Scroll down for new Christmas and birthday pics!

It's interesting having JB's birthday and Jesus's birthday celebration only a couple days from each other. JB looks a bit confused at the prospect of sharing his birthday with Someone Else (not just any "someone else"). The presents and celebration kind of blur between the two special days, especially with family visiting. JB and Gloria had plenty books read to them about baby Jesus and the Christmas story. Although the resurrection is the more important story of the Bible, we strive to teach about Jesus's birth too. It is usually returned with a blank stare, but maybe one of these days it will sink in. JB still thinks that a mother who has a "baby in her belly" got that way by eating baby food. Enjoy the pictures below!

Max's Wolf Suit

I call JB "Max" here, one because that is his real name, and two, because Gramma Shell made him a wolf suit for Christmas from the children's book "Where the Wild Things Are" in which the main character's name is Max. He was very scary in his wolf suit as he sometimes howled like a wolf or growled like a lion. We pretended to be scared but had to hold back giggles as he tended to look more like a sheep...but he does have a long fury tail in the back!

A playful Christmas afternoon

It turned out to be a 60 degree Christmas day. Nothing like winter tanning at the playground and enjoying some fresh air.

This is a playground in a park that is walking distance, about a mile, from our house. I don't remember having a more pleasant Christmas in terms of weather. We had a lot of fun outdoors.


It was nice getting a break from the kids while the grandparents were here. Max and I had a totally free date the night after Christmas with grandparents babysitting and Narnia at the Derby theatre owned by our neighbor, who had given us free passes. Good movie. Okay, maybe we paid for gas.

Christmas Morning

JB had fun opening presents...










...while Gloria really enjoyed her egg nog that her daddy made.

JB's Birthday!

JB's birthday was December 23 and he turned three years old. His Colorado grandparents, Gramma Shell and Grandude, arrived the day before his birthday and he was so excited to have them there for his birthday. This was the first birthday/Christmas where presents were a big deal for JB, but the candles still took the cake. I think we relit all of them four times.

JB had fun jumping in the leaf pile after Gramma Shell raked them under our big oak tree. Zephyr is wondering if she should retrieve him.

One of the presents JB got for his birthday was a foam gun that shoots foam rockets, which was a big hit. I ended up giving one to Max Sr for Christmas so that they could have wars around the house. I have a third stashed away for extra rockets...or maybe it's so that I can join in the war one of these days.

A morning in the life of Gloria

Do you like my face painting?
Look at the mess I made!
What have I done?

Neighborhood Christmas Party

This is a dancing singing Christmas turkey that we acquired from the anual neighborhood Christmas party. We had a gag-gift exchange and in the end, I just had to have this turkey. It sings "Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas" and his head bobs back and forth with the little bell at the tip of the hat jingling and he gobbles every once in a while. I think he's just happy to have made it through Thanksgiving. It definitely makes me laugh.

As you might imagine, the kids love pressing its belly and making it dance and sing and Max is planning on using it for archery practice in our backyard.

We had a good time getting to know some of our neighbors. A very different group than the military neighborhood that we are used to. Everyone else there was above 40 and either had teenagers or grandkids. The sweet elderly couple across the street owns the little movie theatre here in Derby and gave us some free passes, which we hope to use to see the Narnia movie (the expense will be in the babysitter). We really like our neighborhood and we are pleased at the amount of babysitters closeby!

A different "look" for Tamsey

I can see! My appointment with Dr Patel this morning showed that I have 20/25 vision and that could get better. My left eye is a bit worse than my right eye partly because it is drier and it always has been my worse eye. After some healing and decrease of the dryness, I could be seeing 20/20. Right now it seems to me as though I can see as well as I could with my contacts, but no hassle of contacts and no hassle of glasses!

I slept all the way back in the car and Max immediately guided me upstairs when we got home and "installed" me in bed. I tried to keep my eyes closed for the rest of the evening and had a good sleep last night, which helps with the initial healing.
This picture of me standing up was right after the surgery. My vision was very hazy and my legs were wobbly from the Valium. I guess I could call my physical state as "floppy".
The surgery itself was a little scary to me at parts because I didn't know if I was doing everything right. There wasn't a whole lot I had to do besides look at the blinking light and respond to her directions about how to move my head. I did read a lot about the surgery beforehand and talked to a lot of people who had it done, but I wish I had watched a surgery, either online or at a clinic. I think it would've made me more relaxed during the surgery. Dr Patel said she could tell I was stressed at some points because of my eye movements.

However, everything seems to have turned out well and the flaps are sealed but not healed yet...that will take a few months. For now I have a lot of different drops to put in my eyes to keep them healthy and healing and I cannot rub my eyes for 3-5 months or swim or scubadive for two weeks. I also get to wear some "sexy" plastic and foam goggles to bed for the next week.

It is definitely all worth it to be able to see on my own and not have to hassle with contacts or glasses. I even got to drive myself to my appointment this morning, which was very cool. It is amazing how God made our eyes to adapt and heal so well and made people's brains to figure out how to fix loss of vision.

Max took these pictures my eye surgery from behind the glass. For a lot of the time it was dark in the room but those pictures didn't turn out so well since Max couldn't use the flash. It's interesting to see the pictures now because I could hardly see the room at all when I was in there.

Max wanted to get a picture with his partially blind wife before sight was restored. Afterall, he did put a few grand into it, I suppose he can have a picture...

This is our friend Kristin who came to take care of the kids...Thank you Kristin!

A different look for our living room

Before and after pictures of our living room. There are actually four windows in this room, but it's difficult to get the whole room in a picture, especially with the Christmas tree just outside the room in the entryway. I took down the border with some icky, gunky blue stuff called DIF, then I painted the room "Sparkling Sage" and Lowe's people came and replaced our brown shag carpet with nice multicolored cream/beige berber carpet. Zephyr provides a good advertisement for the oh so comfy carpet and padding.

Update on Eye Surgery

For anyone wondering, the consultation went well and Dr Patel said I am a great candidate for the lasik eye surgery. I guess I have pretty "normal" bad eye sight, not much of a stigmatism, and healthy eyes. I have been wearing my glasses for over two weeks, which I despise because I have not gotten used to wearing them...okay, maybe I've gotten used to them a little bit, but I still don't like them. I have pretty nice glasses, but I can feel them on my face and see the rims, which bothers me and gave me a headache at first.

Anyway, my surgery is scheduled for tomorrow and I'm excited more than anything else at this point. We have someone to watch the kids tomorrow during the appt and possibly afterwards in case Max has to go back to work for the afternoon. They will give me 5 mg of Valium so that I get sleepy for both the quick surgery (not as much moving) and so that I rest and relax afterwards so that my eyes can heal better and quicker. They say sleep afterward helps. I'll report on how it turns out.

Today we are getting carpet replaced in the living room and master bedroom, so we are just waiting for the people to arrive and get to work.

Thanks to anyone who has been praying for me for this eye surgery tomorrow. I don't feel as nervous after the consultation, but I know that any surgery has its risks and these are my eyes! I may be able to see on my own tomorrow night!!

Consultation

Today I have my lasik eye surgery consultation at the Wichita Vision Institute in downtown Wichita. I didn't get much sleep last night because I was excited/nervous about the surgery in general. The surgery probably wouldn't be until Thursday afternoon if everything goes well at the consultation. If I'm this nervous before just the consultation, what am I going to be like before the surgery? I'll have to drink a lot of red wine and/or herbal tea to calm me down the night before. I could also pray about it...probably the best solution. Anyone out there is welcome to pray for good results and peace for me. I am excited about the possibility of corrected vision to 20/20 or maybe even better (maybe worse, but hopefully not!), but it is still scary having one's eyes cut!

Snow is Melting

Max was bird hunting this morning with some friends from the squadron, so the kids and I went out in the beautiful 50 degree weather and had some fun of our own. After pushing the wagon around for a while, JB and Gloria got in and I just had to take one of them in front of the house.

I pulled them in the wagon to a park about 1/2 mile away and then JB pulled Gloria much of the way back. I thought I had exhausted them outside enough to take good naps, but Gloria had a shorter one than usual and JB is still talking to himself. Oh well...

Gently Snowing

It has been gently snowing all day and this is what has accumulated. Not exactly a winter wonderland, but at least it's snowing! We like snow. It's 12 degrees here right now and windy...a lot like Grand Forks.

Wood Lot Last and The Tree

JB and Gloria (not as helpful, but cute anyway) helped me decorate the Christmas tree this morning with ornaments. JB had fun using the 3-step ladder to put ornaments in clumps. Eventually he caught onto the idea of spreading them out.

The bottom picture on this post is our last time at the wood lot in Colorado before coming back here to Kansas. Our friends, Stephanie and Nathan Bailey, helped us at the wood lot and were good company there too! We are glad to have a Christmas tree from there. It actually came from the top of a tall pine tree that had to come down because it was "ladder fuel" underneath a bigger pine tree.

A picture of a doe up at the woodlot. Lots of deer up there!

14 Foot Christmas Tree

I know, this is not a picture of the 14 foot Christmas tree, but hopefully we will get that on this blog once it is decorated. This is, however, taken on our woodlot where we acquired the Christmas tree. Gloria liked to watch us work from this rock.

I probably will not have a lot of time to write this post because the kids are sleeping in this morning and could awaken at any minute. We have not been taking any pictures lately because of the whirlwind of unpacking and also I have not seen the camera around since Colorado. Max might know where it is, but he's in the vault this week and I'm not able to contact him while at work.

We finally decided to bring in our 14 foot Christmas tree from our Colorado woodlot. We put it in the front hallway, so one can see it upon walking in the front door. It is a huge tree and one that would probably cost over $100 to buy. Since the ceilings in our staircase/entryway are high, it fits there and will look really neat when it's lit up and decorated because it can be admired coming down the stairs and from the windows outside. I think we are planning on decorating it this evening, which should be interesting with two little ones who will want to take things off the branches and play with the pretty ornaments...glass and sentimental ones at the top, cushy non-breakable ones toward the bottom. We will also strive to train them not to take things off the tree and not to pull on it so it doesn't fall on them or make a big mess.

Our house is still coming together slowly, but surely. Now it's just a matter of organizing clutter and getting the pictures on the wall, which should be a fun task. I still am planning on painting the kitchen and taking the border down in the living room. It's not a bad border, it just doesn't go with our stuff. We have a lot of blue, green, and red, which does not really go with a pink and purple border. I look forward to decorating the kids' rooms too, but that could be a while.

The Tornado of Unpacking

Just as an update...unpacking is still the main activity of every day around here. We are trying to get rid of all of the cardboard boxes. Some rooms have piles of things in them that have been emptied from the boxes and still have yet to find a home and/or be put away. The kids are usually not very helpful in the unpacking. I say "usually" because sometimes JB helps to unwrap the items. It doesn't seem to matter to him if it happens to be stuffed animal, a pot, or a small kitchen appliance...it's all exciting to him if it's wrapped.

Christmas should be interesting this year...it's going to be the first year that JB actually has an idea of what is going on both on his birthday (the 23rd of Dec) and Christmas. Candles and cake are the big excitement for him on his birthday. We got a Christmas tree from our wood lot up in Colorado, but it is still outside in its stand because there is too much clutter in the house for now. It's all coming together, just seemingly slowly.

I will post more pictures both of the woodlot and of our home coming together after the tornado of unpacking passes by a bit.