The Ancient Fertility Monkeys

About 3 years ago at our cousin's wedding (Kori and Steve), a gift was given by our other cousin (Jama). The gift was the most beautiful ancient fertility monkeys. As Kori opened this beautiful gift, she read the note that went along with them. It said that these fertility monkeys were being sold by a missionary at ACU to help him raise funds for his mission work in Africa. They were pagan idols that would aide in fertility process. As Kori opened these monkeys, she was speechless because they were so "beautiful."

Well Kori wanted to share the wealth of these fertility monkeys so she gave them to her sister for her birthday. Well Becki (Kori's sister) didn't want to keep them for herself either so she brought them to our family white elephant exchange. And Shara (who helped Jama pick them out) ended up with this beautiful gift. Again, the monkeys traveled afar to share their fertility power as they ended up on the other side of the Tome family at the white elephant exchange, and guess who opened them? Jama!

Update: The monkeys were actually bought at Big Lots for around $10 and so far no missionary has used Pagan idols to raise funds. There have been no babies created and the moral of the story is, if you give someone a very ugly gift, be careful because they might give it back to you!

5 YEARS

Sunday was our 5 year anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has already been five years. We went down to Austin and got a room at the same hotel that we stayed in when we got married. The room looked very similar to the original, but we couldn't remember the original room number. We got to the hotel about 4 from being with the fam and then got ready and went out to dinner. We went to Pappasidos and it was very, very good. It was a special occasion so we even ordered dessert. We forgot to take our wedding video with us (we usually watch it every year), plus it is on an ancient VCR tape and I didn't see a player there. We will have to get Scott to transfer it over to DVD for us. We are very thankful for our 5 years together and we are looking forward to many more to come.

The Man Room

Jonathan has not felt settled in our new house. I know that part of it still just hasn't set in that we get to live here, but he is also a little frustrated because he has not been able to use his "man room." For those of you who don't know, a man has two primary places in the house-the living room and the garage. Our garage has kind of served as our junk room these past two months and we finally got to clean it up a little this weekend. We of course still have a lot to do, but it is looking better.

Jonathan finally got to set up his tool cabinet. And it is very organized. I asked him if he was planning on keeping it this way and he said "Of course!" So I told him that I probably shouldn't use it that much. I did get a key from him and he thought that was a little unfair, but what if I need a hammer or something?

Christmas Tree dilemma

Since we stayed home this year, we actually got our Christmas decorations up over the Thanksgiving break. It was fun, I think that this is the first time that Jonathan has been home to help me (I usually do it while he is at work). We discovered that we have lots of little Christmas knick nacks (I don't know how to spell that word) that we put on our mantle and in our living room.

We bought a Christmas tree two years ago. It is about 6 feet tall and it looked perfect in our little apartment that we had. Well now it looks very small in our living room here. I guess that is a good problem to have and I think that it will just have to be small for a while. I let Jonathan put the lights on the tree because he is a perfectionist about that kind of stuff and I knew that if I put them on there, he would just redo them anyway. We do need a tree skirt now, so that is on my list for next year!

I have started singing Christmas songs with my kids at school and that really gets me in the spirit! One of my favorite little songs that I sing is called Jacky Jack Frost. The lyrics are

Little Jacky Jack Frost bites my nose,
Little Jacky Jack Frost stings my toes,
Little Jacky Jack Frost climbs the trees,
Little Jacky Jack Frost paints the leaves.

I try to always explain the lyrics to my kids when we sing songs, but that one is a doozy. Try explaining to Pk and 1st graders who have only every lived in Texas what frost and icicles are.

Oh on a good note. You know there is always a debate about Christmas celebration at school? Well I can sing Christmas songs because they are printed in our textbooks and the books were approved by the state. Isn't that awesome?