Christmas is Coming

Thanksgiving weekend was great for lots of reasons--the food, the shopping, the extra time with Adam. But my very favorite thing about Thanksgiving weekend is that it seems to kick-off the Christmas season. I LOVE this time of year. So, we spent Saturday getting all geared up for it.

We hung the stockings by the mantle with care:

Aren't those stockings great, by the way? I bought them on clearance after Christmas last year. I actually bought a football one, too. I guess that means we can only have one more kid!!

And we set up our Christmas tree. We have always had a real tree since we have been married, but we bought an artificial tree at a garage sale this summer. Once Adam had it all set up, we both missed the sight and smell of a real tree so much that we promptly put it back in the box and posted it for sale on Craigslist! Then we went out and got this beauty instead:

No, no, not the baby, the tree! But the baby is pretty cute, too.

Such a goofball!

Now we are all set! Let the festivities begin!

Black Friday

I generally don't buy into the whole Black Friday thing. I value my sleep too much to fight the crowds at 5 AM! Last night Adam and I were looking through our ads and I was noticing there were a lot of super great deals at Target. Adam asked if I was going to get up early to shop. I said, "No way!" And then I amended my response to, "The only way I would go would be if McKay wakes up at 4:45 and I have to get up with him anyway, and even then I would probably still go back to bed!" Well, at precisely 4:45 AM, I heard McKay crying. It must have been fate! I got up and fed him, and then decided since I was up, I should go. I threw on a jacket and a hat and left the house, without even turning on a light to look at myself before leaving. Yikes.

Target was crazy. I was sure as soon as I pulled into the parking lot that there was no chance I would get what I was after. Without going into too many details (some of the things I bought are for family members who may well read this blog before Christmas!) I found EXACTLY what I was after, and I was in and out of Target in 20 minutes. It was unbelievable. So worth it. And I only had to hide from one person I recognized so she wouldn't see me in the state I was in!

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! Here are three of the things I am the very most thankful for:

(I know, this is a terrible picture, but unfortunately, it was the only one I took yesterday. And, no, we did not plan to have them all in red and white stripes. It was purely coincidental.)

A Whole Lot of Catch-Up

I know, I know. It has been 3+ weeks since I posted. The main reason for that is that I haven't taken that many pictures lately, and I hate to post without pictures. And then, when I did finally take pictures, I had no desire to post them. Do you know what it's like when it has been forever since you wrote in your journal, and you know you should but you really don't want to? That's basically how I've been feeling about blogging. After a reprimand from my mother-in-law last night via phone ("Do I still have grandchildren in Colorado?") I decided to buckle down and do it. Here goes:

Our biggest news is that Adam has a new job!! We are both very excited about it. His new title is "Financial Planning Analyst" (what does that mean?!) and he is working for Kaiser Permanente. He is very excited about his new job, and I am VERY excited to not have to face any more busy seasons!! He just started one week ago today, and so far, he has been quite impressed with the people he works with and the work environment in general.

On the home front, we have two sick boys and one who is teething, as well. The last few days have been miserable, quite frankly. Ty hasn't been too bad, just more cuddly and clingy than normal. McKay has been an absolute BEAR. I can't say I really blame him too much--to be sick and getting new teeth at the same time couldn't be fun. But nap-time can't last long enough!!

Ok, now for the pictures. Last Sunday night, my Uncle Kirk and Aunt Kendra came down from Broomfield with their two cute kids and my grandma to have dinner with us. Kendra always takes cute pictures, so these ones are courtesy of her:

Shane, Ty and Chelsea on the back porch.

Ty stomping around in his daddy's boots

My cute Adam getting ready to grill kabobs. (We planned the menu before we knew about the snowstorm!)

McKay in the middle of his dinner. He is LOVING the solids now.

Shane and Chelsea with the boys

Our family

And here are a few photos that I took last week, before the boys got sick:

I think Mac's birthmark might be fading a little bit. Is that just wishful thinking?

Though our Ty Guy has always loved sports, he is WAY into baseball right now.

And last of all, we had some friends over last night who were visiting from California. Tami and I were good friends throughout our experience in the El Ed program at BYU, and her husband, Kevin, and Adam went through the accounting program together, too! Their little boy, Cody, is only 6 days younger than Ty, and they have a baby who is just a couple months younger than McKay. We sure wish they lived close! Ty and Cody had a BLAST together last night. I just love this picture of them riding the horse together!

Whew! It feels good to be caught up at last! I won't go that long without posting again!

Two Little Monkeys...

Happy Halloween from Colorado!!

Yep, this is a picture of our backyard taken earlier this week. Adam and a neighbor measured it, and we had 23" by Thursday afternoon. YIKES!! Luckily, it got up to the 50's on Halloween, but there is still plenty of snow on the ground.

My boys were both monkeys this year. Not nearly as fabulous as the golfer costume, but oh, well.

Here is monkey #1

And chunky monkey #2

And a couple of them together

We went trick-or-treating as a family around our neighborhood. Ty was really good at saying the right thing at the right time ("Trick-or-treat! Thank-you! Happy Halloween!"). He would not, however, accept any help carrying his treat bucket. As it got increasingly heavy, he was eventually dragging it, but still would not let us help. Stubborn kid. I wonder where he gets that from?!

Here he is with his loot

Score!

We also decorated pumpkins a couple of weeks ago, and I never posted pictures. We let Ty do his own little one with some stickers. He was VERY serious about it.

I thought it looked like something out of a Dr. Suess book!

And this is the one Adam and I did together. Adam gutted and I carved. We actually won my family's pumpkin carving contest this year--our first win ever! (The design is a barbershop quartet of ghosts, if you can't tell.)