Motherly Menace and Other Orders of Business

I am convinced that 92% of the time, when Tyler sees Katie coming at him he sees something along the lines of Dennis the Menace, the Mommy version. He loves Katie, and smiles and laughs at her....but...she is so loving and motherly and nurturing to him that sometimes I think she just might nurture him to death. She brings him toys, blankets, pats his hand, gives him kisses, spins his toys for him, tickles him, and otherwise tries to make him comfortable. The only problem that a two-year-old mother hen is not exactly the most gentle of kiss-givers, or anything else for that matter. While she tries to be nice, it sometimes doesn't go over very well. I am sure glad Tyler is getting to the stage where he doesn't seem quite so fragile, but still, I would like to protect him from having his eye poked out by a well-meaning sister bringing him Tinker Toys to play with.

Some new (unfortunate) news here is that Jeff has two bulging discs in his lower back. His pain level fluctuates, and it can go from a low level to really bad in no time flat. Today he is in really bad pain (which for Jeff equates to severing a limb or something). So, right now they said that if it doesn't go away, he'll need physical therapy. Regardless, this is something that is going to continue to flare up (as we know from experience...he also has a herniated disc in his neck, but it is not as painful).

And last but not least, here are a few pictures of our Christmas celebrations. I believe I failed to mention that James went shopping for the fam and picked out some fantastically goofy gifts. His choices were as follows:

Chappy: a flashlight (one of two appropriate gifts)
Grammy: purple pom-poms
Uncle Nate: a ceramic baseball-shaped air freshener
Aunt Nikia: a spatula (the other appropriate gift)
Uncle Phil: a plastic hat complete with stars (see photo below)
Auntie Rach: plastic craft beads
Daddy: a jump rope
Katie: a craft kit to make herself a necklace
Tyler: a fuzzy Christmas stocking)