Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving this year was one of the most beautiful, relaxing, wonderful holidays in my life! We loved it! The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have more family around. We love our family!

So my awesome brother and his amazing wife came down from Austin to spend the long weekend with us and it was so much fun! Tyson could not get enough of his "Uncle Dan" and I had so much fun having Katie around to talk to and work with. She even fixed my sewing machine!! Thank you guys so so so much for coming to see us!

Thanksgiving morning we attempted the turkey-which turned out beautifully! After we got that thing going we headed out to the football field to watch Christian and Dan play at the Turkey bowl and talk with friends. It was so fun to see Tyson playing with other kids and just enjoy the beautiful weather. I really feel like we've made some amazing friends here so it was fun to catch up with them, too!After football, we came home and I made a million pies! Well, we maybe just seven, but it was so much fun! Pies are not as hard as I always assumed (minus the crust) and since I knew this was a sugar-FREE day (meaning eat as much sugar as you want) I wanted to have all the options available to me :) In retrospect, we had WAY more pies than we needed but it was still fun!

We had our next-door neighbors over for dinner and the Blairs came over for games and pie later that night. I really wish we would have taken more pictures...I wish that a lot lately! You would think I would learn!! Anyway, here's everyone watching football while waiting for Tyson to go to sleep!

We couldn't have more to be thankful for. This past year we've been blessed with our home, food, transportation, a beautiful family, health, good neighbors, friends, and so many of the luxeries of life. We've also come to know deeper the love our Savior, Jesus Christ has for each of us, individually. Each week I have the opportunity to bear my testimony to the children at our church of the love our Savior has for them and I can feel his love for me each time I do. He really lived. He really loves us. He is the only one who knows how to help us. I am so grateful for that knowledge and His love. I love him so much!

Corn Maze and Austin

This year has been stressful for Christian but has been so much better for me! I wish we could do more to help him stress-wise but he can't even do that much so we just keep plugging along. Having him home on nights and weekends, though has made all of the difference in the world! This weekend was especially wonderful because he had Thursday and Friday off randomly!! We celebrated by going up to Austin and spending time with my brother and sister in law. They are so much fun! I'm so glad they moved to Austin!!

Thursday we stopped at the outlets and hung out. Friday we played folf, rode this awesome train around the park, and had lunch with my family and the Dentons! Then we went home since Tyson was exhausted. We did find some pretty great deals for Christmas at the outlets and I'm super excited to send them home!! I love Christmas! There is such satisfaction in finding the perfect gift! (I know that's not what it's all about but it is a fun part!!)

Saturday we had a lazy morning and went to the Corn Maize with some friends! It was so much fun!! These pictures show the full glory of the belly!

There was a crazy flag maze that took us over 30 minutes to figure out! Christian would not give up though and we were the first to solve it in our group and we didn't even use the cheat sheet! When we were taking our friends through Christian had to keep me on the right path! I never could have done it twice!!Here's our cute boy.Looking at the goats!
Thanks so much for spending every minute possible with us Babe! You truly are amazing!! I love you!!

Happy Halloween!!

This year for Halloween we dressed Tyson up as a cowboy. We thought this was fitting because ever since he watched Toy Story 3 he has been sleeping with his cowboy puppet and trying on "cowboy hats" Today he put his Thomas the train underwear on his head and said, "cowboy hat!" This ranges from laundry baskets to underwear to actual hats. Most often it is the green strainer from under the cupboard. We thought getting to wear a real cowboy hat would be a treat!

After countless searches for the perfect yet cheap cowboy hat we decided to use our friends and boy am I glad we did! I had bought and returned ten dollars worth of stuff to make a stick horse (since the dollar store had them for only one dollar!) and we had him wear a bandana around his neck. He looked like a great cowboy but he refused to wear his hat or carry his horse so I'm glad we didn't spend a ton of money on his costume!!

We went to our church's trunk-or-treat where there was popcorn, cotton-candy (which sort of freaked Tyson out), a bouncer, coloring station, tons of costumes, and of course the trunk or treat! Tyson LOVED saying, "trick or treat please" and "thank you" at ever trunk and especially loved the succors.

After the trunk or treat we made our way over to the Patrick's party. They throw the best parties of all time! There is always, music, games, food, prizes, and it's always festive! This year the host and hostess dressed up like Mrs. Clause (she's as pregnant as me) and Elf. It was hilarious! We also played Minute to win it where Christian had to put nylons on his head and tip over cups that were eight feet apart. He won us some scary teeth :)

Sunday we handed out candy but Tyson would cry every time so we eventually had to turn out the lights until he went to bed. Overall this Halloween was a blast! Happy Halloween but now Happy Thanksgiving coming up...my favorite holiday of all!! (well--that and Christmas!!)

PS Can anyone tell that I am a cow and Christian's a cactus? We only had one person the whole night guess right! Way to go Charly!!

Camping and other fun!

Tyson went on his first camp out this last weekend! Our friends, the Patricks invited us to camp out on their property up near New Braunfels and it was so much fun! Our car was maybe twenty feet away--easy access and no need for a bear bag! Christian put up and took down the tent alone while I tried to convince Tyson that the grass which was taller than he was was not 'scary.' There were lightning bugs and a campfire, good food, and friends! We even had an air mattress so it was delightful! (I thought it was delightful--I guess it still woke up Christian each time I got up to use the restroom but that's ok!) The next morning we went kayaking down the river and Christian jumped off this HUGE tree swing--he was at least twenty feet in the air and he would do back flips off of the rope after swinging down...it was so cool! The first time he jumped, Tyson's eyes were huge!! He was almost as impressed as I was with his daddy! Christian has been so amazing to do everything this year. I am so lucky to have a husband that is so much fun and does so much to help me out with Tyson. He is the best daddy ever!


Last night we went to paint pumpkins and have soup with some friends and it was so much fun! The food was AMAZING and there was even a pinata with candy in it! Christian helped Tyson with the bat and when the candy fell out he was the first to tell him which candy was the best. Tyson would've been happy with one piece of candy but Christian helped him get more...I suppose that's why he gets to eat so much of it, too :) Anyway, we feel so lucky to have so many good friends and so many fun things going on! Hopefully things will only get better once we have two little guys to tote around!

Dad's visit

This past week my dad came out to visit because I requested him to come. he had just recently come out but after seeing my mom and step-dad I had so many angry and sad feelings I just needed to see my dad. The fact that he was willing to come out just to spend time with me made all the difference in the world.

My dad is amazing. I think I could have said anything to him and he would never have gotten up to leave the room. He never even seemed offended. He owned up to things that had been hard for me and was available and open to talk about anything the entire time he was here. We did a lot of talking and it was really good for me.

During one of our conversations, Tyson fell off of his chair in the kitchen and had a bloody lip. I just held him until he felt better but at the same time I felt like that was what was happening to me. After all of this time, I was able to talk to my dad and he just held my feelings for me. Thanks dad!

I'm still just feeling things I don't quite understand but at least they aren't frightening anymore. I think the biggest thing I realized was that even though my home is broken, I still have the pieces in my hands. I have a father and a mother who both love me very much and even though our home will never again be like how it should be in my mind, I am lucky. I can finally trust my dad again. I can move past the past and build with each member of my family a new relationship, a better relationship, and even though I won't do it all at once-I can't-it is too overwhelming. I can, I want to, and I will. I just can't talk about all of my feelings about my family all at once. I'm still feeling them and letting them work inside me. Anyway, that has been my week. Thank you to all of you who had us in your prayers. It has made all the difference in the world to me. The last thing that happened is my testimony of the church has grown stronger. I needed so much help from God to get me through to this point and He has been with me the whole way. I'm so grateful He was there to see me through.

Also, Monday night around midnight I started feeling the results of food poisoning from Wendy's and felt awful! I am so grateful to everyone who helped me out Tuesday! Kim picked my dad up from the airport and I had babysitters available at any time. I am so humbled and grateful to have such amazing friends and support. Thank you again to everyone!