R a i s i n g C a n e y . c o m

It’s been a few days since we last posted, but it’s been a pretty busy week!  Thursday we did Thanksgiving at Tasha’s grandparents’ house.  As usual, there was a lot of really great food, and Tasha and her Grandmother actually went out of their way to make me my favorite Thanksgiving/Christmas dish, candied yams.  They were delicious!  On Saturday, our friends, Heather Ashton and Brian Dean, tied the knot.  Tasha was one of the bridesmaids, and it was a very nice ceremony.  The reception was at the Officer’s Club on base, and it was a great reception with really good food too.  Tasha was in the wedding, and she was gorgeous in her bridesmaid’s dress.  We saved $45 bucks on getting it altered by having her Nana tack the shoulder straps for her.  Woohoo (thanks Nana)!  The last few pictures were taken with a camcorder so they aren’t as high quality as the pics here usually are.

I told you she was beautiful!

Canaan Sidney

During the wedding photos

My girls are so pretty ...

She caught me taking pictures

Such a beautiful smile

She makes me...

The bridesmaids actually made the bouquets themselves.

I'm her biggest fan...

annnnd...that's all I've got of my beautiful girls at the wedding.

Then Tuesday night we decided to put up our Christmas tree.  This ordinarily wouldn’t be too difficult of a task, right?  Well, when missing supplies and kittens are involved it gets a bit trickier.  So, a couple of weeks ago we bought our tree skirt, ornaments, and the little ornament hangers.  We found our ornaments and our tree skirt, but the ornament hangers are nowhere to be found.  We started setting up our artificial tree, and after I got the first level up, I decided I would go to Wal-Mart to buy some ornament hangers.  Tasha called me right after I got to Wal-Mart to let me know that Snookerdoodle had decided that she wanted to climb the Christmas tree…

Snookerdoodle is heavier than the fake tree branch will support…so she bent the bottom branch down to the ground.  Fortunately, I was able to bend it back into place…sort of (it’s not technically where it should be but you can’t tell).  Our cats love shiny things, dangling things, and, apparently, tree-like things.  Snooks has caused trouble a couple times since then, but our other kitten, Kilimanjaro (Kiki), is the real Christmas tree menace.  We can’t keep her off of it!  Keeping the cats off the tree should prove an interesting experience.

So, I’m at Wal-Mart, and I discover that they haven’t restocked their Christmas decor aisles from the Black Friday rush…so noornament hangers.  Thinking it would be a simple, affordable alternative, I buy silver thread instead.  Tasha and I threaded a bunch of ornaments only to discover that most of their knots slide right out when we go to hang them.  Sooooo, we spent a lot of time re-tieing the knots (a different kind of knot) on alllll the ornaments.  So what should have been a 1 hour tree decorating turned into an all-night event.  We had a lot of fun doing it though.  We also hung up 2 stockings for ourselves, one symbolic stocking for Canaan, and 2 stockings for the cats.  After hours of decorating fun, we finally completed decorating our first Christmas tree, and we got pictures of our finished product and of me crowning the tree with our star tree-topper.

Our first Christmas tree (before the star was added)!

annnnd the crowning moment! Also, notice our new modular dresser that we recently got from Target. We love it! Oh, we got some new shelves and decorations as well (some of which can be seen in the picture).

Tadaaaa!

We hope you enjoyed another round of pictures, and we look forward to hearing from you all.  We love you, and Merry CHRISTmas!

-Cy

Soooo, it’s almost time for that one day where we all say what we’re thankful for.  In reality, every breath and every day is a blessing.  So we should be thankful every day…we all know this.  However, there’s nothing wrong with setting aside a day to remind ourselves what we are most thankful for.

I can’t exactly show you an image of what I’m most thankful for, but I’ll try to describe it.  Most of us are thankful for our friends, those special relationships that give added value, purpose, and meaning to our lives.  Now for the corny part.  I met this guy who, quite honestly, changed my life.  In fact, He gave me life.  I’m most thankful for the relationship that I have with the very real King of Kings.  Jesus Christ, who gave me eternal life, who is present in my every day life, who answers my prayers, is my best friend and the person that I am most thankful for.

Now, my faith being the most important thing in my life, leaves the second most important thing in my life.  This would be a person too, I guess.  My second best friend, and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, Tasha Robinson, is the person that I am second most thankful for.  It doesn’t hurt that she’s taking part in a miracle, creating a life, our first child, Canaan Sidney Robinson.  Pretty amazing, huh?

Here’s a little bit of the beautiful woman that I tricked into marrying me and our amazing little baby bump.

Around 23 weeks with Snookerdoodle Robot Girl

Around 23 weeks with Snooks again

Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen? (my Dad's kitchen, actually)

Around 24 weeks, I'm clearly... excited (Tasha says nerdy)

These are from today:

Almost 25 weeks... She's beautiful. I love my girls!

Snooks wanted in the pictures with her Mommy.

Tasha and Snooks

annnd again!

OK Snookerdoodle... last one!

My amazing wife

She has waaaay too many scarfs...

haha...she's had enough of this outfit!

My favorite girls!

I'm so proud of this girl.

These two are my favorite (also from tonight):

My best friend...

This gorgeous girl and the baby in her belly are what I am thankful for. They are my greatest blessing from my awesome God.

Most of you didn’t come here expecting a full photo-blog today. So consider this an early Christmas present!  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Don’t forget to thank God!

-Cy

Isn’t my wife beautiful?

Caney and Tasha in Class... The guy in the background is taking a nap!

So the first time Tasha got a craving was on our way home from Maryland this summer.  We were on a rather long drive, obviously, and it was about time for us to stop and stretch our legs.  Tasha told me she was hungry, which was fine, but I was shocked when she told me what she wanted to eat…  biscuits and coleslaw.  Initially, I thought this was quite an odd combination, but then it came together.  Trying to figure out where to go for such a request, Tasha was quick to suggest KFC or Popeye’s, so we went to Popeye’s, which serves both coleslaw AND biscuits.  So, what I initially thought an odd request turned out to be normal side orders at most chicken joints.

That having been said, I now understand a bit better how my wife’s cravings (don’t?) work.   Basically, my wife hasn’t had any really extraordinary requests or cravings.  She used to drink a lot of Coke (the general term for carbonated beverages in the South) and caffeinated drinks.  Since she got pregnant she hardly EVER drinks ANY caffeine.  That’s mostly for Caney’s health, but in general, Tasha’s desire for Cokes has mostly gone away.  Now, she drinks almost exclusively…H2O.  Weird, huh?  She craves water…

As for food items, she’s always liked pickles, but I think I’ve actually seen a slight increase in her liking of pickles (but it’s hard to say).  Also, she’s taken to eating plenty of fruits and veggies.  You read right, fruits and vegetables.

I’m starting to think there may have been a rational reason for my wife to have lost weight initially in the pregnancy.  She craves healthy food.  Weirdo!  Actually, there’ve been a couple instances where she’ll get these crazy cravings for candy, and she’ll go buy a MASSIVE bag of candy from Wal-Mart only to discover that she doesn’t really want candy very badly…and the massive bag sits on our coffee table until my friends come over and scavenge like vultures.  Thank God for friends taking the candy, lest I eat it all!

So, you must be wondering what the “Power Tools” part of the title is referring to.  Well, as some of you might already know, my Momma gave us a small unfinished wooden round dining table (that’s a lot of adjectives!).  It looks exactly like this, except this is a dollhouse table:

Like this, only...much bigger.

It’s very nice, but it’s unfinished.  Also, we’ve repeatedly put cups on the table that had created a total of 17 noticable water stain rings.  Tasha let me get a power sander.  I got a Black and Decker Mouse Power Sander that lights up light green if you’re not pressing hard enough, dark green if you’re just right, and red if you’re too hard.  It has several really cool little attachments that are for sanding odd-shaped surfaces, and it has a carrying bag.

This is the sander I got. It's my first power tool! Haha...

This was my first “home improvement” project.  I sanded the table, stained it, and noticed that the water stains were…MORE noticeable.  Sooooo, I re-sanded… much better this time, and I restained it several times.  It took several days of hard work (and trusting that no one would steal it from in front of my apartment where I had it drying).  I put the final satin finish clear coat on it, and it looks wonderful!  I’m very proud of it.  Here are a couple of pics of it now:

Here's Our Table!

Heres another view of our table. Notice the bridal picture frame in the back? Thats new too!

There’s home improvement project 1!  I know, I know, it’s not perfect, but it’s my first project.  I like it .  Wait, there’s more though!  Power Tools is PLURAL.  So there’s MORE!  So, we’ve been talking about/looking for some shelves to put up to give us more horizontal storage space (we have a lot of pictures and such that we like to display).  Also, I’ve been wanting somewhere to hang our backbacks that’s easy to access, looks nice, and helps us clean the clutter a bit.  Soooo, everyone knows that you need a good drill to put up shelves properly and such properly!  Soooo, Tasha let me buy a Black and Decker Drill and some bits for it too!

This is the drill that I got.

When I installed the shelves and the hooks I did it the right way too (using drywall anchors for support)!

Here are some pics of the shelf and the hooks:

This is our shelf! Its hard to see, but the pictures frames (with engagement pics) are new too. Also, notice the manger up front. This is the beginning (a bit early!) of our Christmas decor.

These are the hooks in the bedroom above the shoe rack.

Just to show you some more of our home, here are a couple extra pictures:

This is our bed with a crochet picture that Darla McDonald made us (it's awesome) as a wedding gift.

The crosses are a wedding gift from the awesome Michelle Harper. The black shelf thing is our wedding display. We have a huge poster sized print of one of our wedding pictures being developed to go above it. The square lamp is a wedding gift from my Dads friend, Mr. Dennis Dean.

Tasha (playing Fable 2 on the Xbox 360) and Rex studying (aka watching Tasha playing Fable 2). The 3 pictures frames to the left and the 2 top ones to the right are also new.

So, our cat has a 6 level (including the roof) play house. There are toys scattered throughout it, and the top is basically her throne. She doesn't usually climb through the maze of the inside to get up the levels. She prefers to just leap and use her claws to climb to the top. She's an awesome little ninja.

Sooooo, welcome to our home (and what will be Caney’s first home?), and thanks for enduring my excitement about power tools/home improvement…and cravings!  Let us know what you think!

-Cy