A New Tradition

We took part in a new Christmas Eve tradition this year, hosted by Nana and Putty and featuring an all-star lineup of family and friends.  Instead of describing what a great time we had, we've posted a new photo album to the left side of the page with some really good photos of the players.  (Ginger apparently had her good eye in for the occasion because these are fantastic.)

We think it is safe to say that a good time was had by all, and we look forward to many more years of celebrations like this.  Nice job Putty and Nana!

A Better Christmas Letter

The management at Walt's World has been participating in the Advent Conspiracy this holiday season.  If we haven't shared this with you yet, we encourage you to follow the link and get some ideas for next year. 

The "conspiracy" challenges participants to Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More and Love All.  To that end, we decided to nix the annual Christmas card and its accompanying expense in favor of an electronic blitz of emails, Facebook postings and a blog entry.  Hopefully, we've got you all covered.

However you receive our good wishes, we hope that you have a merry Christmas and a safe, healthy and prosperous New Year.

And now we present the Walt's World 2008 Year In Review in three minutes:

Overheard 12/16/08

Walt: Daddy, what do you want for Christmas?

Daddy: A happy little boy.

Walt: But Daddy, you already have a happy little boy.  What else do you want?

A Few Reasons Why Walt's Daddy Really Likes Him Right Now

1.  He uses words like 'suddenly' and 'often'.

2.  Lately, he's been insisting that during our nightly football games we say, 'Christmas Hut!' instead of the usual, 'Hut!'

3.  He picks on his mother.  Like the other day when he sneaked up behind her while she was on the step ladder vacuuming the ceiling fan blades, turned the vacuum off and ran away.

4.  He gets really mad when I call him 'Princess Walt' and insists that I then call him 'Car Walt.'

5.  Today, he set up his nativity scene as a football game and announced that the Bulldogs were playing the Cowboys.

6.  He calls me out when I tease him.

7.  This past weekend, he spelled the word 'cold' on the kitchen floor with refrigerator magnet letters after reading it on the faucet handle in the bathroom.  Ginger and I both thought the other had something to do with it.

8.  He frequently breaks out in Christmas carols despite the fact that he only knows about every third word.

9.  When cleaning up the football game/nativity scene before bedtime, he knew exactly where the Baby Jesus had last landed hours before.

10.  More often than not, he tells me he loves me as I leave his room at night.

Thanksgiving, etc.

First up, the Thanksgiving feast at school . . .

What -- you think the pilgrims didn't have chicken fingers and juice boxes at the first Thanksgiving?

Walt's class -- not including Curtsie and Will who are at the allergy table.  God bless preschool teachers.

Moving on to Nashville . . . no pictures of the actual meal on Thursday that featured enough food for a colony of pilgrims (including three, count 'em three, pies), but Daddy did break out the camera for the Christmas decorating that followed the next day.

How many Spicklers does it take to put up a Christmas tree?

And because one state just isn't enough for a proper holiday celebration, we headed up to Kentucky (Glasgow, to be precise) for the Crouch celebration on Saturday.  In order to keep the boys from tearing down the bed and breakfast (seriously, a concern), we made a break for Cave City.  And can I just say, Cave City is awesome.  I remember going there on excursions with my grandparents as a kid . . . Guntown Mountain, the wax museum (you've not lived til you've seen Dolly Parton enshrined in wax), the Alpine slide . . . it's basically the closest thing Kentucky has to Disney World.  But in all our visits to Cave City as kids, we somehow never made it to Saturday's destination . . .

DINOSAUR WORLD!!!!

Should you ever find yourself in south-central Kentucky with a couple of hours to kill and two four-year old boys on your hands, you could do worse than Dinosaur World.  'Cause, uh, they pretty much loved it.

Very scary.

Did someone teach him how to read when we weren't looking?

Dinosaur racing, anyone?  You know what they say . . . you can take the boy (or at least his mom) out of Kentucky, but you can't take the Kentucky out of the boy.  Uncle Woody and Grandpa Bill would be proud!

And finally, we capped off the Thanksgiving celebrations with a Crouch family dinner on Saturday night at the Goodnight Inn in Goodnight, Kentucky.  (Don't you wish that was your address?)  Photo ops abounded.

For the blessings of family and friends, we truly give thanks.  (Everything else is just gravy!)

Sunday Afternoon Watching Football

It was only this peaceful for a few brief moments, but it was nice while it lasted.  Plus the early afternoon light in the new den is awesome.

Halloween in Arkansas

As it turns out, there WAS a Gruffalo in the woods!  (I know the suspense was probably killing you.)  But you've never heard of a Gruffalo, you say?  Well, clearly you are not spending enough time in the woods of eastern Arkansas (or reading enough children's literature).  Here's a picture of the Gruffalo scaring Walt and Meredith:

If you were to notice that the Gruffalo bears a striking resemblance to one Chris Lareau, you would not be wrong. 

But let's back up.  We started our marathon weekend (two weeks ago, but who's counting?) in Wynne, Arkansas, with a trip to the local community college for a potluck spaghetti supper and race registration.  After the carbo load, we hit the streets of Wynne for some trick-or-treating.  One street even had a platoon of inflatable halloween decorations lining the road, so we of course used one of them as a festive backdrop for a photo op with our little racecar driver and ballerina.

Thanks to Aunt Harriet and Uncle Richard who sent the racecar driver pajamas last year.  Two bucks for a plastic helmet and Walt had his costume!

You've gotta wonder if SOMEBODY was trying to steal her candy, the way Mer is sitting on her loot!  But we couldn't linger long over the candy that night because we all had to be up bright and early to get to the 8 a.m. race start.  Walt had to be dragged out of bed, but he rallied quickly when he realized that we were going to his absolute favorite thing these days -- a race!  (He races everything, his cars, magnetic letters from the fridge, state puzzle pieces . . . "Hey Mommy, do you want Florida or Utah to win the race?")

And then 3:40 minutes later, Chris crossed the finish line . . .

. . . followed 15 minutes later by Josh.

A good showing by both, particularly considering that it was an unseasonably warm and sunny day.  While the marathoners lolled about on the grass reliving the race, Walt and Mer decided to have their own race.

The rest of the weekend was spent at Village Creek State Park taking "hikes" (which are pretty short when most of the hikers are either three years old or just ran 26.2 miles), making s'mores and eating Halloween candy.  Good times.

Second Half of October

Bad, bloggers!  Bad!  Bad!

I know, I know.  It's been a busy month, but that's still no excuse.  I think it's mostly just that by the time we get Walt in bed around 9:00 (and then back in bed at 9:07.  and 9:16.  and 9:22.) we're too exhausted to replay the day's happenings for your reading pleasure.  But as much as we write this blog in order to entertain you, our wonderful audience (and really, of course it's all for you!), we also use this as a repository for memories and images from Walt's childhood.  And at this rate, there's going to be a distinct break between 3-year old Walt and high school-graduate Walt.  So we'd better get on the stick.

And now a review of the second half of October. 

 

The red blur on the right side of this picture is Walt running maniacly through the hay-bale maze at the "pumpkin patch" we visited in north Mississippi.  I put that in quotes because, though we did choose a pumpkin from a field, we also noted many large, empty crates marked "PUMPKINS" behind a shed on the way out.  Cheaters. 

Here's the bigger boys trying to lead their families through the larger corn maze relying only on their knowledge of bat trivia.  Somehow, we made it out alive.

 

Back at the ranch a few days later, the menfolk of the Spickler household worked on creating our jack 'o lantern.  Walt was none too interested in the pumpkin's gooey insides, so Josh ended up doing most of that by himself. 

 

Of course, one of October's main highlights as far as Walt was concerned was his first foray into organized sports.  Soccer, to be precise.  For my purposes, soccer was an excellent motivational tool.  As in, "Do you want to go to soccer today?  Then you'd better (insert task Walt is totally uninterested in doing)!"  A lot of vegetables were eaten, toys picked up and fits averted in the name of going to soccer practice twice a week.  In other words, he absolutely loved it. Especially the medal and pizza party at the end. 

 

 

And no, Walt didn't play soccer barefoot (as he's seen in the first picture), but although the Spicklers came ready to play ball in the frigid (57-degree) weather, it was decided that the little athletes would instead spend the practice running wild in the gym, and cleats are apparently not good for gym floors. 

So I know that Halloween is technically part of October, but I think we'll save the Halloween pics for the next trick-or-treating/marathon post.  What was Walt's costume?  Did Josh finish the race?  Did we find a Gruffalo in the woods?!  Tune in next time to find out!  (I've heard that cliff-hanger endings are a good literary device and I need all the help I can get here.)

Coming Home

There's just something about a small town in the fall.  Even if it is 87 degrees.  But no matter.  When we heard that the Louisville Crouches were heading to Murray last weekend for Murray State's homecoming, we decided to meet them there for a little cousin-bonding time.  As luck would have it, it was also Murray High's homecoming, so we left Memphis extra early on Friday so that we could make it to the football game.  It was great to be back in Ty Holland Stadium being serenaded by the lyrical game calling of Roy Weatherly (football is not football without his voice).  However, my cheap date didn't even get me a mum!

What?  Your high school homecomings didn't feature this tasteful expression of teenage affection? 

Anyway, Josh and I got to hang out with some other members of the MHS Class of '93 after the game and Walt, Collier and Kellen got to go home and wear out Gram and DeeDaddy.  (Thanks, mom and dad!)  Then we were off to the homecoming parade the next morning, Pagliai's for lunch, and Dairy Queen for dessert.  A Murray triple-header if ever there was one. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Levitt Shell Rocks

This is the Levitt Shell.  It is awesome.  Free music, five shows a week for five weeks this fall.  Seriously, if you live in Memphis and you haven't been yet, well, you missed out on one of the best things Memphis had going this late summer/early fall.  "Missed" -- past tense --  because this was the last weekend for shows this year.  (I think they start back up in the spring.)  We made it to four or five shows and I still feel like we didn't take full advantage of this great new venue.  It's about two miles from our house, has plenty of room to spread out blankets and picnics, and attracts all of our favorite people -- we never go without seeing about a dozen families we know!  So I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Mortimer and Mimi for their wonderful contribution to our fair city.  It rocks!

Mandy and Micah

Violet and Jason

Noelia and Gaines