Christmas!!!!!!

OK....so out of 234 pictures, I narrowed them down to around 30. That's pretty good huh? We had a great Christmas! We were very blessed this year! We spent Christmas with both sides of the family so we had a pretty busy holiday. But it's all worth it!

Here's a quick non-Christmas picture. Gibson likes to try on Jason's clothes and thinks it is funny.

We took Gibson to see the Christmas lights at Crazy House. We've drove thru there a thousand times but this time he got to sit in the front seat and see all the lights. Big thrill!
Here he's pointing at the choo-choo train.
Posing in front of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve!

(notice his pajamas say "trouble is my middle name". how appropriate!)


On Christmas morning, Gibson got a four-wheeler front from Santa. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of his reaction because I was videoing with the video camera. :( Oh well! He was excited! Of course, he called it a "Tractor" but he loves it!

Checking out his new Elmo shoes!
A new stethoscope just like Daddy!
Playing his new keyboard!
Here's the four-wheeler Santa brought him. It's a little bit bigger than his other four wheeler so he wasn't sure about it at first. He eventually got used to it.
Having a ball!
Expert driver!
Nannie and PaPaw gave Gibson a bouncy horse. That was right up his alley since he is an expert bouncer!
SOOO excited to bounce!
Payden got a wagon from Nannie & Papaw!
Gibson loved it too! We're glad that Payden was nice enough to share.
Everybody took their turn pulling the wagon!
Here it is MeMe's (Aunt Kimberly's) turn!
Payden was having a ball!
Holding on for dear life!
Cousin Haley drove Gibson around in the trailer part of his new four-wheeler. I think he liked being pulled around more than he liked driving it.
At Gran's house, he found a pair of goggles in the toy box.
He looks ready to go sky-diving!

What a present!
Here is Gibson and Elmo riding back to Paris on Christmas Day! They were both exhausted! It's just a little harder to tell that Elmo is tired! :)
Jason & I bought Gibson a Mr. Potato Head for Christmas! He was showing off his work to me! Notice poor Mr. Potato Heads ears! :)
Finally, the other day, I had finished washing dishes and walked into the living room where Gibson had been watching the Backyardigans. Here's what I found! What a goofball!

We're looking forward to another year of blessings in our family and yours!

Happy New Year!!!!

Guitar Pics, Med Story, Christmas Party and Bywaters Park

Wow! It really doesn't seem that long since my last blog. I'm not sure how time slips by so quickly. Anyways, I'll give you a quick update of the last couple of weeks.

By the way, the next few pictures contain a strategically placed guitar (though not staged) and some partial nudity. Beware!

Jason was playing his guitar when Gibson got out of the bathtub one night.

Gibson decided to join in on the pickin' and grinnin'.

Watching Daddy play!
I think he's playing a "C"! :)
Gibson's Self-Portrait
I found him checking his "email".
I've got mail!

OK...I'll take a pause from the pics for just a minute to give you the short version of our weekend of terror. On Sunday last week, while I was busy in the house, Gibson found my purse which had my prescription diet pills in them. He managed to open the child-proof lid and eat some of the pills. We aren't sure how many he ate. We're estimating somewhere between 1 and 5. Jason called the ER and spoke to a nurse who said that if we brought him in they would monitor his heart and give him charcoal. We decided we could do that at home. So, we gave him charcoal and monitored his heart rate. We also called poison control and was instructed to do the same thing. But, by that evening, it was clear that the meds had taken a strong hold on his little body. We decided to go to the ER. After 3 or so hours in the ER, we made it home. The next several hours (at least 6 hours or so) were full of Gibson throwing himself into whatever he could. He would run full blast into the wall of the room at the ER and then fall back and hit his head on the floor. This continued through-out the night until he finally fell asleep about 3am. He slept for about 1 1/2 hours and then woke up starting all over again. This continued through Monday and by that night he had slept for about 5 hours since he woke up on Sunday morning at 8am. Tuesday morning, he woke up VERY irritated and continued throwing fits. I called his doctor and made an appointment. The doctor basically said to wait it out. I should mention that throughout our visits to the ER and Gibson's doctor, never once did they draw blood to make sure that the meds were actually the problem. And what was even more scary about the whole incident was that when you looked into Gibson's eyes, you couldn't see anything. It was like he had checked out for a couple of days. He hadn't smiled or laughed since before Sunday morning when he first ingested the meds. It was heartbreaking to say the very least. Jason worked on Tuesday but left work early to come home and help me deal with Gibson as we considered driving to Dallas to Children's Hospital. Gibson took a long 4 1/2 hour nap on Tuesday afternoon and woke up in a much better mood. By late Tuesday evening, he was close to being back to normal. Wednesday was an even better day and by that afternoon, Gibson was back to being his old happy self. It was a VERY stressful couple of days both on Gibson and us. We are SOOOOO thankful Gibson is back to being Gibson!

With all that said, back to pictures!

Thursday was Gibson's Christmas party at school. He was excited to be back to school since he wasn't at school on Tuesday. Here he is drinking his juice and eating his snacks!
Got a mouthful!
He looks up-to-something in this picture!
All the kids in the class exchanged gifts (books...Gibson's favorite) and Gibson got a book about Christmas! He was very interested in seeing Santa and the snowmen in the book!
Right here, Mom!

One of my favorite memories about Christmas time when my siblings and I were kids was going to Bywaters Park. We got to see the gingerbread house, Santa's sleigh and reindeer, the snowmen and their frozen pond where you could pretend to skate and of course, Santa Claus. This is definitely a tradition that I want Gibson to cherish when he is all grown up. So Friday night, we loaded up and went to Bywaters Park. We all had soooo much fun!

Sorry this picture is kind of dark. It was the first one I took when we got there and it took me a minute to realize I needed to be closer to Gibson.
Once again, my professional photography skills at their best!

Checking out Santa's sleigh and his reindeer!
The gingerbread house!
(I can remember actually getting to go into the house when we were kids!
That was always so much fun!)

We were walking around the park and saw where someone was giving horse-drawn carriage rides. Best of all, the rides were free and a guy that works with Jason was running the whole thing! Gibson sat up front with Roger and helped drive the carriage! He was such a big boy!

(I didn't really get any good pics of the carriage ride. I was at an awkward angle.)

Here you can see Gibson, part of Roger and if you try real hard the horse's tail.

Jason, Roger & Gibson (and the horse) Getting off the carriage ride!
Petting the horse! Posing by the snowman!
This is Santa's house! Gibson didn't want to go in at all. Jason finally just carried him in. I just knew he was fixing to completely freak out. But he never shed a tear! I was soo relieved.
He was definitely keeping an eye on Santa at all times! Gibson eventually sat on Santa's knee for just a second (so there's no picture) but he didn't cry which is a big improvement! :)
Posing with Rudolph and the choo-choo train!
Posing with Santa and the choo-choo train! Being so good to pose for yet ANOTHER picture in front of the snow-couple.
By the end of the night, Gibson was all about striking a pose in front of something!
Even the Christmas trees!
Gibson enjoying a piggy-back ride back to the car!
After we visited Bywaters, we drove around and enjoyed looking at some Christmas lights! (another tradition from when i was a kid).

Well, I think you're updated now! I promise I'll post Christmas pictures as soon as I can.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Parade, Woodbelly Concert and a Sunday afternoon

Friday night, Gibson refused to go to bed. It was going on 10:30 and the kid was still in his room singing and playing with his dog. So I finally convinced him to go to sleep because when he woke up in the morning we would go see the ambulances, police cars and fire trucks at the parade. That did it! The kid fell asleep and I didn't hear a peep from him all night.

So Saturday we went to the Christmas parade. He had such a good time! Of course, he LOVED the ambulances, police cars & fire trucks. But the parade exceeded his expectations when it had TRACTORS & MARCHING BANDS! He was in heaven!

(Mom was nice enough to take pictures for me and she'll tell you she's not very good at taking pics. So just ignore the Lexus in the picture. It certainly isn't ours and had I realized it was a Lexus I wouldn't have propped my big butt on it throughout the parade. Thanks Mom for taking pics!)

Here we are enjoying the parade!

Gibson watching the band and the ambulance!
Fire Trucks!
Checking everything out!

Gibson jumped up & down the entire time the first band marched by us. So when the second band went by us, Mom decided to video. Except she didn't know (and I didn't realize) she was videoing sideways! Sorry! Just tilt your head a little! You'll also notice the poor quality of the video. Sorry again! Mom was trying not to get ran over my the band but still keep Gibson in the video. Then my old band director stopped to say hi and got in the video. Videoing at a parade is difficult to say the least. :) You can see Gibson marching with the band and waving goodbye to the band.

On Saturday night, Jason, Gibson and I went downtown to watch Cas Haley and his band, Woodbelly, play. You may know him from America's Got Talent but we've known him and his talent for years. Jason played in a band with him for a while. Jason has always said that Cas would make it big one day! Also, Cas's brother-in-law is the bass player for Post Oak Savannah! We're super proud of Cas!

Gibson enjoyed listening to the reggae music! He danced and ran around (until he got hungry)!

I did have to fight him to keep his jacket on. It wasn't too cool unless the wind was blowing and then it was down right chilly. (Look close...you can see Cas on stage!)
Sunday was a beautiful day! Windy but beautiful! Gibson and I took advantage of the weather and played outside while Jason was stuck in the attic (aka the hell pit of darkness) installing the phone lines for the Internet. I hate it when Jason is stuck doing house stuff instead of spending time with us! With his work schedule, I like to eat up as much family time as possible!

Gibson liked running through the leaves! (I should have raked some up in a pile but like I said it was windy and that would've been pointless.)

(Once again, please ignore the back door where my ignorant weenie dog has scratched off the paint. That's the East Texas Redneck coming out in us (or at least the house). We'll get it repainted one of these days. It's at the bottom of the honey-do list.)

Next, we played with sidewalk chalk on the back porch.

Gibson usually swings on his swing set while I pick up around the yard. (Our German Shepard is like having another kid to pick up after.) Apparently, Gibson caught on to me cleaning up the yard and decided to help pick up the sticks on the ground.

He cleaned them up by throwing them over the fence! (I haven't the slightest idea where he got that from. For the record, over the fence is nothing but a pasture where the cows roam. I wouldn't throw sticks in someone else's yard.)

He has to make sure the sticks make it all the way over!
Here's Duke protecting Gibson as he climbs up the ladder!
Getting ready to slide!

(Notice the new satellite on the house.....we're high tech now! We have a DVR!!!!)

And finally, Gibson has officially moved to a big boy chair. We bought him a booster seat and I put up the high chair. Just another step to Gibson becoming a big boy.

(Wait....let me wipe a tear. Although I'm not going to miss it being in my way in the kitchen.)

I can't believe how big he is! He's growing up WAY too fast! Sometimes I'll look at him sitting at the table like a big boy and he looks like he's five years old. That scares me to death. His independence means we're doing our job but it makes me want to cry. I know...I know.....that's parenthood!

He really likes sitting in a chair like Momma & Daddy! Here he is enjoying a bowl of spaghetti!

That's it for now! I've gotten much better at posting! I'll go ahead and warn you that the posts may slow down in the next month or two. First of all, I have yet to buy a single Christmas present. (yikes!) Second, work is going to be really crazy since we'll be moving hopefully towards the end of the month. I'll do my best to keep you updated. But no promises! :)