on the way home. So we did the next best thing: Stopped by Taco Bell, put him to bed, and played internet poker all night ha ha. But we had a great time together. I hope he turns out half as well as Emmy has.

Hey, my birthday is next week! The big 3-4!! What do I want? Well, I made a list but I don't remember what is on it. My dad wanted to know some things but I still haven't sent him a list yet. Would love the 'Boys to win a playoff game!! Maybe they'll win one this year just because it's what I asked for ha ha.

Here's a quiz I took recently:

You Are a Tootsie Roll Pop

It only takes three licks to get to your center!

What Kind of Candy Are You?

Who woulda thought? I always think of myself as a Twix bar...chewy outside, crunchy inside and sweet enough to give you a coronary! Ah well.

The lights are starting to come out and play now that it's Christmastime. Will have to take some good pics soon. Emmy wrote her letter to Santa. Very interesting. Will have that for you next time as well. I don't feel very good so I will end this by saying "Don't want what you don't have unless it will make you a better person."