Success....at last!

A couple years ago Stephanie and I took Tanek for his first haircut to Dimples. He was NOT in the mood for a haircut to put it mildly. We held him every way possible for her to cut his hair and he screamed and did not want his hair cut. After a couple more tries it was decided maybe we needed to try something else or at least somewhere else. We tried a few other places to get it cut and it was no better. So for awhile I cut his hair and I am NOT a hairdresser. So, he went around with rather bad haircuts. Recently Dimple tried to teach me how to cut his hair and I did a really bad job. SO....finally he decided that Dimple was "good" and could cut his hair. So today we went again. After he watched me get my hair cut and decided I lived through it without any pain he would sit on my lap and let her cut his hair. He did so good. NO tears, No fighting. SO....I have retired my scissors and he has a new hairdresser. The one we wanted all the time and finally he has grown up enough to sit and get a good haircut.
It will probably take one more haircut before she is able to undo all my mistakes, but he looks very good after his haircut today. He was actually smiling while getting his haircut today.

All smiles after his hair cut.

He loves Mrs. Dimples.

CHRISTMAS 2010

Christmas has once again come and gone. This year was a good year again. We love Christmas. We love everything about it or at least I do. I love the lights, the decorations, the music, the Christmas movies and most of all celebrating the reason for the season, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Having children around to celebrate Christmas with makes it really special. We plan for at least a month and celebrate in so many ways. Tanek loves Christmas and has been so excited about it for so long. I get all the decorations done by Thanksgiving and we start on Thanksgiving with our month long celebration. This year some of the fun things we did was starting with Thanksgiving having all my kids and grand-kids here and my sister and niece. That sorta kicked it off. Then of course going to Disney, going to snow and ice at Gaylord Palms resort, going to St. Augustine, and many get togethers with special friends. The children's Christmas program at church and the Choir's Christmas musical. All these things are just part of the reasons we enjoy the Christmas season. Below are some of the pictures I took on Christmas eve and Christmas day.

Tanek with his big yellow ball. Almost as big as he is.

Opening some of our gifts.

And nothing made Tanek happier this year than getting lego's. LOTS of lego's.

This face tells you everything. He was so excited. The day was spent putting together many many lego's and now he has a large lego city with many buildings, machines, people etc etc.

Gramps and Garrett and Chandler came to dinner on Wednesday night and brought Tanek a lego firetruck. He was quite happy about that. Plus he loves spending time with Garrett, Chandler and Gramps.

He is in his new Christmas Jammies

I got this really soft warm blanket for our bed and it is so snuuggly. You just want to sink down and stay there all day. My little dog Stanley agrees with me. He loves sleeping on this blanket. He would stay there all day if I let him.

I couldn't find him and when I looked closely this is where he was. I didn't have the heart to take him down. It is so warm and soft. He had a very happy Christmas too.

I hope each of you had a very Happy Christmas. It is the day after and I have most of my inside decorations down and packed up already. If I can stand the cold I will start getting all the outside decorations down tomorrow and packed up for another year. I sorta hate to see it come to an end it has been so nice, but I certainly am ready for some warm weather.

1 Enclosure Done.....Check!

Finally the screen is up. It makes a Huge outdoor room. We have a few nice days coming up so they should be able to finish the concrete this week. Just in time for Christmas. Yea! It really is nice and it was worth all the work and wait that we had to do. Now I can't wait to get it completely done so I can get plants out there and lights. And then I will want it to get HOT so we can swim out there. That may be a while. Last night when I was watching the Lunar eclispe it was so nice to walk out there knowing there were NO critters lurking around. We don't usually have that many critters this time of year, but it has happened before. It is nice to know that if they are coming in here they will have to be very very small. And I think I can handle small. No more leaves, no more bugs and No more Snakes. YEA!

This is the view from behind it.

This small area to the left is where the grill will go.

Screen Enclosure progress

Since it was taking Soooooo long to get the deck refinished and these people have been waiting since the end of August to put up the screen we finally let them come and do their job. The rest of the deck project will have to be done after the screen. It could have been done this weekend but for whatever reason they didn't do the deck, so the screen is going up. Yesterday they brought all the screen. It was everywhere in the backyard. It is a LOT of screen.

They laid it over the pool

And in the yard

This morning they came back and they are about half way through. They are coming back tomorrow to hopefully finish it. The screen people have come out every single time they told me they would. They are doing a great job so far and I think we are going to love it. It will be SO nice to not have leaves, bugs and snakes in the pool. It makes the pool area look SO big. It will really be a nice place to just enjoy. Can't believe it is finally going up.

I can hardly wait until it is all done and I can put plants out there, lights, Lounge chairs etc.

And I really look forward to getting the pool clean and hopefully NOT having to clean it all the time. I love that it is such an open feeling without being opened. From the house it really looks big. Will post more pictures when it is done. At least we can see the bottom of the pool again. It still has concrete powder in the bottom but the water has cleared up.

When they are all finished with everythng we will get it cleaned out and then it will really look nice. Then I will really be ready for hot weather to come back.

Annual Christmas Outing to St. Augustine

Last night we went to St. Augustine with our good friends Austin & Tina and Don & Doris. We have got together for many years but last year we decided on going to St. Augustine and out to eat instead of us cooking, and we did this again this year. We had a great time. We ate at Cracker Barrel and then went into St. Augustine and caught the "Holly Jolly Trolley". It took us through the town and had a few stops where you could get off. We got off at the waxed museum for cookies and hot cider. This was so much nicer than trying to drive through the town or walk. We got to see everything and had so much fun. Here we are at Cracker Barrel for a delicious dinner.

Don & Doris

Austin & Tina

The hubs and I

Austin above and Tina below with the 3d glasses they gave us to wear. It made the lights look like snowflakes.

Just one of the sights in the town

We even spotted Elvis. He was having a "Blue Christmas". Poor guy. After all these years and still having a Blue Christmas.

This picture was at Winter Wonderland. This is held at the ampha theater. There is a lot of fun things to do there especially for kids.

Austin, Doris and Gary

Doris

The other halves.

The better halves :)

The whole gang

Christmas Party at the Lilbrary

Twice a month they have story time at the Library. Tanek really enjoys going. He likes to check out books and he likes the games and stories. This week they had their Christmas party with cookies, punch and Santa. The Library was all decorated pretty too. This picture is of Tanek, an elf and a Florida bear. We knew it was a Florida bear, because he was cold and had on a coat, hat and boots.

A time of telling Santa what you want for Christmas. This was easy. Legos and more legos.

Yummy cookies

After he had talked to Santa earlier and had his cookies he decided he needed to tell Santa something. He wanted to tell Santa that his mommy and daddy were his Santa.

Tanek and the big reindeer

Tanek with Ms. Chris. The kids love to hear her read stories to them. She is a lot of fun with the kids.

Snow at the Gaylord Palms

This week-end Stephanie, Tanek and I went to Disney to see all the Christmas lights and decorations and also to the Gaylord Palms to see their Ice and Snow. The below pictures are of just the snow part. I will post the Ice ones later. Tanek had the best time playing in the snow. We made snowballs and he slid down the hill on a raft. It was a lot of fun. The snow wasn't too cold, but the ice area was 9 degrees. VERY cold. It was fun to go see and play in but I was glad we could get out of it after awhile even though it was cold in Orlando today. Only 41 degrees when we came out. Brrrrrrrr. I am going to Florida where it is warm. :)

Tanek had a lot of fun making snow balls and throwing them at us. We all agreed when we got in the car on the way home that we would not like to live in the snow. Fun to play in but happy to leave behind.

Stephanie and Tanek were going to make a snow man but we didn't have time.

Tanek trying to make a snow angel

Another family made this snowman so we took advantage of it to get some pictures.

We went to see the Ice and there were some beautiful scupltures and then we came to play in the snow. It was much warmer in the snow than in the Ice. In the ice we wore big parka's and I felt like a 300 lb. Eskimo. Yuk.