My Second Nephew!

BG on his way home! You can't really tell in these pictures, but he has so much hair!
He was born at 10PM on 4-20-09, and he weighed 7lb, 9oz, and was 20 inches long. He has long skinny legs, and dimples like his big brother and his dad.

With his proud Aunt Leah. Apparently the kid didn't cry during his circumcision, which seems amazing to me.


Bennett and Mommy from Cindy Buescher on Vimeo.

A proud big brother! When Peter met his baby brother, he said, "Hi ______, do you want some Chick-Fil-A?" This guy's world is about to change.

Familial Fridays: Isn't Meyer Cute?

Today I get to blog about Matt's brother and my fellow middle child, Meyer! I have a unique affection in my heart for Meyer. I think it's cause we get to share the middle child bond, or maybe it's just because I feel like I understand him, or maybe it's because I think I am like him in some sort of way? (Note: I realize how narcissistic that sounds. "I love Meyer; Meyer is so much like me." But I guess you will just have to deal with it and pray that I change.) Either way, allow me to introduce you...


This is Meyer's classic devious smile. Doesn't he look like he's up to something? He probably is.

It took me marrying Matt to realize that there really are people in the world who don't enjoy being just a little rebellious. Matt is one of them. But Meyer is probably a little more like me; he has a little bit of a rebellious side (or as my mom likes to call it, an "edge.") A few examples of this? Well, he got two tattoos shortly after he turned 18. He wants to own a motorcycle, and he used to want to own a pet wolf. And he has really big, loud speakers in his car (which he installed himself). Of course I think this harmless rebellion is funny and awesome- but don't tell your parents I said that Meyer. (Joking.)

When I was first being initiated into the Gibson family dynamic, Matt's mom was always affectionately calling Meyer by the name of "Eeyore." For those of you who forgot who Eeyore is, this website describes him as an "unbelievably lovable donkey who is dismally gloomy for almost eternity." BUT I personally believe there is a little TIGGER somewhere in Meyer, and we love getting to see that side. Meyer gets really excited when he spends time with his family and people he loves, when he gets to work with his hands, and when he has a dream or goal to chase after.

Meyer's future wife will have a handy-man if there ever was one. Meyer, Matt and Matt's dad recently fixed the deck in our backyard, and apparently Meyer was a rock star at this. He can also do all sorts of work on a car - like installing things and replacing things, and well, I don't know much about cars, so that's about as descriptive as I can get. All I know is we will continue to recruit Meyer to fix our house and install things in our cars for awhile.

Meyer is very smart, athletic, and capable of being successful at a lot of different things. (I forgot to mention that he is apparently a stud in his AP Biology class, he is naturally artistic, and he was a killer defensive back on the varsity football team.) We are excited to see what his future holds after he graduates from high school this year!

Familial Fridays: Michael

Meet the 3rd oldest among Matt and his siblings... Michael! (He is the one in the cap and gown, and his fiancee, Brittany is on the very far right.)

A few words to describe Michael? Motivated, opinionated, intelligent!

Motivated. Michael has goals, and he doesn't let much stand in the way of them. For starters, Michael graduated from UT undergrad in 2 1/2 years. He plans to go to law school, and just got a really awesome score on his LSAT. On top of all this, he just proposed to his girlfriend, Brittany, about a week ago. Graduate early. Check. Get excellent LSAT score. Check. Get married. Check.

Opinionated. I once said that I didn't really mind the fact that Michael is opinionated because most of the time I think his opinions are right. (Except of course when he is stereotyping sorority girls or Facebook users; then I am forced to disagree.) But seriously, he has an opinion about pretty much everything.

Intelligent. (Read "motivated.") I won't pretend like Michael doesn't know he's intelligent. He definitely does. That's fine. If you are around him for more than 5 minutes, you can tell that he reads a lot. And he talks really fast. And I think he only had one B in college, which was not because he actually earned a B, but because his prof punished people who didn't go to class. Those are the worst.

Last Thanksgiving Michael and I got in a serious debate about when a family photo was taken, and I fought adamantly for my position - to the point where at least half of the Gibson family was on my side and I even had Michael second guessing himself. But we continued debating, and I ended up being brutally humiliated when he was able to prove that he was right. Dang. Lesson learned: Don't get in an argument with Michael. He will win. (Sounds like BROOKE, doesn't it?)

Seriously though, I am looking for a rematch.

Michael is also really intense. Like if you watch a Texas football game with him and 1- don't cheer for Texas or 2- criticize Texas, then he will probably get pretty frustrated with you. He'd prefer if you just left the room. It's really fun to push his buttons in these situations, and since I am not a blood relative, I am still somehow able to get away with it. I don't expect this to last forever.

Lastly, we are really excited about Michael and Brittany getting married next year! (We think Brittany is perfect for Michael), and can't wait to see what God has in their future.

Familial Fridays: It's Brooke!

Meet my lovely older sister, Brooke. We have such a history that I don't know where to begin. For starters, Brooke just turned the big "3-0" in December, and is about to give birth to her second boy. Her first kid, Peej, is almost as strong-willed as she is, so hopefully for everyone's sake the second one will be a little more even keel.

When we were younger, Brooke had a reputation in the family that resulted in two fitting nicknames: 1- "The Princess of Quite A Lot" and 2- "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong." (Of course we have all recently learned that I can't be wrong, either, but this is news to me.) Brooke has always been aware of her unwillingness to back down and admit failure, but she'd probably tell you that she hardly ever needs to admit failure because she's always right. Case in point. So here's a pointer: don't get in an argument with her. You will lose. Even if you don't lose, she won't admit that you won.

Indeed she is The Princess of Quite A Lot, having both a natural ability and a willingness to work hard at things. I still find myself wanting to brag about what a good dancer she is/was. This was her main forte in high school and college. She was a world famous Kilgore College Rangerette officer and even got her pretty face on a billboard somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere East Texas. We should have known she'd be kicking her face as an adult because when she was a child she would put both legs all the way behind her head, put her hands on the floor in front of her, and walk... sort of creepy, but when it's your older sister it's automatically cool.

She's also very intelligent and has been told how intelligent she is since she could talk. So instead of bragging about it and proving it to you, you can just take my word for it. She uses her brain to be an accountant... and to find new information on wikipedia.

Seriously, Brooke will wikipedia ANYTHING and everything that she is interested to know. And instead of just reading the information for herself, she finds it necessary to let everyone else in the room know what she is learning. We appreciate the education...

Brooke's also quick-witted and she's gotten even more witty since she married Peter. This is being passed down to her impressionable two-year-old child, whom you have read about before.

"Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters." I'm not sure if my favorite memory with Brooke is the time that I slapped her during the Easter Service at our church (like only 3 yrs ago) or the time she accidentally slammed my finger in the door when I was in 6th grade? And yet, despite the cat-fights we are still love each other and are probably much more alike than either of us is willing to admit. :)

Really, if you want to know more about her, or if you think you are like her, you should read her "ENTJ" personality profile.

And just in case there is any misunderstanding, she does have a sweet/sensitive side. As the personality profile says, "Although ENTJs are not naturally tuned into other people's feelings, these individuals frequently have very strong sentimental streaks."

I love my sister!

Familial Fridays: Meet Mary

A few months ago (November), I ambitiously set out to blog about each one of our immediate family members. So far, I have blogged about my brother, David, and Mitchell and Madeline, my little in-laws, also known as Matt's siblings... In order to keep myself accountable to finishing this task, every Friday from today until I finish will be "Familial Friday." And today is MARY'S lucky day. (Dad, Meyer, I promise, your time is coming.)
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Mary's on the left. I don't know who the dude in the middle is.
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Mary is Matt's 2nd youngest sibling. She is almost 14 and almost in high school, which is REALLY hard to believe. When we started dating she was in 2nd grade.

The first thing I learned about Mary is that she is a huge TALKER. She loves to talk, ask questions, make random chit-chat. She has actually become a good conversationalist, and there are times when I'm talking to her that I forget she's only 13. Of course there are other times when she makes her age seem very obvious. :) Famous quote by Mary to Maddie, her little sister. "Maddie, you might have the brains, but I have the looks."

Mary is not afraid to ask what words mean, or what things are, or why things are the way they are. I admire this because when I was growing up, I thought it would make me seem stupid if I asked a question and everyone else around already knew the answer. So, my brother would ask questions, and I would sneer at him for asking, even though I didn't know the answer either. This happens to Mary A LOT, and it makes me love her more.

Also, Mary overhears and pays attention to EVERYTHING. She LOVES knowing secrets and HATES not knowing them. She and Matt both have big ears (not literally). But they both randomly overhear conversations, and Mary especially is great at gathering information. (I won't call it gossip.) She is a "go-to" in the Gibson household for information... much to the chagrin of her brothers and sisters.

Mary is also very good at several different extracurriculars. She is a star swimmer, high-jumper, volleyball player, and dancer (which is her favorite). Unfortunately, she also inherited (like Matt) a proneness to injury, and has spent much of this year with an broken ankle and a hip problem. :( Hopefully she gets better soon!

Mary loves to shop and she loves designer brands. In the last couple of years she's become obessesed with everything Coach. She has used hard-earned babysitting money to buy Coach purses, Coach shoes, Coach everything. And it makes shopping for her relatively easy, though many in the family are skeptical about whether we should encourage this behavior.

We love Mary and are excited to see her grow up and mature into a young high-school lady!

Why I Want A Two-Year-Old

You can teach them to say anything, and it's automatically funny! (And, as long as it's not your own kid, you don't have to worry too much about whether or not you're teaching them heresy.)

So, from the time he could talk, I've been teaching my nephew (pictured below), to say two very true and awesome things. He still says them to this day.

1. Uncle Matt is skinny.
2. Uncle Matt's a ding dong.

When he was only 1 yr, "skinny" sounded like "kinny" and "ding dong" sounded like "deen-don." Now he can say them correctly.

Of course one of the best of all was last year, we were all sitting at the table, except for Matt, who was still getting his food, and Peej demanded, "COME EAT, UNCLE MATT!!" This was completely unprovoked. Apparently Peej and I both get impatient when people aren't on time to the dinner table.

This is my nephew (Peej is a nickname) at Christmas, and he is wearing his little nebulizer because he had a small case of pneumonia. :( He will be a big brother at the end of April! I love him.

Lego Man

"No I wanna go outsiiiiide." "No I wanna watch Caillou..." "No I wanna drink coooooffeeeeee."


I love this little munchkin.

Day 4 in the Melting Pot

Sunday, December 21

Matt on the subway. The rest of us usually were quick to grab seats. Result = Matt's left standing a lot. Is it me, or does he sort of look like the uni-bomber in this pic?

We woke up in time to get to Redeemer Presbyterian's 2nd service, which was about one subway stop away from our Hotel. FYI, Redeemer is church home to Pastor Timothy Keller. For Presbyterians (Presby Church of America), Keller is like Billy Graham. He is also pretty popular if you go to Austin Stone. Whatev. I'm weary of churchy trends right now, but I love Keller. He is author to three incredible books that I read this last year. 1- Reason for God, 2- The Prodigal God, and 3- Ministries of Mercy. Also, I first heard his sermon series "In Christ Jesus" about a year ago, and it was profound - to say the least.

So visiting Redeemer was definitely an item on our list this time around. It was a Christmas service, and bc of the diversity in NYC they read all the passages of scripture in different languages (Hebrew, Taiwanese, German, etc.) I loved it, but I'm biased. Brooke and Peter loved it, and they weren't biased... so boo ya.

Next, we tried to go to Serendipity, but the wait was like 2 hours and we had skipped breakfast. So we settled for a Pizza place called Patsy's that Brooke and I had gone to the last time around. Next up? The MoMA! (Museum of Modern Art) Haha. I can't even begin to tell you how much we loved the MoMA.

LET'S JUST SAYYYYY that we don't have much of a taste for modern art. However, we were thoroughly entertained. Let me share...


Meet the pile of bricks. Nope, there's not anything more to this. It is literally just a pile of bricks displayed on the floor of the MoMA. My inquisitive sister did some research when we got home and found out that the MoMA paid $1M for this pile of bricks. If you think this is art, then I think you're a nut, and that's just the honest truth.

Some of our other favorites? A piece of yarn tacked to the wall, and a white canvas painted white. Also, the museum has a temporary exhibit featuring art by Marlene Dumas. I would post pictures, but you would probably report me because that woman is seriously disturbed. Whatev. If you're into that kind of thing, you should google her. It's inspiring.

Don't get me wrong, there were several displays by very talented artists. We were just taken aback by some of the other stuff that somehow qualifies as art. Maybe I'm not cultured enough, but I still think you're a nut if you think that pile of bricks is anything special.

NEXT. Top of the Rock! Last time in NYC, we did the Empire State Building which was crowded and overpriced. This time we took your advice and went to the Top of Rockefeller Center instead.

A view of Central Park from Top of the Rock.

Ah, another TOTR advantage- You can see the Empire State Building from the top of the rock.

Aawwwwwwwweeeeeeeee. Haha. Matt has hoodie-hair, and I'm not doing much better.

Well the day gets better yet. Let me pause to say that at this point, one of us is NOT in a good mood. One of us has had enough of the "art" and the crowds. That one is Peter. Haha. We love Peter. He has a very strong personality, though, so usually if he's not happy, then we must all ignore him in order to somehow be happy. On the other hand, when he's in a good mood, he's always the life of the party. Needless to say, it's getting a little old, but to me and Matt it's a little funny. Brooke, on the other hand is a little fed up w/ the 'tude. It is right at this point that we decide to go to Carnegie Deli for dinner. Bad decision.

Now we had been there before, and so we knew what to expect, but we forgot to consider that the setup is Peter's worst nightmare. In a word? Crowded. On top of that, as a party of 4, we got seated at a table for 8, right next to another party of 4. On top of that, they don't take credit cards, and Peter's not very tolerant of cheap people. And on top of that, the food was average. This was all adding up to disaster. It all went down the crapper when I asked Brooke and Peter about their exact plans for Christmas Day, which uncovered a little miscommunication. Aaaah.

The now infamous Carnegie Deli.

Yikes.

This night needed redemption... and fast. All I wanted was for Brooke and Peter to be happy and nice to each other (for my own sake, people), and for Brooke NOT to go back to the hotel early, and also I wanted dessert. About 45 min to 1 hr later, after some failed attempts to find dessert, God saved the night by directing us to this little non-touristy Italian restaurant called Mimi's in East Midtown.

They were playing lively music, and they had GREAT cheesecake. In fact, after we finished off the first order, we ordered another one. They also had very clean bathrooms, and some delicious coffee. Sigh of relief. Everyone was happy and our night wasn't ruined.

Ironically enough, on the way home, Matt tripped on an icy curb, skinned his knee, and almost hit his head on a streetlight pole. Why is this ironic? Because without a doubt, Matt was the best-behaved all day. I don't care what they say, bad things happen to good people and vis versa. And karma is a joke. (Thank God for that.)

The Big Apple - Day 3

The 3rd day went much better than the 2nd. We woke up, introduced Brooke and Peter to Ess-A-Bagel, and then walked over to the Theater District to pick up tickets for Phantom of the Opera. Yes, we got boxed seats. (Don't kid yourself, they were actually cheap.) Peter also made dinner reservations for us for 11pm. Only in NYC, my friends.

Second item on the agenda? Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge! Once again, we braved the dirty subway into Brooklyn, and came out less than 1/4 mile from the bridge. Pictures below.

Here's the four of us + Downtown Manhattan in the background.
Here's us, or as Matt likes to say it, "The Gibsons."

I really enjoyed walking across the bridge. Mind you, this was the day that it didn't get above 22 degrees. And the wind chill was negative for at least a part of the day. The last time I came to NYC (December '05), I was grossly unprepared for the weather. And that can ruin your trip if you're touring a city where walking outside is imperative to doing anything- I know because it nearly did ruin the last trip. So, I was over prepared this time. I wore at least two pairs of long underwear under my jeans and two tops under my sweaters, in addition to more layers, gloves (pop top mittens, to be specific) that went all the way up to my elbows, socks that went to my knees, and a scarf, ear muffs, and a beanie. So, needless to say, walking outside was no trouble this time around.

Peter was cold and windburned. Matt leisurely skated/slid across the bridge like a child. At least this time I wasn't the one acting like a child. Brooke had the baby to keep her warm. Here's one more picture for you.
Next we took a break at Starbucks, hopped back on the Subway, and decided to continue braving the cold on a walk through Central Park. It's huge.

Here's the ice skaters. See if you can find Matt in this picture.

Here's Matt. He was using his Uggs to slide down hills. As you can see, it was icey, and not very safe to be walking on. We saw several people completely bite it.

After CP we did a little more shopping (Maternity GAP and Bloomingdales), and then started looking for a place to eat lunch. We winded up at a random little cafe (I think it was called Oxford Cafe) that was marginal... but when you're hungry, everything tastes good. We went back to the hotel to rest before our big night. Since Brooke is now 30 yrs old and pregnant we needed to make sure that she'd be able to stay up till 2am or however late we'd be up.

That night, we headed to see Phantom. I was thoroughly made fun of for ordering Junior Mints to go along with my cocktail before the show started. Now who is being childish?

Sort of blurry, but don't you like Brooke's winter white coat?

The show was awesome!! It was really good, and then... the best part of all... PASTIS! Pastis is a little French restaurant (I think it's in the West Village). In our touristy book, it said that you're most likely to spot someone famous at this place, but we had no such luck. (We didn't know that when we made our reservations. One of Peter's clients had suggested it.) We couldn't read the menu, so we just figured out which item was steak and got that. Matt got Spaghetti. Spaghetti at a French restaurant? Whatev.


We also ALL got dessert. Yes, 4 desserts. It was so good. I think Brooke and Peter have a picture of me and Matt at Pastis on their camera, but I don't have one. I will post some more pics when Brooke sends me hers. Anyway, it was a great end to a great day. Highly recommended if you are in NYC. And it was surprisingly not as expensive as we expected.

By the way, joke's on you. Matt is not in that ice skating picture. Second half of the trip coming soon.

NYC Day 2

Friday December 19

Our original plan for Day 2 was waking up at the crack of dawn and heading out to Ellis Island/Liberty Island, but that plan changed fast when we decided we'd rather sleep in.

Instead we woke up at 11, went to a bagel place called "Ess-a-bagel" where some angry Jewish dudes were serving up some of the most delicious bagels I've ever tasted. Mmm. I got the Cinnamon Raisin Bagel, toasted with butter. There was probably a whole stick of butter on my bagel- and it was worth every gram of saturated fat.

Next we took a trek down to Ground Zero and Wall Street. Last time I came to NYC there was a little more to see at Ground Zero, but since they have started construction on the new buildings, there really is just a big space down there. The weather was also blizzard-like, so it wasn't the most condusive for exploring. Matt did take my picture in front of GZ.

As you can see, I was very happy about it.


NYSE/Wall Street!

Peter and Brooke arrived around 1pm on Friday, and we ended our Wall Street trek to go meet them for Lunch at John's Pizzeria in the Theater District. Also highly recommended.


There's Matt and Peter at John's. Afterwards we wanted Matt and Peter to see the ginormous Macy's with 3 or 4 different Starbuck's inside, so we walked the overly crowded streets of Times Square in the freezing snow/slush, and everyone's feet were wet by the end of the afternoon.

After a little shopping, we went back to the hotel to rest for a little bit before we headed out for dinner, and what an event this was! Before our trip, I bought a highly recommended "Not For Tourists Guide to NYC..."and actually went to three different bookstores to find it. So, we used the trusty book to find a restaurant we wanted to go to called Grand Sichuan Int'l...Chinese food.

Brooke had a craving, and well, she's pregnant, so she was pretty much determined to eat Chinese food that night, and there was no stopping her. The rest of us wanted to earn our dinner, so we hiked about 7 long city blocks from out hotel to the restaurant. (I almost fell and broke my neck like 25 times because of the ice but that's another story.) You can imagine how happy we were to reach the destination (9th Ave and 50th St) only to find that the Grand Sichuan Int'l was nowhere to be found. Let's just say it put Peter in a good mood.

Not. He would have burned my NFT book if I had let him get a hold of it. It got worse before it got better. Thanks to the trusty Blackberry, we were able to get the Restaurant's number and figure out the address, which was nowhere near where we were. So we got in a taxi, gave him the address, and he dropped us off at the wrong location. We of course got out, and it took us about 20 more minutes to figure out where we were and what we were doing. We tried several times to change the plan and just try something nearby, but as I said before... Brooke + pregnant + craving = determination. We tried to consult the NFT and a concierge in vain. Fortunately, all it took was one more taxi ride, and we finally got to THE Grand Sichuan Int'l! Also fortunately for Brooke, it was a hit. I'm afraid to think of how Peter would have reacted if it had been a bust.

The funniest part was that we kept asking the people at the location we ended up at if they had moved or if they had shut down a location, and they just looked at us like they didn't know what we were talking about. Well, all you have to do is google "Grand Sichuan Int'l" to see that the location we originally tried to go to was shut down a year or so ago by the health dept. Whatev.

It was totally worth it. Afterwards we made Matt ride in the front of a Taxi back to our hotel so that he could have the full experience. They didn't make me ride in the front because they knew I'd have a heart attack.

New York, New York! Day 1.

Day 1 in a nutshell. Thursday, December 18.


We left for the San Antonio airport around 6:30 am to avoid any surprise traffic delays. We got to the airport way early and we were offered an earlier flight to NYC. Yes, please!

We got to NYC around 4pm eastern time, and we decided to take the adventurous (aka cheap) route to our hotel. Yes, we took the bus/subway into midtown Manhattan from La Guardia. It was quite interesting. Memorable moment of the day...

Hotel Check-in People: "So how was your taxi ride from the airport?"
Matt: "Well, we actually took the subway."
Hotel Check-in People: Funny look/"Wow, we've never heard of anyone doing that before."
Leah: "It was definitely cheap."
Hotel Check-in People: Laugh.

I must add that we found that route on several touristy websites. We definitely considered that it might not be the best way to go (think big bags on a crowded subway train), but decided to stick with it because we had seen the route in multiple different books/websites. Whatev... it was easy, and we came up out of the subway RIGHT next to our hotel, the Doubletree Metropolitan (51st and Lexington!)

There you go. Our first night, we walked all around midtown... Rockefeller Center/5th Avenue/Times Square. We wandered around and found a restaurant we had seen in one of our tourist books called Burger Heaven (chain) in midtown. It was delectable!


Next, we did what any young, love birds would do in NYC, we went ice skating in front of the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center. Sorry, we didn't get a picture making out.


That's me in the back. GIRL skated in front of our camera!


All of our touristy books said that the Rockefeller rink would be crowded, but it really wasn't bad. We only waited like 15 minutes to get on the rink. The central park rinks were much more crowded.

Introducing... MITCHELL!

Big apologies- Mitchell does not look like this anymore at all; it turns out that we have no recent pictures of him. Now, he is probably almost as tall as (and bigger than) Matt. Mitchell is Matt's youngest brother, and he is the third youngest Gibson child. He is almost 16 and a sophomore at Westwood HS. Where shall we begin?

Well, for starters, if there is anyone who eats more candy than me, it's Mitchell. If sugar or high fructose corn syrup is the first ingredient, then Mitchell will eat it. About 50% of the time, Mitch is consuming Mike and Ikes, Skittles, Lemonheads, or something of the sort.

Speaking of "consuming." Consumption is one of Mitchell's strong suites. He will shamelessly beg for treats anytime he is with anyone who has buying power.

Mitch is without a doubt the social butterfly of the family. He could be with friends all day everyday and never come home, and that would be perfectly fine with him. Rumor has it that even though he usually makes the a-team in school sports, he'd prefer to be on the b-team so that he could hang out with his closer friends more often. Most other things come second to social life for Mitchell.

Usually when the whole Gibson family goes out to dinner together, Mitchell can be found doing one of two things. He is either 1) playing games on his cell phone or his ipod touch, or 2) spitting ice through his straw at one of his siblings. This hasn't changed since I met him 6 years ago. I should add that his brick-breaker score is like 500,000 or 480,000 or something like that.

We love Mitchell! He is a warm-hearted, easy-going extrovert who loves to consume things and socialize. He is also good at ping-pong, and based on the one football game we saw this year, he's a really great quarterback too.

Meet Dashing David

Allow me to introduce you to my brother, David. He's 22 and the youngest of the three Buescher children. He just graduated from Auburn University with a degree in Accounting (that degree runs in our family), and he just got a job with a commercial real estate company in The Woodlands, Texas.

If real estate doesn't work out for David, I'd suggest he consider a career in stand-up comedy. He is most famous in our family for his humor and his accurate impersonations of almost anyone, including me. Everyone has a reason to feel a tad bit self-conscious around David because he is most likely paying more attention to the way you say your words than to what you are actually saying. Most likely, if you know him he does have an impersonation of you, but usually only very close friends and family members know about it.

David did grow up with two sisters, so we are probably to blame for the fact that he is a little more conscious of his appearance than the average male. I think he has more shoes and shirts than I do. He goes shopping on his own, which I thought was pretty normal for a guy until Matt came along. Also, he has expensive taste, which he most definitely inherited from my dad.

As the youngest, David has always been unashamed to ask our parents and grandparents for things he wants. Spring break trips, designer watches, etc. - he's taken full advantage of being the youngest.

David is also a good conversationalist. He can do the small talk pretty well, but he prefers deeper conversation. He's relatively good at analyzing people and situations, so that sort of stuff usually comes up when he gets in the mood for deep conversations. Side note- my mom loooooves analysis, and so she loves trying to have deep conversations with David.

From what I've experienced, David should not try to be a professional golfer, athletic ability aside. Although in his most recent years, he has matured a lot, I am afraid he might be susceptible to impatience, anger, and some slight profanity on the golf course. Let's be honest, I would probably not fare well as a golfer myself - nor would anyone else in my family.

David has a tender-heart, a pretty face, and a traditionally messy room and car. Over the last year, David has matured a whole lot. He's becoming a man, and he will make a great husband and father whenever that time comes! We wove our wittle Mavers. (My mom calls him Mavers.)

The last shall be first. Meet Maddie!

Allow us to introduce you to MADELINE, the 7th child born to Matt's parents. Maddie just turned 11, and she is in 5th grade.

What you need to know about Maddie.

• Maddie's energy level is unsurpassed, except by her mother. For about the first five years that I'd come over to the Gibson house, Maddie (and her big sister Mary) would inevitably start doing dance routines, hand stands, and all sorts of gymnastics in the living room. She is also the youngest triathlete I know, and the only 11 year old I've ever met who willingly goes running for fun. She begs to participate in races like the Turkey Trot (5 miles) and the Cap 10K (6 miles). Crazy little lady.
  
• Another thing about Maddie is that she LOVES playing games of all sorts. Card games, board games, pool, ping pong, you name it. Sweet Maddie often has to put up with the old boring people (like me) who don't get quite as excited about the games as she does.
• A girl after my own heart, Madeline loves her planner and to-do lists. One of my favorite things about Madeline is that she used to (and maybe still does) write notes to herself at night before she'd go to sleep to remind herself of all of the things she needed to do in the morning before school. This was taking place as early as 3rd grade. Beautiful.
• Youngest? Yes. But don't mess with Maddie. She's strong and physical, and she's not afraid to show it. If you don't believe me, just ask Mary. Feisty she is.
  

• Something else I personally appreciate about Madeline is that she has picked up on some of Matt's facial expressions and learned to mimick them. When Matt gets frustrated, he sticks his tongue out about 1/5th of the way and bites it. I thought I might be the only one to notice this, but observant Madeline has also pointed it out.
• Maddie is an excellent dancer, swimmer, and student. She's very smart (and she knows it). She's also very beautiful. Oh, and she likes to whistle. We love Madeline!

(This picture was taken almost 3 yrs ago at our wedding. Mads has grown a lot since then.)

Meet the Families

I had a brilliant idea. Over the next few weeks (or however long it takes), I am going to be introducing all of you to our immediate family members. We will write an individual blog post for each of our brothers and sisters and parents. We will probably do in-laws and nephews (since there are only two) as well. This might be a daunting task since Matt has six siblings, but I am looking forward to it. It is time we bring the familial idiosyncrasies into the light. Get excited.

little nephew

This is Peej. Just before he got in this odd looking position he said, "I have to poop." I asked him if that was how he pooped and he said, "Yeah." He lied, though. He ended up just doing somersaults.

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What a sweet smile! BTW, I taught him to say, "Uncle Matt's a ding dong."

Peej!!!

Next week we will be taking our semi-annual birth control. (That is, a week babysitting for my nephew who I looooove... but don't kid yourself, it's still birth control.) His parents don't blog about him, so I thought I'd give him a little tribute on the world wide web.



We are trying to figure out if he will be on the football team or in the marching band. Or he could pull a Matt and play varsity sports AND pursue musical interests.



This is at his 2nd birthday party in H-town.