Letters to Santa

Our children wrote letters to Santa, which they left laid out under our Christmas tree. We have never done that before, so we asked where they learned about Santa letters. They told us they learned to write them from Charlie Brown's Christmas movie. I'm sure Charlie Brown would be proud.

Also, Jon, as a very knowledgable first grader, told me he knew about Santa. Now, we have never really pushed Santa, but we've never told our kids there isn't a Santa, either, so I was intrigued. His clarification: Santa is just a guy who drives his car around, uses a ladder to climb onto roofs and then enters homes via chimneys. Derek's interpretation: Santa is a cat burglar.

Michael noted, after analyzing what he had received for Christmas, that Santa hadn't brought him anything, because we had bought it all. DJ, on the other hand, attributes all of his gifts, including those that were labeled with a from line, to Santa. Isn't it fun to be young?

Thanksgiving and Houston

Yes, I know I am very behind. I would like not to be, but it's way too late to prevent it, so I'm left with the next best thing -- rushed and abbreviated catch-up, leaving out many of the delightful details you've all been dying to hear. Sorry about that, but it's nearly Christmas and I cannot be two holidays behind!

Alas -- I am now two holidays behind...

Here's Thanksgiving: (remember, a picture is worth a thousand words -- this is quite the essay)

We are still here

Yes, I know I haven't blogged for a long time, (I have meant to, life just gets busy sometimes) and this won't really be much, but I'm working on getting Thanksgiving and Christmas photos up. Maybe this year??? (I still have a couple of days...)

Anyway, tonight we were eating dinner and Michael was tasting the sprinkles on his cookie. He told me it tasted "familiar -- like a great big, giant hippopotamus."

Naomi can sit up! She's been working at it for a while and over the past couple of weeks, she's perfected it. She likes it quite a bit. Sorry about the red eyes. I'm hurrying!

Naomi's teeth!

Letters

Nina told Jon that she and Michael were going to write him a letter. He said, "I do not want any love letters. I like 'like' letters." Then he explained, "Like 'Jon, You are really cool. That's why I like you.' Not 'You are very handsome. That's why I love you.'"

Famous People

I'm not one to get all giddy because I met a famous person, but today something special happened. As you all know I'm the PTA President at my children’s school. We've been selling raffle tickets where the grand prize is a 42 inch flat screen. (Let me know if you want to buy tickets. I personally feel it's gambling for a good cause.) We got permission from a parent to sell tickets on Saturday in front of a gas station that he manages.
I decided to buy sunglasses because the sun was hitting our white table and blinding me. While in the store, I looked over and saw Toby Keith. I wasn't sure at first, as he was dressed in camouflage and all hunkered down. He looked over and saw the Army jacket that I was wearing and smiled at me, bought his items and left. The souped up Ford truck was also a giveaway. Still it was pretty cool, he does live in Norman, so it's not way out of the norm to bump into him.
As I was selling a couple hours later, a man came up to me and asked what the cause was. I told him that I was the PTA President and the proceeds were going to the school children. He told me he wanted to buy 20 tickets. I couldn't really see him as the sun was behind him, when I stood up I looked at him and said, "You look familiar."
He said, "I get that a lot, I'm Billy Sims."
For those of you who don't know, Billy Sims is a former Heisman Trophy winner out of the University of Oklahoma. He was also drafted first overall in the 1980 draft by the Detroit Lions.
Anyway, we talked for a bit, and I mentioned that I was looking for times and places that the five Heisman Trophy winners out of OU would be together so I could get a ball signed for our next raffle. He gave me some dates, but said that he had an autographed picture that I could have. He looked in his truck, but found that his picture file was empty. He then told me he was going to look on the other side. He opened the door and a football fell out. He picked it up and said, "Perfect." He then handed me the football, which had four or the five Heisman Trophy winners' signatures and coach Barry Switzer's signature.
I was elated! This ball will bring the PTA quite a profit. When he left I called Jenn to get her over there as soon as possible and get that ball off my hands. People around here will kill for an item like that.
Before he left, he gave me Steve Owens secretary's phone number and told me to tell her that Billy Sims told me to call and get more autographed merchandise. I will do that on Monday and see what happens.
I've met pro hockey and football players before, and not thought much of it. Billy Sims was genuinely interested in helping my cause and helping children. It was awesome to see someone care enough to stop and do everything he can. I will never forget his contribution.

.

Quick Note

DJ was wearing his dessert tonight, so we had to shower him before bed, his second shower of the day. When I got him out and prepped his pajamas for bed, I decided to dry his hair with a towel so his pillow wouldn't get wet. As I was drying he said, "Don't dry my eye."
I said, "I"m not anywhere near your eye, what's wrong with your eye?"
"It's nervous," he said.
I was dying of laughter. I don't know about any of you, but I hate that nervous eye, it's so irritating.

I am keeping my promise... just not as quickly as planned

Here are pictures of Nina's hair looking cute, Jon piggybacking Michael, Jon eating an apple with no teeth, Elmo in PJs, all of us on our anniversary, dress like a rock star day and little Sharks fans...




















































These are pictures from the Halloween bash on Oct 25th and Halloween at school on Oct 31st, just in case you wondered about the costume variations.







Can anyone tell what our pumpkins are supposed to be?

I promise

I'm going to put up Halloween pictures. I promise, Lil! Just not right now. Check back tonight...

Experiments

So, Meg, Lil and I are involved in little experiment that we designed. Several times over the past weeks I have been reminded that gratitude and happiness seem to be very closely correlated. I have found myself, during this same period, focusing on what's wrong with my life, rather than what's right. When discussing this with Meg, we decided that we needed a place to record our day to day blessings -- and actually be held accountable for it. So, we started a blog dedicated just to the good things in daily life. Check it out if you'd like and let us know if you'd like to participate. Maybe we can change the world -- or at least my perspective on it...

Lot's of Explaining, but Something Good Happened

All right here we go.
In the Army there are lot's of different jobs. For example, there is infantry, artillery, tankers, military intelligence, medical, you get the idea. Well, in order to get these jobs, everyone in ROTC competes with each other. I don't mean the people I go to school with, I mean all however many thousand ROTC students nation wide.
You get put on an Order of Merit list, which is a score that is given to each person in ROTC The score is calculated using GPA, how well you did at summer camp, and a few other areas. If you finish in the top 10%, you are guaranteed the job you want.
Well I finished in the top 40 something percent, which is not where I wanted to be. I was still in a good position, but I didn't have a guarantee. There was a contract that you could sign that helped people out. If I agreed to an additional three years, they would give me my first choice. I signed the contract. This is also not a guarantee, but if you don't get what you want, they don't invoke the extra time.



Anyway, on Thursday I found out that I got the job I wanted, which is Medical Services Corps Officer. These are the folks that do hospital admin, records, HR, etc. Everyone that I have met that has this job has been really happy with it. I don't know if many people know, but I wasn't happy as an intelligence analyst. This should be a good change.
The next thing that I am working on is my next duty station. I want to go to San Antonio, TX next, so I am working on making that a reality. I'll find out in about January where we are moving next, so stay tuned.

. Decorating pumpkins at our house comes in varying degrees of difficulty. This year we opted for coloring with markers.

Naomi enjoyed pumpkin decorating, too!

Derek enjoyed watching a Sharks game (until they lost) while we decorated pumpkins.

We went to the Little River Zoo on Tuesday after school. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Good thing we went then, because Wednesday it turned yucky and it's stayed that way. Naomi was there, too, but Derek wasn't, so there aren't any pictures of her.

A couple of random (but typical) pictures of my boys...