An Afternoon at the Beach, Kind of...

This summer Memphis had a major heat wave that just made life miserable.  We were able to escape the city and go to a park dedicated to Davy Crockett where it was 10 degrees cooler!  The park had a beach like area where the boys were able to play.  I tried teaching Xander how to make sand castles but he had fun destroying what I was making.

Rough and Tumble Curtis

Curtis is getting stronger and stronger as these videos demonstrate.  He may be a big kid but a lot of that is muscle.  These videos show Xander and Curtis playing in our backyard on a normal day.  Curtis decided to seize this normal day and go on an adventure, to climb our massive hill.

Chronology of Blog

Having a break from work has given me the opportunity to work a bit on the family blog.  I had wanted to keep the integrity of the chronology of the posts, however, that has been completely thrown out.  I apologize if it makes reading it a little more difficult, but with so much going on in the present it made sense to post things happening now as they were fresh in my mind.  Also, it has been difficult to remember what exactly happened first or second.  So here is our family blog told out of order, but when you have a preschooler and a toddler in the house that is how most things turn out anyway.

Xander's Autumn Fun

As Autumn got going I decided that I wanted to play with Xander and Curtis outside in the leaves.  One of my favorite memories is of working outside with family members and then jumping into the leaves.  Curtis wasn't feeling well that day and was taking a nap.  These are my pictures with Xander.

Jump World

This indoor trampoline park was so much fun!  The boys had such a blast.  If you have young kids and you are planning a trip to Memphis, this should be a stop.

One thing that was very nice was how everything was sectioned off by age.  This prevented my little boys from being run over by the teens and tweens.

Thankmas

Since getting together for the holidays has become more complicated with my family spreading out into several states we started a tradition last year called "Thankmas," where we come together to celebrate both Christmas and Thanksgiving at the same time.  Last year Thankmas was in Utah, this year we met my parents halfway, near Gatlinburg, TN.

Xander loves his new plane from Grandpa Joe and Grandma Gisele.

We did a ton of fun things with my parents, mini golfing, Black Friday shopping, and exploring some of the sights in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.

This photo was taken as we walked around Gatlinburg.

In these photos the boys enjoy a light show at a fountain.

 This is where we met to have our Thanksgiving feast.  It was really good!

This is one of the gifts that Pamela and I picked out for my parents.  They really liked it!

Holiday Traffic

Art by Xander Maynard age 3 and 11 months.

Stockings

Xander got some one on one attention this Christmas.  Curtis has been feeling sick and was fast asleep.  We decided to let Curtis sleep and to allow Xander to look through his stocking on his own.

Grandma jumped in on the fun and was thrilled with her stocking stuffers.

Xander was very excited for Christmas so we ended up getting things going.  Not wanting Curtis to be left out we ended up waking him up and starting him out with his stocking as well.  It took Curtis a little while to wake up but when he did it was non stop play for hours!