Joey to Mom: I'm busy right now, please don't bug me.
A little later: Okay, I'm done now, you can bug me...Mom, come bug me.

Joey(after noticing the vacuum marks on the stairs) : Mom! Thank you so much for vacuuming my stairs!
Then he gave me a big hug.

Joey and I were making cookies for this group that ministers to men in prison. I was explaining to Joey why we were making the cookies. I told him that we wanted to let the men know that God still loves them even though they did something bad. Joey looked confused so I asked, "Does Mommy love you when you do something bad." He emphatically answered, "No!" and looked surprised that I even asked the question. Apparently that's a concept we need to work on.

Merry Christmas!
Hannah finally found out how much fun it is to play with/eat the Christmas tree and ornaments.

Joey likes dressing up in costumes so much, he is now making up his own.
Spiderman costume:
Spiderman pajamas...check
Spiderman shoes...check
gardening gloves...check

ski hat for a mask...check

And yes, he actually does run around our house with that hat over his head. No visits to the ER yet...

Next year I hope to have my act together enough to do a Jesse Tree. I love the idea of telling "the Story of God in the Old Testament, and [connecting] the Advent Season with the faithfulness of God across 4,000 years of history." For now we have this little Christmas chain counting down the days to Christmas. It's helpful having a dad who is 6'5."

I love living in sunny California and being able to enjoy the park even in the winter. It's one of our favorite things to do. We pack a lunch and fit in a trip in between Hannah's two naps. Now that Hannah is getting older, she's enjoying the park more too.

That face means it's time to get home for our afternoon nap.

When Joey was little, he had such a funny way of sitting. He always sat on his knees just like Andy and Andy's mom still do when they are sitting on the floor.
With Hannah, she always likes to sit like this. She's stretching that quad muscle!

Now that Joey is three, I figured it was a good time to take him to the dentist. He loves the Berenstain Bear book about visiting the dentist, so he was pretty excited about our trip.

He was very brave and had no problem going to the back by himself with the hygienist. He did try to tell her which way to go when she took him to get his x-rays, but he didn't put up a fight when she didn't go where he thought they should go.

At the end of the cavity-free visit (hooray!), he got an electric toothbrush with Wall-E, the robot, on it. He has no idea who Wall-E is, but he was so excited that, without any prompting, shouted with glee, "THANK YOU FOR MY WALL-E TOOTHBRUSH."

*Just for the record, there is absolutely no connection between the last post (with the whole baking sheet of cookies) and this post. :-)

Joey has loved this book for a long time. We had fun making these "ginger-men cookies" although I really tried to let go of some of my controlling tendencies while we decorated the cookies. I learned that 3- year-olds don't make the prettiest cookies, but they were still yummy!

We picked out and decorated our Christmas tree, so our Christmas season has officially begun. We went to the same Christmas tree place as last year. The biggest difference was Hannah! Last year she was just a little bump in my belly. She's a lot cuter now, especially with her hair's newfound pigtail abilities. Pigtails are probably the best reason to have a girl.

Bubba, Nana, and Uncle Timmy came with us as well, so Joey was pumped.

Hannah liked the extra attention/cuddling as well.

Yay for Christmas trees!

And now, Hannah gets her stocking. I love it, and it looks great with Joey's.
Thanks, Mom!

For some reason, Andy is always looking for an excuse to grow a mustache. Unfortunately he recently found an excuse that will work every year. It's called Movember. Men grow mustaches in November to raise awareness for men's health issues.

Andy and his friend from work were on the same Movember team. While Geoff raised over $100, Andy's total was $0. When I teased him about it he said, "I'm not raising money, I'm raising awareness."

I guess that's fair because his mustache did make me aware of a few things:

1. November has now lost some of its appeal to me.
2. I'm really glad we no longer live in the '70's.
3. I should have had a prenuptial agreement that included a "no mustache" clause.


To be fair, Andy did not love the mustache either. In fact he couldn't wait to shave it off. Unfortunately, I don't think he will remember that come next November, I mean Movember.

As usual, we drove over to Phoenix for Thanksgiving. As usual, we had a wonderful time. As usual, I don't have very good pictures of our trip.

Oh yeah, see that fierce mustache in the background. More on that later...