Starting the Christmas Season

It's always so hard to believe when Christmas time comes around, but here it is!  One of my favorite days of the year was on Saturday, our annual tree cutting day.  I LOVE this day... we had beautiful, don't-even-need-a-coat weather and there were 12 families that joined us in the fun.  We found an awesome spot for everyone to hang out and picnic once we found our trees and kids were running everywhere laughing and enjoying the day as much as the adults.  I'm so happy that this is a part of our Christmas traditions, it's definitely a special day that I don't ever want to stop doing!  I told Sean that I hope one day all the kids who are a part of this will look at pictures over the years and say, "Those were such fun days! Look at our parents - they were so young!"

Our tree is extra skinny this year on purpose.  We put it in our front room this year instead of downstairs and we don't have a lot of room to work with!

George and Ryan being George and Ryan :)

I found these shirts online this summer and have been waiting until today to break them out - pretty perfect for the occassion!

The view from a big boulder overlooking our hang-out.  This perch was a big hit with the kids.

We visited Santa at the mall a couple weeks ago.  We've realized it's the perfect time because nobody is there yet and the line is pretty much non-existant!  This Santa was very smooth and was able to cleverly convince a shy Gus to sit on his lap and even smile for the camera!

We spent the rest of today decorating the house.

This is how Gus puts up ornaments: five ornaments within 3 inches of each other.

A South Carolina Thanksgiving

We just got back Friday night after spending the week of Thanksgiving in South Carolina with Sean's parents and I'm so embarrassed that I forgot to bring my camera! All I have are pictures taken with my phone, and there are no group shots or even any with Marlene - I feel awful!  Luckily, they're coming to Denver for Christmas, so I'll be sure to get some good ones of the boys with their Nana and Pa!

On Monday, the weather was lovely and we were able to get out on the pontoon boat and explore a little of the lake.  Both boys got to drive the boat and we stopped to explore a playground and throw some rocks into the water.

We went swimming one day, explored a children's museum in Greenwood, and visited a goat farm with a kids' train that took us around the property.

On the night before Thanksgiving, we went to a small town in Georgia that has a blue grass open jam session every year on this night.  Anyone can get up on stage and join in on the singing and instrument playing.  It was such good music and so fun to see them all enjoying playing together as a big group.  I loved it!

On Thanksgiving morning, Marlene got the house to herself to prepare her delicious meal, and the rest of us participated in a church Turkey Trot.  George and I walked/ran the two mile loop through the community and Sean, Terry, and a screaming Gus stopped at the one mile mark:)  We had a wonderful meal with two couples who are friends with Terry and Marlene - a perfect end to our trip!  

Halloween 2014

The original plan for Halloween this year was for me to make each boy a Star Wars costume: George wanted to be Luke Skywalker and Gus wanted to be Obi-Wan Kenobi.  I had all but bought the fabric for the boots when a trip to Target changed it all.  Once George saw the Darth Vader costume, that's all he wanted to be.  Once Gus saw that George got a pre-made costume, that's all he wanted as well.  The only Star Wars costume in his size was the bounty hunter Jango Fett, so that's what he got.  Oh well - they were happy!  

The best part of these costumes was that the masks meant I didn't need to convince the kids to smile for the camera :)

We had such a fun Halloween.  I was able to take the day off (a perk of my new job is that on holidays, nobody cares that I'm not there!) and got to go to both boys' classroom celebrations.  We missed our usual neighborhood celebration with the band and the leaf-jumping, but we loved Halloween this year! Thanks to warm temperatures and awesome neighbors, we celebrated together with four other families at our friends Joanne and Brian's house across the street with pizza, snacks, beer, and then all went trick or treating together. After trick-or-treating around one block, we all came back to their house and sat outside with a fire pit, more beer, and the kids watched a movie downstairs.  It was a great night and I hope we can do it every year! (it might be a blizzard on Halloween next year, though).  

Happy Halloween!