It may be starting to look a lot like Chrsitmas (As far as Christmas in Texas goes), but it feels a lot like September all stinking over again

Sometimes, I sing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" and I laugh.

Anyways, after my last post, we did indeed get our few, meager Christmas decorations out and on display, including our tree. See?

And just as I was getting super excited and festive and really feelin' the Christmas season vibe, the weather gives us a few days of high 70's temperatures. I'm sorry, but it's really hard to think Christmassy thoughts when you're wearing shorts and a t-shirt outside. It helps to have Christmas music playing consistently throughout the day.
   Back to the decorating; the boys had mixed reactions to the new, shiny objects in our house. Noah was exuberant and wanted to help put every ornament on the tree. Witten was standoffish about the whole deal and didn't care to get any closer than three feet to the tree, even when it was lit up.

Noah helping, Witten offering moral support from a reasonable distance

Of course, now that he has grown accustomed to the tree, Witten likes to crawl right up to it and yank off the red ball ornaments from the lowest branches. I'm highly contemplating getting a child fence to set up around that dern tree. But I won't. That would completely ruin the look.

 In non-Christmas news, Witten has started taking shaky, stiff-legged steps with his walkers. With no pushing or pressuring from mommy (Good job, me), Witten just up and grabbed hold of his loud, obnoxious choo-choo walker and faltered across the living room rug.  Please excuse me while I weep for a second.

   I can see Witten's longing to keep up with his big brother. He tries his hardest to army crawl as fast as he can after his much more able-bodied brother as Noah dashes from one room to the next. It's almost sad to watch and Witten gets frustrated quickly. I know he'll be darting down the hallway in no time at all, so I'm not too worried. Neither am I encouraging him to hurry up with the walking any faster than he already is. As my current baby, he's gotta keep that "babyness" quality about him as long as possible, else I'll start craving another one!
   In other super-impressive, no-I'm-not-trying-to-brag-but-I-kind-of-am news, yesterday morning I brought Witten into bed with Stephan and I, as he decided to start his morning kinda early and I didn't want to get going just yet. After feeding him a bit, I set him between his daddy and me and let him pat his daddy, as he does when he's happy to see someone. I said to him, "Witten, this is Daddy. Can you say 'daddy'?" Witten looked at me, then at Stephan, and then he started slapping Stephan on the forehead and saying "dadee. dadee. dadee." with each slap. Forgive me, the memory restarted the weeping...

Now, readers, I wrap things up with another grateful doxology of my own invention in honor of the God who has and continues to give blessings abundantly.

  Praise God for this sweet life I live.
Praise God for all the grace He gives.
 Praise His great love, forever true.
Praise Him for it is right to do!

My precious family. Thank You, Lord.