Our Life in the Yellow Brick House

Everyday when I get home from work, I check our mailbox. Some days it's empty, other days it's filled with bills, coupons or endless amounts of credit card applications. But for weeks, I have been opening up our mailbox to find hand-addressed envelopes filled with people I love. It's so much fun to see their Christmas cards and watch their families grow. Add it to the many things I enjoy about this season. I have been on Christmas break for several days now. All of our presents are bought and wrapped up with bows, so I thought now would be a great time to give you a little update. I have a personal rule to never decorate our house before Thanksgiving, but I just couldn't wait this year. My coworkers and friends were starting with their decorations early. They helped me reason that because Thanksgiving was later than usual AND we were leaving for vacation on Dec. 18th, we better get our tree up so we could enjoy it. I did all of the decorating while Kyle watched sport...

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Fox family this year. The plan was to meet in Mulvane, but then Greg and Stacie bought a house in the country near Rose Hill, so we moved the party there. I kept checking-in to make sure they still wanted to host, considering they weren't actually moving in until the Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, but Stacie assured me they still wanted us to come. Unlike me, she is a natural hostess and she rolls with the punches, not letting little (or big) things stand in her way. How I envy that about her... It was a great time. We got a tour of the new house, played with the boys and the guys even did a little shooting while the girls put the finishing touches on the meal. There was one tragic mishap, though. The stuffing never made it to the table. In all the excitement and commotion, Stacie forgot to make it. We gave her a hard time the rest of the night, saying Thanksgiving just isn't the same without stuffing and how that's what we WE...