Let the elfin fun begin!

Tonight is the night we open up our box of elves and let the scurry about the house. :) Tarah has a box full of little elves, and, according to the custom when she grew up, the kids get to take them and place them all around the house where they will have good vantage points to watch over everything. Then, of course, the elves periodically report back to Santa whether the kids have been good or bad. The real fun, though, comes when the kids wake up occasionally to find that the elves have moved to different locations! I guess an elf gets uncomfortable sitting in the same position.

Superman Returns

Just the other day, we sat down to watch "Superman Returns" and the face on both of my kids' faces when Superman stopped the plane from crashing into the baseball field was priceless! And as the crowd in the stadium exploded into cheers, so did Gavin and Savannah. Ha. It was great. And of course, first thing upon waking the next morning, Gavin immediately donned his favorite Superman jumpsuit.

First Razorback football game! WOO PIG SOOIE

Soooooo, Saturday was an amazing opportunity to give the kids their first experience at a Razorback football game. I know I remember mine, thanks to my always amazing Aunt Phyl; however, the fans are definitely crazier and louder at War Memorial in Little Rock than at the Commodore stadium here at Vanderbilt.   Arkansas was playing against Vanderbilt, here in Nashville, so I loaded up the kids, but Tarah had to work.   Maliyah stayed with a friend while we were at the game.  We got there a few minutes after kickoff, so I got a ticket off a scalper for $15, and then a worker at the gate had a couple unused tickets she let the kids have to get in.   We had a great time for a while sitting right in the middle of the huge Arkansas crowd, including all our WOO PIG SOOIEs at each kick off.  But then we moved down to another section where there were plenty of empty bleachers for the kids to pre-occupy themselves on while I watched Arkansas escape with a win.  Funny part was that I was sitting right above all of the Vandy students, and you couldn't help but feel sort of bad for them as all the joy drained from their faces after that kicker missed wide right with only 8 seconds left!  Ha. After the game we went by the Vandy hospital a couple blocks away, saw Tarah for a quick visit, then headed to pick up Maliyah and go to the park to "tailgait" and cook up some hotdogs.  Much fun was had playing in the park, but we topped it all off afterward with Despicable Me at "mi casa."    What a great day!  

Maliyah is born!

Maliyah (Ma-lee-uh):  born 11:31a.m.,  6/23/11
6 lbs.  14 oz.,  19 inches long

Savannah & Gavin Meet Maliyah

Maliyah Emily comes home!

Another first...I'm now a Vanderbilt Commodore

Well, I'm a newbie once again.  Today, was my first day at the new job.  I now officially work for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the Sports Medicine department.  If the average physical therapist stays at any one job location for 2 years, then I am definitely not in the norm.  After being at STAR Physical Therapy for nearly 7 years, I finally made a move.  I'm actually quite excited and I think this is going to be a great fit for me.

A bunch of "Firsts"

   Over the past couple weeks, I've had several big "firsts"occur.  Yesterday, I caught and held a hummingbird for the very first time...very cool.  Savannah was also there and got to pet the hummingbird, which was a first that most people don't ever get to do in their whole lifetime.  The bird had made her way into the garage, but couldn't figure out how to get back out even though the door was wide open.  She was humming along and bouncing against the white ceiling as if it was the sky I guess, and after so much of that, she was just plain tuckered out. So much so, that all it took from me was to extend the broom out to her and she took the opportunity to land and rest on the bristles of it.  After several tries, I was able to successfully pull the broom back close enough to me without her taking off that I could grab her.  We let her go outside and she barely had enough strength to fly up to a nearby branch.  Another first--I've never seen a hummingbird fly so slow.  

   A "first" that I'm not to happy about, was the first time I've had a tree fall on my house.  With the storm that rolled through last Friday, I got a call at work from my neighbor saying that one of our tall trees next to the house was now at a 45 degree angle against the eave of the house. The base of the tree had rotted out just below the surface, and the with the water logged ground, the wind had it's way with the tree.  

   On the Saturday before, I also bought our first minivan.  Yes, I said it...I am now a man with a van.  However, I do get to keep my man-card since I'm still driving my truck on a daily basis. (By the way...the minivan is sweet!) 

    And last but not least, this week officially marks the first time I have changed employers as a physical therapist.  They say that the average time a physical therapist will stay in a single location is 2 years.  I find that hard to believe, but then again, I'm a person who has been at STAR for nearly 7 years now.  I'm bidding STAR goodbye, though, to go to work now for Vanderbilt Sports Medicine.  Downside...traffic, schedule, and not as much PTO as I had with STAR, but many upsides also seeing that it allows me to pursue many of my own  personal goals and will be a fun place to work.  I've enjoyed most of my time with STAR, so it's a bittersweet goodbye I guess.  

      On the flip side, I guess I could say that I was able to avoid the first time I went a whole year between blog entries.  

Where'd my little girl go?

This title refers to two different things.  First, the obvious...this is a question that every parent asks when they suddenly realize that his or her child is growing up WAY faster than ever expected.  I cannot believe that Savannah is now 4 years old, as of yesterday.  It is just mind boggling.  I feel like I can remember nearly every single day of the past 4 years, and every single one of them feel like they were just yesterday.
Second, I have been wondering where my Savannah went, because I think an alien has taken over her body.  The night before her birthday, we asked her what she would like for breakfast that next morning, and she replied with "just oatmeal".  That wasn't too strange, but then that next day, we asked if she wanted to go anywhere special to eat for her birthday.  This time she said, "let me think about it....well, I think I want to just stay home and eat." "So what would you like to eat?"  " Hmmmmmm, well....I think I would like some soup...with carrots and green beans and brocolli in it."      WHAT?  So that's what we made.  And it was actually pretty good.  And she did eat a whole bowl full of it.  I hope Gavin is taking notes!

agghhh SNOW, SNOW, and more SNOW

Wow. Since the big snow a couple weeks ago, we've probably had more days when it has snowed than not. Nearly all of it melted off the ground, and now we're back to nearly a couple inches probably. It isn't enough to shut everything down in the city, but it does make for some pretty scenery.

Big-as-yo-face Birthday!

Does that make you think of some fine Tex-Mex? Me too. So, tonight, we dine at...

That's right...we have one here too now! Yum. Happy birthay, me.

Can You Swing Me Across Your Hole?

Yep, that's one of those questions that comes out of a 3 1/2 yr old's mouth that makes you stop in your tracks for a second and ponder..........whaaaaaattt?! So, would you understand what that means if it were asked of you? I had to consult with Tarah before answering Savannah with an affirmative. Apparently, that was her way of saying, "will you swing me through your legs".

what an amazing weekend--yippee.

okay, so the snow Friday turned into a light freezing rain during the night and then returned to snow on Saturday morning. This allowed a nice layer of ice to be formed underneath the snow, and temperatures stayed in the 20's throughout the day, so nothing melted off. These would not be great conditions for skiing necessarily, BUUUTTTT...as I found out yesterday, it did make for ideal sledding conditions. TOTALLY AWESOME, DUDE. I've got some pictures, but I really need to get the video on here for you. I'll try to work on that later. Anyways, the road next to our house makes a wonderful slope. All day long, we kept thinking, "dang, I wish everyone lived here so that we could all be hanging out doing this." And yes, Savannah did go down the slope with me.

The weather man was finally right!

We are actually supposed to get just as much snow again tonight. If we do, we'll have about 10 inches by noon tomorrow. I'll post some more tomorrow.

Flu vaccination Fail

[this one's for you Gabe]

Overheard in the back of the store:

"Hey, we're out of the number ones for the sign outside."

"Uhh, just use the "I" instead. Everyone will know what it means."

If the hiney flu is as bad as the normal flu, then I don't want any part of it.

Too many dogs!

Funny side note...does this remind anyone else of "Full House"? Did one of the Olsen twins sneak into my house?

oh yeah, the snow pics

Not as much snow last week as expected, but it did snow lightly for a couple days and accumulate somewhat.

Yum...crepes

Well, I never really knew what crepes were, until today. I knew of them, but I didn't know how they were made. I didn't know if they were a type of egg based thing like an omelette, or if they were a bread, like a very thin pancake. Now that I've made some, I can tell it's kind of the happy medium. They use a lot of flour and eggs both. Anyways, they are yummy. I've always liked to cook, but recently I've started to get into it a little more. For Christmas, Tarah bought me a sauce cookbook called "Get Saucy". Kinda funny, cause she ordered online and it was delivered on a day that she was gone to work, so I opened it up unknowingly a couple weeks earlier than I should have. I found a great chunky blueberry sauce, and decided to put it with my new recipe for crepes. To stuff the crepes, I used simply cut up bananas with cinnamon. Then, on top, sprinkle a little nutmeg. Really good stuff.

What's funny is that the recipe for the crepes came from the special features section of a great movie we watched last night, "Last Holiday". Very funny movie--I recommend it. I also got a couple other recipes from it which will be my next challenges: Bananas Foster (dessert) and Poulet Tchoupitoulas (dinner)--they actually are recipes from Emeril.

Slowly but surely

It's time again to put the Christmas lights away. I agree with Matt that they need to stay up for a little while so that we can enjoy them, but I also don't like trying to do it all in one day. So I started today with taking up the lights from the tree and shrubs in the front yard. By then, I was frozen so bad, that I was injuring my hands and didn't even know it. It is just way too cold outside now. In fact it's been in the teens every night and morning and barely in the twenties every day since we got back from Arkansas. And it only gets worse. Starting early in the morning we're expecting 2-4 inches of snow, and with the ground being cold and dry, I'm sure it'll stay for a while. Then single digit temperatures over the next few nights. I'm not used to all this. Did I mention that I'm from Houston originally? But it is nice to actually have four seasons. Maybe we'll post some pictures of the snow fun later.

"I feel so free!"

Well, since the Christmas trip to Arkansas, all of our family has become aware of my little man's desire to be free of the restrictions that wearing pants places on him. Often times, he will sneak off to his room in order to disrobe quietly before taking off in a "streak" of flesh through the house, and he nearly always prefers to sleep "au naturale". The problem is, though, that this normally goes hand in hand with opening the release valve on his bladder. So, I tried to come up with a solution that he would put a halt to these antics......I think I did it.