Family Fun

Beckett's cousins from Ft. Worth (and their parents) came to visit us the weekend before Thanksgiving. We had a big family gathering that weekend and they spent the night after the gathering so that their daddy could run in a race in town the next morning. The boys had a blast playing together.

Thanksgiving 2012

Beckett and I were so blessed to be able to go home to SC for Thanksgiving this year. We had so much fun, as always, and enjoyed every bite of my mom's homemade cooking. Blake wasn't able to join us this year because he was working in Alaska. He was sad that he didn't get to travel home with us, but mostly sad that he didn't even get a Thanksgiving meal ;)  

(Thanks to my future sister-in-law, Kristen, for taking all of these pictures).  

Home sweet home

Our traditional cookie decorating contest. I only ate two cookies
the whole time and Kristen happened to capture one of times...

Stuffing trains into Uncle Stephen's shoes

Playing with the train set that the Boone's gave us. He
played with this the entire week and is now obsessed with trains!

Snuggling with Aunt Kristen

Wrestling Uncle Stephen

Uncle Stephen taught him to wear his pants on his head

Don't feel too sorry for Blake. This is one of the
pictures that he took in Alaska. 

Tales of a Tacky Tree

Aren't those Christmas decorations stunning?  I must admit that they are not mine, but I’ve always dreamt of having a beautiful huge Christmas tree with white lights and color coordinated ornaments.  Something about this tree is so calming, peaceful, and clean.

However, after all of these years, I’ve never had a tree that looked anything like this. In fact, our tree is the exact opposite. Every year we use a small, fake tree with COLORED Christmas lights and some of the tackiest homemade ornaments you’ve ever seen. Both my parents and Blake’s parents have always used colored Christmas lights for as long as I can remember. There was never an ornament too cheesy or tacky for our parents’ trees (I can say that because Blake and I were the ones who made them).

One of the 8 ornaments that somehow made the move. This has become
Beckett's favorite ornament since he just learned to say "apple". 

So, when Blake and I got married, we continued with that tradition. I’m pretty sure that I begged Blake to have a “tasteful” tree in the beginning, but he was set on the bright colored tree that we both grew up with. His parents and grandparents have a tradition of giving him a new ornament every Christmas. To be honest, at first I wasn’t thrilled with having all of these nonmatching ornaments on the tree, but the he began to take them out of the box and show me the hand written date on the bottom of each ornament and share the story that went along with them. He has at least one ornament from every year of his childhood. What a wonderful tradition! (Within the last two years, we have actually lost the box with all of the ornaments in them and we are 99%  positive that they didn’t make the move to Oklahoma, so please pray that we find them one day).

I'll admit that I am solely responsible for this ornament.
 I bought it for Blake last year, after losing all of our real ornaments. 

Yep, this is what I mean by tacky...

I, too, look forward to hanging every gaudy homemade ornament that Beckett makes without having to worry about it “messing up” the tree. Now that we’re grown, I’m so thankful that our parents allowed their Christmas trees to be used as a canvas for displaying our art projects. 

This is our actual tree. Our star also got lost in the move
and I keep forgetting to buy a new one. 

I had the brilliant idea of buying the stockings with the initials on it,
and used them for one year before we had Beckett. Now I can't find a
matching stocking for him, so I'm using one of Blake's childhood stockings. 

As I sat pondering what it would be like to have the decorations that I’ve always wanted, I was quickly reminded that the surroundings of the very first Christmas weren’t exactly perfect and peaceful. Baby Jesus wasn’t born in a fancy hospital room with clean, coordinating sheets and comfortable lighting. In fact, I would imagine that childbirth in a stable was a bit loud, messy, chaotic, and anything but beautiful. But most importantly, I’m reminded that it’s not about the surroundings or decorations (whether tasteful or tacky), but it’s about the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in making everything so perfect that we forget to remember what Christmas is all about.

I haven’t completely given up on the dream of a tasteful Christmas tree. A friend recently told me that they usually do two trees, a nice tree and a fun tree. Maybe I’ll try that one day. But if I never get around to the nice tree, I think I'm okay with that now. 

I do love our little Oklahoma State snowman family
that my Mom bought us a few years ago. 

P.S. 1) I’m not calling either of our parents’ trees tacky. Both have improved greatly now that they have passed down all of our childhood ornaments to us. They are still bright and fun and I’d be sad to see it any other way!

2) This post is in no way intended to offend anyone with a beautiful, tasteful tree.  In fact, I LOVE walking into a house with a freshly cut, perfectly decorated tree. It’s such a cozy feeling and it keeps me dreaming. But as for me and my family, we’re gaudy... and I'm okay with that.

When we got married, I was forced to adopt these Christmas Scooby-Doos.
Because nothing says Christmas like Scooby-dooby-doo singing Christmas carols. 

Charleston Friends

When we visited SC in October for my sister's wedding, we took a day trip to Charleston to visit some friends. We visited my old work place and saw many of my wonderful co-workers. Beckett enjoyed showing off for all of the ladies. After we left my work, we headed to Blake's old stomping grounds to visit some of his close friends. We saw some of our favorite friends and coaches. Beckett got to play with his friend, Halsey for a little while in the afternoon. Beckett is about a week older than Halsey, so it was fun to watch them play together. 

Running down the street 

 Halsey helped Beckett get up the curb by holding his hand
and pulling him up. So, when he went to get down he waited
for her on the curb.She came up behind him and
pushed him off the curb. It was so funny!

Blake's good friend and track coach, Tim, let Beckett test
out his future locker in the new track locker room!

We got to see our good friend, Sarah. We also got to
eat dinner with her and our friend, Bryant (not pictured).