Colorado

These are 2 runners up for our Christmas card picture.  Don't worry, they are coming, just a little late getting organized over here...

Sledding with Daddy, this was definitely a highlight for the trip.  Little Irby loved it, and of course Daddy Irby loved trekking halfway up the mountain with little Irby on his shoulders, and sleds in hand, about 6 or 7 times.  Talk about a good workout!

Now this was the highlight of my trip....every time we got in the elevator, which was several times a day, we would see this picture in the elevator.  It was just behind glass on the calendar which indicated the events taking place in the clubhouse that week.  Anyway, little Irby would get so excited and bang his finger on the glass yelling, "DADDA!  DADDA!"  It was especially funny when there was someone else in the elevator who would kind of look at us, I'm sure they were thinking, "Does your dad wear spandex?  Can your dad do that with his body?  Does your dad have a long braid?"  It was pretty funny...

Funny Boy

Sorry, these pictures are all out of order. I haven't spent the time to figure out how to make them all line up with the text, but enjoy them if you can figure out what they are!
Anne Caroline, Irby's youngest sister was Cinderella in the Montgomery Ballet preformance this fall, so we got to go see her. She's an incredible dancer! Here's a picture of Lucy (Lulu as she's known around our house) and her finacee Whitt. The others are at my parents house and playing with Grandoc and the playground. Also, we went on a business trip with Irby to Dayton, OH, and while he was in meetings I took little Irby to the Air Force Musem, which he LOVED. We met a veteran of 3 wars who showed us around and even showed us the plane he flew and let Irby sit in it! I've never seen him so excited. We also got to get our picture taken in the space suit, which was great fun, of course!

This is Irby with little Irbs and little Mac on a trip to Nashville. Sweet Devon and Shellye kept Irby for us so we could go cheer on the Dores, who had a sad loss...

Well, Irby has been keeping us laughing here recently. I'll just give you a few examples of some of his antics.
Irby got is 18 month shots a few weeks back and he had his first sentence. After the nurse gave him 3 or 4 shots in the leg, he wailed, "LEG HUUUURRRRTTT!!!!" He hasn't really spoken many sentences since then, but he also hasn't been nearly as distressed as he was then either!

The past few mornings Irby has been entertaining us over the monitor after he wakes up. Now he is like his Daddy in the mornings. It takes a long time to wake up and it's better just to let him roll around in the bed for a while sucking his thumb, and he's perfectly happy doing this. In fact, he prefers this to getting straight out of bed in the morning. The past few mornings we've heard not a peep over the monitor until we hear an emphatic, "WOAH!" I just wonder what it is he's dreaming about or what he's thinking about in these early mornings. He usually then proceeds to talk about his boo-boos, and usually when you go in there to get him up he has his pants leg hiked up and he's pointing to his knee. What a boy; he loves showing off his scars, even to himself.

Last night was Irby's office Christmas party which was a lot of fun, especially for the kids who got special presents! Irby got a little plastic play laptop, which he loves. While I was not looking, one of little Irby's parents (who shall remain nameless) let his son eat some chocolate cake, some carrot cake, a whole glass of eggnog AND a sucker. This is all after he ate a regular dinner of chicken and veggies. The whole way home and to the bed he just kept holding his belly moaning "BOO-BOO!" Needless to say, he is OK now, and thankfully slept the whole night despite the sugar high.

My sister is hard core

Ok, first I need to apologize for not knowing how to put my pictures on and make them line up with the text properly, I'm new to this, and trying to figure it out, so bear with me.
My little sister, Kirsten ran the Marine Corps Marathon last weeknd in DC. We got to see her because we were there looking for a house (no we didn't find one yet). She did a great job and finished with a great time! Let it be known to everyone reading this (which is probably no one because I've not actually told anyone about this blog yet) that Irby has decided he is going to run it next year! Go IRBS! Here are a few pictures of Kirsten's race. (Oh, and in that 2nd picture, I know that I'm the one holding the water while she's running her 26.2 miles, but I promise I brought it for her, and she did drink some!)

Happy Halloween

Well, we had a great and pretty quiet Halloween here in Huntsville. Irby was supposed to be a lion, but due to a bad website that I ordered his costume from, he was an airplane instead (which he actually probably liked better anyway, although he does have a really good 'roar' like a lion. The costume was totally homemade and not very cute, but he loved it! Basically it consisted of his airplane footie pj's and cardboard wings and wheels). We went to a little restaurant near our house and sat outside because the weather was just gorgeous.

Huntsville has had a really beautiful fall. I guess because it's a little farther north, it gets cooler and the leaves are amazing! Here are a few pictures from the night Trick-or-Treating and also our afternoon in Monte Sano, a mountain nearby where we enjoyed the wonderful fall air and played outside.

The Tribe Moves On

Well, it already seems I am proving to be a negligent blogger. Somehow, in a town where I know no one, and have nothing to do, the days fill up! It must be that 1.5 year old boy running around here. Anyway, I have some news...the Thompson family is now moving to DC. After a few years of praying and wondering where we were supposed to be and what we were supposed to be doing, the Lord has called us back to DC. Irby will be continuing his job that he had while we were in AL, which is great, because he really loves it. His company has asked up to relocate to DC because they are opening an office up there, and they need someone to head up the effort. Needless to say, we jumped at the opportunity. Now hopefully, this will be our last move for a while. Ever since we left over 2 years ago, we've been missing it, so this is a very exciting thing for our family. We already have a great church, Grace DC, and wonderful friends, many of whom have had babies since we left. It is very encouraging to know we already have a community to plug in to, especially friends who are in the same stage of life as us and especially in a big city where it's easy to get lost.
Oh, and many of you will be happy to know that when I asked little Irby (as he was dipping his cracker into his blueberry juice) what he thought of moving to DC, he said, "GO DORES!" It's hilarious when he says this because the GO is a very high pitched shrieking sound followed by a low pitched DORES.
Well, that is our news for now...I'm hoping to post some pictures here in the next few days so you can see what we've been up to down here in Alabama.

Keeping up with the Nomads

Well, here were are in our new city of Huntsville, and I've found myself with A LOT of time on my hands(well, really only in the afternoon when Irby is down for his 3-4 hours nap, so I'm trying to keep myself busy in this very large, very empty, and very temporary house), so I decided to start a blog! I figured it would be a good way to let everyone know what was going on with us and also share pictures of little Irby, who is 18 months now! I also thought it would be a good way for me to write down the funny things he's doing now, so I can look back and remember them. If I were really organized, I would just write them down in his baby book, but seeing as though his baby book is somewhere in a storage POD right now, this will have to do. Here is a recent picture of him taken by my friend Emily Joy. These were taken when he was about 17 months old.
Now, first off, some of you may be wondering how we came to live in Huntsville. Well, it has seemed really complicated to me lately, but actually it's really simple. Irby has been working up here for the past 2 years, commuting from Birmingham 2 days a week and working from his home office the other 3 days. As time has gone on, he has been given more responsibility at work and so was having to be up here 3-5 days per week. That combined with the normal travel responsibilities of his job meant we weren't seeing much of him here at home, so we decided to put our house on the market. To make a very long story short, including a contract falling through on the house, we had an offer finalized Sept. 19, and they wanted to close Sept. 23. We thought it might happen eventually, but really had no clue that it would happen so fast. It was a really hard move....moving from a city where you have a great church, great friends, and even long time friends who had known you for many years, all of whom have babies within 6-12 months of yours, makes it really hard to move to a city where you know no one, literally no one! I think that is really strange, I mean name any city in the southeast, or northeast for that matter, and you probably know someone who lives there, but obvioulsy God is teaching us something as He's moved us to the only 'major' (the word 'major' is definitely a stretch) city in the southeast where we don't know a soul. Well, we're adjusting, but please come visit us! Here's a picture of Irby in front of our old house where he was born on 8th Terrace in Crestwood.