Our Family

Our Family

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

And the most cherished christmas gift is....


A Cars Cell Phone! Yes amidst the thousands of toys our boys racked up this year, a simple (cheap, dare I say!) cellphone is the winner. Santa brought it and placed it in Micah's stocking. (Sidenote: Santa only brings stocking toys in our family in an effort not to be the focus of Christmas, but also not to show up mommy and daddy...I mean, I want the credit! Funny how it all turned out!)
Micah takes his flip camera phone EVERYWHERE! Did I mention it has Lightning McQueen on it? Last night we made him put it on the foyer table with our phones so he wouldn't take it to bed.

Yesterday, we went on a walk and he had to bring the phone. So he put it in the basket in the stroller. Every couple of minutes or minute he would stop me, take out his phone, open it, hold it up, and "take a picture", snap it shut, and casually toss it back in the stroller. No big deal, I am just three and I have a phone, that takes pictures.
So I said, Micah, what are you taking a picture of? The truck, the trash, the grass, nothing big, he shrugs, no biggie.
So we walk farther down the road and two men are digging in the street. Decked out with hard hats, work boots, and covered in mud, all of a sudden these two Hispanic men are Micah's idols. He casually approached them pulls out his phone and stops to take a picture on his camera phone, no big deal. With that, he snaps it shut tosses in the stroller and we continue on. Priceless!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Strange I know...

Those of you who know Ed and his brothers well know that they had a very interesting childhood! They have very creative minds and used them while playing as children. All they did was play outside and use their imagination. So they had this world of stuffed animals that all had names (first, middle, and last), birthdays, and stories to their lives. For example, Donald Duck was not Donald Duck. He was David Jason Jobeahskii XIII. His birthday was December 13th and his owners name was Ed Dawson. He came over on a ship from Italy to NYC during the Great Duck Wars. Other classmates of David included MicMac Jones, MooMoo Benjamin Johnathan Jacob Jenkins, Weenie Duck, Peter Puckett, Yugoslavia Kermit, and Willy Blueberry Martin.

Willy is a plastic coin bank, bought at a yard sale, who used to wear a onesie and travel almost everywhere with them, including the grocery store. One boiling summer they went to VBS and left Willy in the car, and he tragically melted! They got into the car, grabbed his head, and it smushed. After multiple operations, his head was shaped back into its original form.

Ed and his brothers thought it was cool to take a picture with him. He even wound up in a rare family reunion picture at the family farm that is now in the Martin genealogy book! Here is a picture taken when they were boys. And through the encouragement of myself and Stephanie (Ray's wife), they reenacted it when we got together for Christmas. Beautiful! Gosh, they were so weird! If anyone is a little troubled by this, I am too!




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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Christmas Part 1...The Martins

Sunday we had our first Christmas gathering with Ed's side of the family. Brother Ray and Stephanie were in town from ATL and so we celebrated on Sunday after church. Here are some Christmas tree shots...it is so hard to snap pictures with a 3 year old that wants nothing to do with it. His new thing is "I don't want to!" My response, "Well you have to...sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do." Very similar to a speech I give myself from time to time. A lesson we adults need too! (P.S. we are growing Micah's hair out, kind of in between stage right now...ugh!)



First present opened-a stuffed elephant-thanks Ma! We really tried to focus on the giving the presents part more so than the getting. A tough lesson for a 3 year old but I think he got it. The Martin tradition is one gift at a time. So he had to wait until it was his turn again to get gifts. He was so excited. He would help everyone else open it. He would exclaim things like "What do you think it is? I don't know" "I'm so excited!" "Let's see!" All in his sing song voice. Each gift opened with excitement. So much more animation this year, I love it! Well two more Christmas celebrations then his birthday...all within one week! Such a confusing time for him, oh well!
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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Baking Day 2

Well we successfully finished the christmas baking! Thursday I woke up exhausted and not feeling myself (no I'm not pregnant!) so I decided that I would try my hardest to have a fun day of baking with my boy, but it didn't last very long. So I sent him up to his room to play and Caleb was napping, so I had peace and quiet. I made the dough for snickerdoodles and sugar cookies and then put them in the fridge. Then I made the peanut butter part for the buckeye balls and put them in the fridge. First step down! After an exhausting morning with the boys and no energy, it was finally naptime!
And so I postponed cookie time until after dinner so Ed could participate...or help me. So I napped! When cookie time actually came, I was so exhausted. So the excitement or thrill of it all wore off and honestly I just wanted to finish it. So Ed and Micah did the snickerdoodles and I finished the buckeye balls...yum! What better combo is there than chocolate and peanut butter! Then we decorated the sugar cookies. They don't look perfect, but they will do. I just read Amanda Jones' blog and I laughed because I had the same experience with the sprinkles. I mean why would I think that a 3 year old would know how to control the pouring of the sprinkles! Naturally he just turned his hand upside down and out came the sprinkles! How cute is he though?So here is what our cookies look like:I really had fun making them this year. After all I had Micah's help and my Kitchen Aid, which I did not have either last year! However, I am glad that today I don't have to worry about cookies anymore, except for eating them, of course!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Christmas cookies...Day 1

This year has been so fun going through the holidays all over again with a little boy one year older. With Micah's 3rd birthday right around the corner, I have found Christmas so much more exciting. He LOVED decorating the tree. He managed to get all the ornaments right grouped together near the bottom of the tree. And every day since he picks one off the tree and hangs it elsewhere. And when they fall off, he rescues the fallen ornament and hangs it back up in his group. Needless to say, we did not go for the best dressed tree award this year! Our tree just has character!

Anyway, life has been busy, i think we are on night number 11 of 16 straight nights in a row of being out. I'm just plain tired and yet, God has given me what I've needed to not feel like this holiday is stressful. I guess he has graciously protected me from that. I have enjoyed my family more in the last week than I have in the last couple of months. It has been so sweet!

We just celebrated Ed's birthday, 29th, in case you cared! I appreciate my husband so much and was so excited about celebrating him.

Today, Micah and I started day one of our christmas cookie baking. Today we made Peanut Blossoms and Sweet Minglers (White trash or puppy chow or things other people calls it that I cannot mention...you know who you are!). Tomorrow is sugar cookies, buckeye balls, and snickerdoodles! Micah loves to help!

I'm really tired and not even sure if I have made any sense on this so forgive me if I wrote something really stupid!