Christmas, Jake's 6th Birthday and Our Upcoming Move

I hope everyone had a VERY Merry Christmas! We had a GREAT Christmas with our families!! First we got to spend time with Drew's parents the week before Christmas. It was suppose to be our year to go out to Bama for Christmas, but since we have to move in a few days and everything has been kinda up-in-the-air until recently, we knew it would be best if we didn't make another road trip. So Ken and Judy were nice enough to come out here. They helped us with a lot of packing and got to spend time with Jake. He had fun teaching them both how to play the Wii. We got to have Christmas with them before they left and had a really great visit!

Timber loved playing with the paper and bows as we opened presents. This was when he discovered he had a piece of paper taped to his tail.....And this is him trying to get it off.........

I am still working nights at my job in Dallas and this year I had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It was kinda stinky, but Mom, Dad and Clayton came to our house on Christmas Eve, so they were here with Drew and Jake. When I got home from work on Christmas morning, everyone got up to see what Santa brought Jake and we did our family Christmas together. We had a great time and it was hard for me to go to bed later that morning, but I was really tired and had to go back to work that night. So I went to sleep and my parents and Drew took Jake to the "big movies."

The fun doesn't end on Christmas around here..... Jake's birthday is December 26th. This year he turned SIX years old! I still can't believe my baby is six.... going on 26 :) My parents wrote that in his birthday card and it is SOO true. He's gettin a lil big for his britches.... but thats another story. Actually, I could write a book ;) Here's Paw Paw trying to help Jake figure out a new toy, and Jake telling Paw Paw what he wants it to do. (And Paw Paw telling Jake why it can't do what he wants it to do:) For his birthday, we wanted to do somethis different and special so we went to Medieval Times. It was a blast and Jake loved it! Ours was the Black & White Knight, who defeated the Green Knight and won in the end. (Jake was very excited about that)

Me & my brother, Clayton

Carissa, Mom, Dad, Me, Clayton, Drew, Jake & his buddy Derrion

Aunt Carissa & Jake

The coolest part..... Jake got KNIGHTED by the King!!!!! (He looks a little concerned here:)

This past weekend, we all went up to Grandma & Poppa's house in Aubrey for our big family Christmas. Grandma made a really great lunch with turkey and dressing and all kinds of good stuff. We hung out all day, played games, played with baby Gracie (who is so cute and has gotten so big), and had a really great time together. I forgot my camera, so I didn't get any pictures. We have been so blessed with amazing families here in Texas and in Alabama and we are so thankful for that!

And, to update everyone on our moving situation.... We decided to go to Alaska, but it turned out to be too late... the position at the hospital had already been filled. There aren't any other travel nurse positions open right now in any mountain areas so..... plan B: We are moving into an apartment in Las Colinas (North Dallas) for now. If a travel position comes up somewhere that we want to go in the next month, then we will jump on it. If not, we will stay in the apartment until the summer and then figure out plan C.

Whats been going on...............

Its been almost a month since my last post.... that's because things have been really busy around our house. I wanted to update everyone on whats been going on. First of all, we SOLD our house and officially closed two days before Thanksgiving!! Our prayer was that a family would fall in love with our house and buy it quickly, but wouldn't want to move in until January. That's exactly what happened! We are so thankful for that! We are praying for direction and hoping that we can end up doing a whole lot of this......................... (This is a picture of Andrew at Snow Basin in Utah earlier this year)

Now the big question (that we've heard A LOT:) is "Where are we going???" Well, thats a goooood question and as soon as we figure out our plans, we cant wait to let everyone know! Turns out, there aren't many travel nursing jobs available for NICU right now, especially in the mountains which is where we want to be. We are considering an assignment in Anchorage, Alaska (which would be AWESOME). Whats holding us back is how difficult (and expensive) it would be to get out there. Its over 4100 miles from Dallas, meaning really expensive plane tickets or about an 8 to 10 day drive. If we choose not to go to Alaska and nothing else comes up in the next week or so, we plan to move into an apartment in North Dallas until we figure out the next step. So, stay tuned......

TOUCHDOWN TITANS!!

Today Jake's flag football team had their last game of the season. It was 40 degrees when the game started at 8 a.m. this morning so, needless to say, all us Texans were in shock:) The Titans played a great game against the Cubs and on the last play, Jacob scored his first TOUCHDOWN!!!! His Daddy got it all on video, with Mommy screaming in the background and everything:)

Jake's trip to Austin = Operation Sanity Restoration

Our little man Jake went to Nonny & PawPaw's house for the weekend. They took him to the Fall Festival at their church on Friday night (he was a Samurai) and he played games and got tons of candy. They took him shopping on Saturday and to the "big movies" to watch the new Chihuahua flick. He came home with bags full of new clothes, PJ's, toys and candy. He had a great time and said two nights was just not enough. I'll let you know how long it takes us to bring him back to reality now that he's back home:)

Drew and I had a great time while Jake was away. The house was SOO quiet. We went on a date Friday night which was really nice. We went to PF Chang's (our fave place) and decided to skip the movie theater and rent one instead (saving us like $20). We hung out all day Saturday watching football. Alabama beat Arkansas State (Andrew= happy) and then Texas lost to Texas Tech (me=sad), but that made Alabama move up to #1 in rankings (Andrew=REALLY happy).

Saturday night we went to a costume party for my friend's birthday and Drew got to meet many of the cool people I work with. The party was a lot of fun and we actually dressed up. We wanted to do something creative that we could put together at home, so- Andrew was a terrorist and I was the bomb.
I spray painted toilet paper rolls to make Drew's dynamite....

And my costume was complete with a duct-tape belt wrapped in red-electrical wire with a timer on the front....

This is me with my friend Paula.... My camera battery died right after we arrived so I didn't get many other pics.

It was really nice having time with Andrew this weekend while Jake was away and I almost did not know what to do with all the spare time I had from NOT having to answer Jake's million- questions-a-day:) But by Sunday evening I was missing the sound of footballs flying through the air & hitting the walls, boys yelling in the middle of wrestling moves while Timber is barking and trying to get in the middle of it, and hearing "Mommy...."

Go to For Keeps Design........

ONLY 63 DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS, people!!Its that time of the year when everyone is trying to find and order their Christmas and Holiday cards. There is an awesome site called ForKeepsDesign that designs announcements, invitations, stationary, Holiday cards and much more. One of the designers is my close friend, Laura who does really great, creative graphic design work. After you choose your design and personalize your order, Laura and her design partner personally create your product to assure that every detail is correct. You will LOVE the results and enjoy sharing them with family and friends. They even have specials going on right now for only 0.99 cents!! So check out her website and place your order!!!

The Zoo; Sweet Baby Jacob; Football and fun with Ryan & Carissa

We have been busy as usual the past week since we got back from Bama. Last Saturday Mom came up from Austin and we took Jake to the Fort Worth Zoo. It was the BEST time to go to the zoo. We usually go in the middle of the summer (when all the animals are lethargic), but the weather was perfect and the animals were all out and about. One of our favorites to watch are the monkeys and they put on quite a show for us! So did the baby tigers and some of the parrots...
Jake insisted that I take an action shot of him showing a 'peace' sign:)

The tiger cubs were wrestling the whole time. We watched them for a while and Jake kept shouting "Oooh! I'm pulling for the one in the water!" He LOVED looking at the 'snakey snakes'

This week I finally got to meet up with my friend Audrey and her new baby boy Jacob. We had lunch together with our friend Amanda and got to catch up. Jacob is SO precious and didn't make a peep the whole time!

He didn't like the flashing light too much on the camera, but he decided to wave here...
Our house is still For Sale and we have been showing it A TON!!! Seriously, its been on the market for three weeks and we've shown it 5-7 times a week. Even though its been really hard keeping the house clean and leaving on short notice, we are so thankful for all the traffic! We have two offers 'pending' right now and praying one works out. Because we have to take Timber with us each time we leave for a showing, we've been spending LOTS of time at the park. Friday night was very exciting for Timber! He had his first popsicle from the Icecream truck and he escaped his leash. He had the most amazing 45 seconds of freedom we have ever seen!
Jake had another football game yesterday morning. His team didn't score more touchdowns than the other team this week, but all the boys played hard and did an awesome job. Jake is doing so great with blocking for his teammates.
Yesterday afternoon Ryan and Carissa drove all the way out to our house to hang out with us. We were so excited!! Ryan watched his first Bama football game with Drew (and was exposed to serious football fever) and Carissa and I snuck away for some much needed shopping and girl time!

Family Pics from the beach

We took a lot of pictures while we were at the beach this week, so I thought I would share some more with everyone............... Us and Sarah

I don't know if we were hugging, or about to 'throw down' Daddy & Jake-the-snake