Category: Life

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends. We can’t wait to see you all tomorrow. As much as we love living in Austin now, we love to see those near and dear to us.

It is sunny and 72 degrees here today and we are spending the day watching old movies, playing games, cooking, and eating.  I even managed to fit in a workout. Tony is finishing wrapping my gifts even as we speak. It has been a great day and I hope you all are having a great one, too.

Also, four years ago today I was having 4 to 5 contractions and hour but had been that way for five days and didn’t think anything of it.  When Tony and I decided to finally go to bed at 2 a.m., little did we know in less than one hour we would be off to the hospital to have our baby boy on Christmas Day.  The absolute best Christmas gift in the world. Matthew is truly a gift that keeps on giving. My little family makes me feel blessed everyday.

Hope you all have the merriest, most peaceful, joyous Christmas of your lives because… it goes by way too fast.

We went to the Zilker Tree Park Lighting Sunday, enjoying kettle corn, pretzels and hot cocoa. Matthew really liked the children’s choir and the count down to turning on the tree. The tree is 155 feet tall and has 3,300 lights. Everyone stands under it as they flip the switch.

We noticed that for the most part people here in Austin enjoy their city and are very happy to live here. That is always very comforting to witness since we moved from the only place we’ve ever lived just two and a half months ago. So far, it’s really going well.

Yesterday Matthew started having trouble with the Nintendo Wii. The signal wasn’t registering from his remote on the left side of the screen. I tried the 2nd remote and the same thing happened. I could not figure it out and was worried that we had some how broken the thing and turned it off until Tony got home.

He seemed to be sure that it was our sensor bar and that we needed a new one. Matthew and I headed off to the store around noon today to get replacement. Surprisingly, Matthew didn’t seem to mind much that he couldn’t play. I was relieved and we played lots of other things-it was great!

Anyway, we returned with the replacement sensor bar and it still wouldn’t work. We tried running the update and no success there either. We cleaned the bar and the remotes and did everything we could think of except standing on our heads. It is after all, just a game.

Tony went to the Nintendo website and on the first support page for the remotes mentioned that things that create magnetic fields, cell phones or even sunlight could interfere with your remote signals. Well, we just couldn’t figure it out. Then it dawned on Tony (You knew it wouldn’t be me who figured this out, didn’t you?): The Christmas tree we just put up day before yesterday is to the left of the entertainment center. We turned off the Christmas lights and wow; it worked perfectly.

So, for future reference, don’t put you lighted Christmas displays right next to your Wii or at least turn them off before you play.

I’ve noticed that I haven’t posted pictures of Matthew lately so I thought it was time I did. Matthew & I were playing the Wii today after our walk and he was so smiley I had to take a picture. Even though you can never capture the exact moment of the biggest smile because my camera has a slight delay, I thought this was very cute.

Matthew and I spent yesterday making turkey shaped cookies and talking about our trip to Paris for Thanksgiving and what we are thankful for. We had a great time and he enjoyed finding all the green mini M&M’s in the bowl and sorting them out to use for the turkey eyes. He was happy to tell his Daddy what we had been up to when he got home and they got to share the left over M&M’s. Here is how they came out:

It will be wonderful to see everyone and I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy Turkey Day. I know we will.

Matthew recently upped his Wii Play Tanks score from 195 to 295! Yay, Matthew. I can’t believe he will be 4 years old on Christmas day. Don’t tell him but we found a good deal on Wii games last night and bought him a couple. They were two he actually saw the previews for and said we would like to ask Santa for. He has out grown Wii Play seeing as he has platinum medals for every game on the disc! So I bet he will be happy about the new games.

Temperatures finally fell down around freezing here in Austin last night and I absolutely love it! It puts me in the Christmas shopping mood that all the retailers anticipate every year as the first really good cold front comes through. Since I had never even visited Austin in the winter, I was beginning to worry that it would never feel like holidays where you could bring out the long sleeves and jackets.

Matthew and I even listened to Christmas songs on the way to the store this afternoon! He loved “Jingle Bells” and asked the name of every song as it came on.

Bring on the holidays! I love it!

Today is my sister & brother-in-law’s wedding anniversary! We think the world of them and they are a great example of how a happy, fun-loving marriage should work. Also, we want to wish them many more years of wedded bliss. Congratulations, Peggye & Billy. Hope today was wonderful.

Anyone of you who have played tanks on Wii Play will appreciate this, not to mention how amazed I am about how well Matthew plays the game: Matthew is 3 years, 10 months old and this morning he completed 45 missions with a total score of 195 tanks! I know I probably should not brag about my child playing video games, but trust me when I tell you he is in constant motion while playing, working up a sweat and I do make sure he gets outside everyday to run around!

That said, I myself have never gotten a score of more that 19 tanks (with Matthew’s help) and I think Tony has topped out around 50 or 60 so you can see Matthew’s score is pretty amazing. You wouldn’t believe his coordination and thinking skills he uses to out smart the other tanks!

Ok, I will stop gushing about how smart my little cutie pie is but I do want to tell Matthew’s Uncle Billy that I hope he has been praticing tanks a lot-Matthew is ready for a rematch!

Well, this election has a huge turn out already, so I thought I might try one of the Mega-Polling places Austin has to offer today. Hopefully, there won’t be a 3-4 hour wait like those reported in Florida because Matthew is not feeling well today. If there is a long line, we will just have to try again later. Wish me luck!