I'm busy, emotional (Meg's 1st Christmas), and just plain exhausted, but I thought I'd warn you...
Watch out, world! Megan and Daddy gave me a wonderful Christmas present this morning. I got a 2G card for my camera! To put the importance of that in perspective, I used to be able to take 134 pictures on my card before having to "dump" it. NOW, I can take 640 pictures before it's full. Whoa...A family member suggested that perhaps maybe I didn't need a larger card; it was probably okay that I had "limits" to my digital photo capabilities. HA! I still have limits - only they're larger!!!!! Grandma and Grandpa also gave me my own Photo Printer! Now I can take and print pictures. I'm set!
Please continue holding. I'll update the few days leading up to Christmas and Meg's 1st Christmas tomorrow!

Megan learned how to drink out of a straw today. First, she sampled my smoothie and experienced 'brain freeze' we think. This evening, she tasted lemonade...(yes, I sound like an idiot in the background, but we had been playing a game earlier that I'd ask her if she liked it and wanted more.)

A working friend of mine asked me if I get ever get bored being a housewife/stay-at-home mom. I asked to clarify, "Like bored of being one or bored during the day?" Bored during the day. Hmmmm...isn't that an oxymoron? Bored housewife? Sheesh. I've never been busier in my life! If I am not chasing, feeding, cleaning, changing, reading to, playing with, rocking, consoling, etc Megan than I am folding laundry, doing dishes, Swiffering the house, cooking a meal, etc. And those are just the things that popped into my head first! No way am I bored. But thanks for asking!

We were watching Sunday Night Football, but the real show was in our own living room. Meg wouldn't settle down to go to sleep, so we let her play around for about an hour. She got just plain goofy after a while. The video is long, but towards the end she shows off some serious walking skills.

Since I work part-time at home with a new company, they are putting together a presentation to introduce the new people (that work elsewhere) to the current office staff. They asked me for a brief description of my current company, position, and title, plus a picture. It was easy to grant the first request. Current position = stay-at-home-mom. Current title = Megan's mom. Good luck with the second request! The last picture we have of just me was taken in the delivery room, so we got the camera out to take a picture of Mommy....with Megan, of course! But I wouldn't have it any other way.

I just love this girl! I can't even describe it. People ask if I'm glad I quit teaching to stay home with her. Without a doubt. No question about it. 100% the right thing for me to do. For the record, I'm concerned about working part-time. I don't want anything to take me away from Megan. The only good thing about it is that I work mostly when she's asleep or with her Daddy. She'll barely even notice! Plus, it's very temporary. May...then no more (hopefully). In the mean time I'll practice saying, "No." Megan can help me since she says "no-no" at least 100 times a day.

To borrow a line from Dr. Laura, that I never even considered coming from my mouth, "I am my kid's mom!"

Another night of torture for Meg. We went with our friends, the Rogers, to visit Santa and everything was just fine until I handed her off. Holy cow. Meltdown. Santa was very sweet to her while he discussed her "list" (thank you Grandpa for writing it down before we got up there). Grandpa, Grandma, and Uncle Scott surprised us by showing up while we were in line. It was so nice to have help with her before, during, and after! After the meltdown, Grandpa got her calmed down, and they took off window shopping down the mall.

Megan and Daddy went to visit the Great-Grandparents today! Meg played hard, gave lots of cheesy smiles, ate a banana snack, and ran all over the house. I sure missed my family!! It was quiet around here...too quiet, if that's even possible.

After pictures, we bundled the kids up and took a stroll through Gran and Papa's neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. Of course Megan can't get out of Gran's back door without snatching a flag out of the bucket for the road (sweet Gran doesn't seem to mind that her flags keep disappearing). The highlight of the trip for Megan was the American flag out of Christmas lights. Whoa...she was so excited! She pointed at it with her own little flag. She's such a nut! The older kids brought their toy hunting guns and shot all of the Christmas light deer we saw (and some we didn't see) along the way.

Aunt Lisa handmade a sock monkey for Megan for Christmas. It is SO cute! Today, Meg and I went to Joann's Fabric Superstore. Megan brought in Ms. Monkey, and they rode around together in the cart. Pretty soon, Megan began swinging and flinging Ms. Monkey about her head. Not long after that, she started "singing" (yelling for those who know her), followed closely by bouncing. So here I am at the store with a bouncing, singing, monkey-flinging 10 month old. Two old ladies told two other old ladies about her, so they followed the noise to the spectacle. They had such a laugh! It wasn't 2 minutes later that 2 employees from the back had heard about the show and came to watch. Meanwhile, Megan - never missing the opportunity to dole out cheesey smiles - was just LOVING the attention, so the moves became quite exaggerated. The noise only subsided long enough to give a cheesey smile. She is such a hoot!

We won't be together for Christmas, so we had our family gift exchange on Sunday, in Memphis, before all going our separate ways. It was slightly unconventional, but 45 minutes in the Courtyard by Marriott did the trick. Each of the married siblings drew a name and bought for that person - Matt and Jeff exchanged Polos (great minds...). Megan got a Cabbage Patch newborn, a caterpiller pull-toy, a very neat sock monkey handmade by Aunt Lisa (I can't find a picture of it, but maybe someone else has one on their camera), and a fleece jacket which will come in very handy tonight!

A family picture was top priority on this trip. We wanted something special, casual, and fun. A nice old man and his family loaned us their driveway and trees for the picture. With three babies, it took forever, but we are happy with what we got. Thanks to Matt, our esteemed photographer, for the use the of the tripod, camera, and for Photoshopping expertise!

Megan had a great time in Booney-ville, but she's glad to be home! She got the grand tour of Grandpa's hometown, played with her cousins, picked up foreign objects and put them in her mouth, got sick, and ate lots of food! Now we're home with a fever and the same-type cold we just got over a week and a half ago. It was inevitable with 50+ people around....

As if Megan didn't have enough cousins already, she met some new ones this week! My sister, two cousins, and I all had babies born within three weeks of each other. There are six within six months of each other. And they really don't have much to do with each other right now. But we're looking forward to about 2 years from now....that ought to be a blast!