Best Christmas Present Ever!!

   Okay, ladies and gentlemen. I am going to clue you in on how to make the best birthday present for a baby imaginable. I mean, it's crazy good. Apparently, bettering your lives through explanations of things you should already know how to do is my thing these days. Just like before, you only need to follow the easy steps I lay out in front of you and instant status as "favorite ________" will be earned (You can fill in the blank with "uncle" or "cousin" or "stalker" or whatever).

Fair warning: If you are facebook friends with my mom, then you will have seen all this stuff like five times already. If you are not facebook friends with my mom, then you are missing out on having your grammar corrected on your status updates, and at least one message per week saying something like "You can't make fun of boys named Benedict I have a cousin in Des Moines whose son's name is Benedict and she won't like it." It's ironic because her grammar is bad in those messages, I know.

1)   Have some really nice photos taken by someone who takes really nice photos (in our case it was Kaela Mae). Like this:

I honestly just picked one at random from the CD our photographer gave us. So, yeah.

2)   Put those photos on facebook for anyone and everyone to see, copy, steal, use, and fawn over.

3)   Have an extremely artistic and clever sister in your family.

4)   Have that sister do this:

That's right, she got Wyatt a book for Christmas. A book that she made.

All about his first year.

Wyatt, Dad and Mom

Mom

Dad.
Do you really need me to keep captioning these? I'm going to stop, okay?

Grandpa Brett.
Dang it!! I forgot! No more captions!

This is his normal expression.

The original draft said "Scout the Bird" but she got that cleared up.

He's eating cake in this one.

No! Don't go away!! Com back, Wyatt!

Did you need to see the back page?

   Wow. What a thoughtful and smart thing to do! Nevermind that the text could leave a bit to be desired. I mean, I feel like most of the pages were just descriptions of who were in them, or what was happening. I kept waiting for a climax or for the villain to reveal himself or something, but alas (just so you know, it turns out Aunt Ashley was the villain all along! Clever and exciting!). Still, when I turned the page and saw Scout the Dog waiting, I was pretty shocked. Plot twist!!
   Ashley is always doing things like this. She got mom a phone case with a bunch of family photos on it, for example. Really, my family is very good about getting thoughtful, often-hand-made gifts for Christmas. For example, my brother made me this cribbage board:

It's shaped like Oregon. Where I live. Oregon doesn't have all those holes in it though.

   But don't think that I can't return the thoughtful-hand-made-gifts favor. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I bought all of my family's presents at Best Buy the night before Christmas Eve, so, yeah. I can hang with the rest of 'em.
   Really, though, it's not like I have any sort of artistic or natural skill beyond my obvious wordsmithing abilities, and who wants a limerick for Christmas? No one. That's who. (note: Jeff, thanks for that Limerick you sent me on a card for my birthday, it was just what I wanted).
   Okay, way to go Ashley. How very resourceful, getting all of those photos off of Facebook and turning them into a kid's book. Wait, what? Did you really do that? Just, get all of the photos from Facebook?! That's kind of creepy. Can anyone make a children's book about my son? Did you sell other copies to other people? Is this what the world is now? Are there books about Wyatt out there?

If you'd like to make your own book for someone you'd like to freak out, I don't really know how to do that. She apparently used a website called pinhole press, but you could also get in contact with my sister. Here's a link to her blog. I am reticent to send you there, because then you will see that my one and only talent outside of underwater handstands (blogging) is more of a family trait than a unique gift that only I and a billion other bloggers share. She doesn't update her blog nearly as often as I do because she has a life or some other lame excuse, but, there you go. Don't say I never didn't do nothing for you.

My mood: violated.
Wyatt's mood: unaware of how cool that book is
Listening to: Fast Car by Tracy Chapman