The Perfect Tree

Well, thankfully, we are back at home, and both feeling a lot better. 

I don't know whether or not Jenny gave me what she had, or if I contracted another mutant strain of something. I felt terrible all day Friday, and ached from head to toe. Not a good week for the Bunch Fam. 

But we're home, Arkansas won (though we had to hear it over the radio as we traveled back to LR last night...), and we're unpacked and ready for Sunday. 

Since we didn't have a real Thanksgiving meal, Jenny's parents brought us a full spread today, and cooked a turkey for us while we all went out and searched for trees. 

For the past few years, we have found Mary's Nursery in Bryant to be the best selection of trees. Ours last year came from there, and was perfect. 

So this afternoon, Jenny, Ben, Lary, Debbie, Holly and I piled into our vehicle and headed off. Jenny's mom picked a perfect tree for their living room, but Jenny and I couldn't decide on one for our house. While we were there, we managed to get some pics of Ben at his first tree lot. 

After we got their tree back to our house and into Lary's truck, we had our abbreviated version of Thanksgiving dinner...two days late. Once dinner was over and cleaned up, Jenny and I headed down to a different lot and found the 2008 Bunch Family Christmas Tree. Our house is a wreck, and we're both still wiped-out, but it's in its standing and fits the space perfectly. We'll post more pics once it's decorated. 

Enjoy the last day of Thanksgiving weekend. 

Thanksgiving...?

So I thought Ben's first Thanksgiving would be spent with us at my favorite Aunt Kay's, surrounded by cousins and aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Instead, Ben is at Aunt Kay's with my parents and all of our extended family, and I'm sitting alone in my parents' den. Jenny woke up at 11 last night with the stomach flu. After a 3 AM trip to Walgreen's for phenergan, a 3:30 to 4:30 AM marathon cry session from Ben, who only wanted his mommy, I'm wiped.

Jenny is drugged-out in my parents' bed. Not the memorable Baby's 1st Thanksgiving we were hoping for. Guess I'll help put my parents' trees up later today after I warm up my take-out tray from Aunt Kay's...can you tell I'm feeling sorry for myself right about now?????

At least I'm not in the overly-dedicated group of golfer schmucks who pass along the cart path every few minutes. Who plays golf on Thanksgiving?

But, even in my current state of self-pity, I am most relieved and indeed thankful that they caught the madman who attacked Anne Pressly. A job well done to our local law enforcement officials. We'll all sleep a little easier tonight. 

Thankful...

Who could ask for anything more?

Happy Thanksgiving.

A Must Read

If you've been in our home then you've probably noticed that I read John Grisham books. In fact, I've read all of them. Several times. I enjoy reading for reading's sake, and that was hard to do while in seminary. I enjoy novels that I can breeze through in a couple of days, ones that don't wear on my intellect.

To those of you who have read Augustine or Aquinas, maybe your brains also enjoy an occasional respite. 

Whatever your reading tendencies may be, I have to recommend Grisham's "Skipping Christmas." I'll try not to get on my soap box about the box-office flop "Christmas with the Kranks"...I've never seen it, and just the title change alone is enough for me to know that it bears little resemblance to the novel. 

But in my opinion, the novel is a must read. In fact, we read it every year. I'll spare you my personal synopsis and just tell you to read it for yourself. You'll be glad you did. 

Top Ten Signs It's Baby's First Christmas

10. You use caribeners to hook four baby gates together to make a fence around the Christmas tree

9. Your Christmas tree looks like its lower half has insufficient limb capactiy, thus rendering it ornament-non-compliant 

8. All furniture surfaces topped with Department 56 Villages have been bolted to the wall for extra stability. 

7. All of the items in #8 have been reinforced with duct tape 

6. The Stockings are hung by the ceiling with care...because if they were hanging from the mantle he'd use them to pull himself up. 

5. Last year's classic outlining of the house in C9 White Lights has turned to: lights on the roof, on the porch posts, on the mailbox, santa's rear-end sticking out of your chimney, and the addition of at least two inflatables. 

4. "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" is on continual repeat in your car

3. You've purchased at least six outfits for the four Sundays of Advent at your church

2. You've been questioned since birth, although indirectly, as to which Grandparents get to wake up with him Christmas morning

1. Weekends with the grandparents so mommy and daddy can sleep in is "The Gift that Keeps on Giving the Whole Year." Clark. 

The First of Many...

I'm thinking about a new trend...top ten lists every Monday. 

Now, I know Dave Letterman does one every night, but Jay Leno used to do Headlines on Mondays, so I guess that's where this once-a-week idea came from. 

For today, to get you into the spirit a little early, it's my Top 10 Favorite Lines from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

10. "Well, you see, the plate runs right underneath my part, here...and over here it's nothin...but here, if this gets dented, then my hair just ain't gonna look right."

9. "Well if that cat had nine lives he just spent 'em all..."

8. "Well why is the carpet all wet, Todd?" "I don't know, Margo..."

7. "Clark, that's the gift that keeps on givin' the whole year."

6. "Would it be indecent to ask the grandparents to stay in a motel?"

5. "Save the neck for me, Clark."

4. "It's a beaut, Clark, it's a beaut!"   "Dad, Dad, you taught me everything I know about exterior illumination..."

3. "Oh boy...this is a surprise, Clark. This is just a real nice surprise...just a real, nice, surprise."

2. "So, uh, when did you get the tenement on wheels?" "Oh that there? That's an R-V."

1. "You serious, Clark?"

So you can see, we've gone green...and red.

Well, I guess we are "those" people. 

You know the ones. 

The ones who listen to Christmas music while the air conditioning is on full blast. 

The ones who start planning their illumination heroics weeks before Thanksgiving. 

The ones who will put a wreath on the front of at least one SUV this year. 

We just love the Holidays. As soon as Halloween is over, we're in full swing. In both of our families, Thanksgiving is just as much about Christmas as it is about Turkey and Dressing. We stay on a couple of nights at my parents to help them with their tree. Jenny's family goes on a tree hunt searching far and wide through lots in Central Arkansas the day after Thanksgiving. Although, by Thanksgiving Day her mom already has her snowman scenes placed around the house. 

Our house and shrubs will be covered in white lights. We'll have a tree that's too big for our living room. We'll have both the Original Snow Village and North Pole Village scattered around. Ben will even have a tree in his room...this, and every year. 

So, as you can tell in our new blog color-scheme, and further discover by our new blog subtitle...we're ready for it. 

And if anyone knows the channel number of an xM radio station that plays continuous Christmas music, let us know. 

Falling Leaves

The weather is so beautiful right now, and the trees all over town are so perfect, we couldn't resist going out to take these:

Look who was sitting up in his crib this morning...

Good thing we lowered his mattress height yesterday. 

My wife and the dogs were all snug in our bed...

While visions of a leaf-free yard danced through my head.

Then it rained. 

I have a long weekend this week...as a staff member, if you don't use your vacation days at our church, you lose them. So, I had yesterday off...I have the day before Thanksgiving off, and then I have a week off between Christmas and New Year's Day. WOO HOO. 

Anywho,  Ben and I started the day off by playing while Mommy slept off more of her remaining flu symptoms, and we ventured out - still in our p.j.s, to grab some starbucks. Ben + Footie p.j.s + starbucks employees & customers = traffic jam at the cream and sugar bar. 

With the morning rain, I wasn't able to get my agenda accomplished...I had planned to vaccum and bag the six inch blanket of leaves in our front yard, and wash and clean out both cars. When the rain was over and the sun dried the driveway, I was able to at least blow off the drive and the front walk. I also got the cars cleaned out, but not washed. 

So, you ask, what did I do with the rest of my day off. Well, I did what any other red-blooded 30 year-old American male would do with his day off. I re-arranged the nursery. 

I haven't been happy with it since we finished it last spring, just because when you walk in you don't see the crib and the bedding we spent so much time fretting over. 

Here's how it looks now:

Now, when you walk in, the crib catches your eye. His small dresser is also to your left as you walk in, and the chair is now over by the windows. He has three large windows grouped together, so this way he can sit in the chair with his Mommy and hopefully watch the snow fall this winter. 

So, that was my day off. This morning we have an appointment for portraits with Santa. We'll see how that goes. 

And, as I sit here on my sofa watching the crews labor in the yards of our neighborhood's more affluent residents, and see the showers of leaves falling and nullifying their efforts, I smile and think to myself, Why not wait another week or so on those leaves?

Fortunately...Unfortunately

Fortunately, we were able to take some pictures of Ben today. Unfortunately, my camera died two weeks ago, so we were waiting on one of my brother's to arrive. 

Fortunately, the camera can be fixed. Unfortunately, it will cost over 250.00 to repair it. 

Fortunately, my brother's camera arrived Tuesday. Unfortunately, my lens didn't fit it. 

Fortunately, he had another one. Unfortunately, I had to wait for it to arrive. 

Fortunately, it arrived today. Fortunately, Ben is still as cute as he was last week. 

Enjoy. 

And, you've been waiting for it all year...wait no longer. 

The Bunch Halloween Picture. 

Annabelle was a hot dog. 

Bailey turned six this year and informed us that he's too old to dress up for Halloween any longer. 

Reunited and it feels...well, it was the right thing to do.

Okay, it turns out that I don't have enough to say that doesn't involve Benjamin to support my own baby-free blog. 

He's the most entertaining thing we have in our lives, and from sun-up to sun-down, he's all we think about and focus on. 

So, I'm back...I guess if you're one of our loyal readers, then you'll just have to deal with occasional rants and diatribes about things such as seeing a passenger in a yellow cab drive through Walgreens this morning and ask the pharmacist if they would go to the front of the store and pick up a pack of cigarettes and sell them to him through the window...

Or my semi-occasional emotional discourses on things such as going to the symphony at Christmas and the arrival of the red cup at Starbuck's each year (I had my first today). 

It only happens once a year...

I guess you just have to take the good...Benjamin...with the bad...a look into my thought process. 

On to more pressing issues...

Jenny has the flu. Her doctor said that if it is the flu, then she's one of the first cases in town. I'm pretty sure that's what it is...fever, headache, body aches, cough and congestion, etc, etc. 

So, I've been playing Mr. Mom to Benjamin. I took a sick day, and Ben and I went to vote first thing this morning. 

"Here I am making bi-partisan friends at Little Rock Fire Station No. 10. My buddy Craig O'Neill walked past me and video taped me waiting in line to vote. He said to me, 

"Stop being so serious, kid...it's just the president we're voting for."

I'm going to try and get Jenny up there before the day is over. The precinct is just around the corner from our house. 

Here's a picture of our little pumpkin at the Fall Festival at our church a week back. More to come. 

Delayed Gratification

So apparently if you bend one of the copper prongs in the compact flash card port on a rather expensive camera, the camera no longer works. 

There is absolutely no way either of us could have bent this prong. One little prong...one big problem. 

Either we pay 250.00 to have it fixed, or we buy a new camera. We're checking into the latter. 

In the meantime, my brother has been gracious enough to loan us his EOS 10D...however, we left the camera at my parents', and they're mailing it to us...(along with Todd's sunglasses...). So, we're going to dress Benjamin up in his costume later this week and re-shoot his Halloween pictures. 

Check back...you'll love them.