Trying to get back to my A-Game...

So, it's been a little more than a week since we returned home from our Christmas travels. I was not on, what I like to call, my A-game before Christmas and I surely have not gotten it back quickly after Christmas. This includes having the house cleaned up, dishes washed (especially this one), keeping in touch with old friends and being intentional and proactive with new ones. I'll blame it partly on the pregnancy, partly on recovering from our Christmas trip, and partly on staying up too late. Thankfully, Robert jumped in to help with the many, many dishes today, I have done almost all of our laundry, put up our Christmas decorations, vacuumed a little, and saw friends at the library and at a playdate. So, that's a good start. Hopefully, I will continue to pick up momentum and be back on my A-game shortly!


For those interested in the details of our Christmas journeys, here's a quick rundown. Please feel free to skip this part if this is of no interest to you. No hurt feelings.

Dec. 19th - Finally get on the road about 5:30 PM. Arrive in TEXARKANA to spend the night in a hotel. Driving time - 6 hours.

Dec. 20th - Drive to MEMPHIS. Arrive around 3:30 PM. Driving time - 4 hours. Stay at Andy's house, our good friend and fantastic host! Visit with friends. Go to church. Have some good ol' Memphis BBQ at my favorite place, the Germantown Commissary.

**I wish we could have eaten at all of our favorite Memphis restaurants - Bryant's, Ching's Wings, the Chinese Sub Shop and more.

Dec. 22nd - get new tires put on the car in Memphis (b/c Robert found a great deal, not b/c of any bad issues, thankfully), and drive to FRANKLIN, TN. - Driving time - 3.5 hours. Visit with friends, eat a delicious meal, spend the night with our gracious and welcoming hosts.

Dec. 23rd - Enjoy a great breakfast with friends and hit the road for LUGOFF, SC. Driving time - 7.5 hours. (While driving near Chattanooga, see a sheet of ice fly off of the top of an 18-wheeler and smash into the windshield of the car in front of us...no damage done, thankfully, and really cool and kinda scary at the same time!)

Visit with family and friends, go to Christmas Eve service and church, eat some good Mama's cooking, enjoy opening presents with family and celebrating Jesus' birthday, and memorize the many moments of "Hey, Grandad!", "Hey, G.G.!", "Grandad/G.G., come to my room and play!"

Dec. 30th - Hit the road for the long trip back to Texas...first, stopping outside of ATLANTA, to visit with Robert's brother and his awesome family. Keep trucking to MONTGOMERY, AL where we spend the night in a hotel. Driving time - 6 hours.

Dec. 31st - Spend New Year's Eve driving home to TEXAS. Driving time - 10 hours.

Jan. 1st - Spend all day recovering from LAFIR - also known as "Losing All Feeling In the Rearend."

I have no Christmas pictures, b/c they are all on my parents' cameras. But here are a few from our camera.

I decided to make a graham cracker/icing house instead of buy the gingerbread house kits (we'll reconsider this decision next year!) to do with Bo. It ended up being more work than I originally had planned, and Bo wasn't much help as he was more interested in eating the icing and graham crackers, than helping to put it together...imagine that. So the work fell to me, and then to Robert. And being the artist that he is, our graham cracker "house", turned out to look more like a "church". And I LOVED it! Too bad it took so long that Bo had to go to bed before we could decorate it with all the candies I bought. So, this season, we made "The Sanders' First Ever Graham Cracker and White Icing Church".



This is Bo riding the train at the mall.


This is Bo riding the boat with Tigger in Toys 'R Us. Is there a trend here?


He's getting so big! He's not a baby anymore!


This is Bo's present to us that he made in his class at CDO. If you can't tell, it's a wreath with berries. The berries are fingerprints. So cute!



This is another craft that the teacher of Bo's CDO class put together for us. I think it's stinkin' adorable.

This is a close-up of the picture - Bo looking down at Baby Jesus in the manger.


Robert showed me how to take some cool night shots. This is on our drive thru Atlanta. I like it b/c the lights look like musical notes floating in the air.