Christmas tree adventures

Much to my dismay, we didn't get a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.. Or for that matter, the day after Halloween. :) jk. Anyway~ we were going to get ours on Thursday night, but we were feeling lazy so Jonathan said, "let's just get it on Sunday." And lucky we waited, because on Friday Melody called and said she works with a lady who lives in San Isabel forest (about 30 min outside Pueblo) that has an overabundance of trees that she needed to get rid of. So today, Jonathan, Amelia and I, and Melody and Tom bundled up and loaded up in the car for a short trip to the forest. We had a great time, got a tree for free, and made better memories doing it than going to Home Depot. Yay.

Amelia yawning from the beginning, turned into a few tantrums later, and a snooze on the way home.

Grandma and Amelia

Can you spot Jonathan in the midst of all those trees??

Melody having a wonderful day.. until she fell down the hill a little bit :(

Checking out a hole in the frozen creek. The water running underneath was so beautiful.

"Brrrrrr."

Our beautiful tree!

Funny how the tree looked so big in the forest, but pretty tiny in our living room. :)


There's just nothing quite like cutting down your own Christmas tree! What a wonderful day! Happy holidays everyone!

All bundled up for... Winter??

Yesterday Jonathan got ambitious and decided to put up the Christmas lights on our house. Let me just say that I LOVE having a motivated, handy husband. Anyway~ He put some up in the morning, then came inside and ate lunch and hung out for a little while, then went back out to hang some more. Amelia kept going over to the front door, wanting to watch him so I figured there would be no harm in letting her go outside to help. So, we went in her room and got all bundled in a coat and hat, gloves and boots. She pretty much looked like the kid from A Christmas Story. Hilarious. After she was all geared up to go, we opened the front door to realize it was almost 60 degrees out! What kind of winter is this?! Don't get me wrong, I hate the cold and I'm glad it's not cold, but I know what's going to happen is that it'll be nice until the week I'm trying to travel to Grand Junction. Then there will be a blizzard and all the roads will be closed. Anyway~ She looked cute:

Thanksgiving

In our neck of the woods, Thanksgiving was relaxing and wonderful. We were not part of the traveling crowd, as we stayed in town and spent the day at Tom and Melody's house. It was low-key, fun, and stress-free. I had big plans of going shopping on black Friday, not for anything in particular, just to get out and be part of the crowd. I ended up spending my day in bed with a stomach bug, while Melody took the baby for me. Thanks again, Melody, for everything!!

Amelia's checking out her outfit


Of course she wouldn't look up for the picture


Sharing cool-whip with Dad


Then Dad got "creamed" by uncle Jeff


Oh my gosh, she looked up!


We're having a stern talking-to about looking good in pictures...


...And this was the best we got.


Happy Thanksgiving, and on to Christmas! YAY

Stuck

Let me begin by saying that I hate baby proofing. I find it very annoying whenever I want to get into a cupboard or drawer that I have to push down on that stupid locky-thingy (very technical) to get into it. Therefore, we have done the most minimal amount of baby proofing around our house. Don't worry, we have all the chemicals and other harmful things safely locked away, but pretty much everything else is fair game for Amelia to get into. We have been closing the door to the bathroom for quite some time now, finding that to be the easier option. Finally, the other day we decided it would be necessary to baby proof the bathroom because Amelia now knows how to open lids and squirt stuff in her mouth, like diaper rash cream and toothpaste, and enough is enough. Now that the bathroom is all squared away, we can leave the door open! YAY!

So, today I'm sitting on the couch in the living room and Amelia is wandering around the house as usual. I hear her messing with some stuff in the bathroom for a few minutes, then she lets out a few whimpers and then very clearly (for the first time) says, "stuck." I go to the bathroom to find this:



Great.

Happy Halloween!

We celebrated our Halloween tonight. Even though it's a couple days early, tonight was our church get-together. It was just a gathering in the gym, with a few activities for kids to do. Unfortunately, Amelia isn't old enough to appreciate crafts or really trick-or-treating yet, so our time there was short-lived, but we really enjoyed dressing up! In my opinion, Ameila was the most adorable kid there. :) You be the judge:



Trick-or-treat!


Yummy sucker


I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!

October

Wow, I can't believe it's already the end of October! Life has been busy, as usual. Eric, Amy and Espen were here this weekend and we had lots of fun together! Friday night we had a family get-together at Melody and Tom's house with about 25 of Jonathan's family members. Saturday we met the boys for lunch and then took a walk around the River Walk, and that night we just hung out at home. Thanks for coming guys! We love having visitors!

Here's Espen wearing my shoes :)

I'll sum up the rest of the month in pictures.

Justin came home!! He's been overseas working construction in the Afghanistan/Kabul/Dubai area since January. We were all so excited for him to be home, safe and sound.



We took 2 trips to the pumpkin patch, which was fun, but will be MUCH more fun when Amelia cares, and can walk around that crazy terrain on her own. :)



My friend Stevie and I have been making baby girl tutus and headbands to sell for a little bit of extra money here and there.. Or maybe just for our own kids :)
Cute bow huh?!?


And here's my favorite..


Recently Amelia has really taken to loving chairs. She likes to climb into them and sit proud like a big lady. So, Jonathan and I thought it would be the cutest thing to buy her a chair..


And it was..



It's a little brown leather chair to match the rest of our living room furniture. Love it!

I hope everyone has had a great October so far! Can't wait to post Halloween pictures, and see everyone else's!

California

We just got home from a wonderful trip to California. On Friday morning we got up bright and early, (poor Jonathan woke up at 2:30am and couldn't go back to sleep), loaded up the car and headed for DIA. Our plane left at 9:30am and was a success:

We spent that whole day and night with my Mom's side of the family:

Grandma telling Amelia she doesn't need to cry every time the dog comes around

Grandma and Amelia

That night we went to Holly and Ryan's to play some guitar hero


Saturday we got ready and went to San Marcos for the rehearsal dinner. First we got more pictures with the fam:
Grandma, Me, Amelia

Add in Jonathan

Take out Jonathan and add Carolyn


Here are some cute shots at the rehearsal dinner:



Passing out gifts

All the bridesmaids got matching Coach clutches. They're so cute!

The ribbon made a great hair bow!

I love my Maria


The next day was the wedding, which was wonderful.

Maria with her Dad

9 bridesmaids!

The whole wedding (Jonathan stood in the back with Amelia so he got lots of great pictures!)

Our family

And then she broke my necklace :(

But she loved the flowers

And my Coach clutch

And me!

The whole wedding party


YAY! Maria Chiovare is now Maria Ayala!! :)


Monday morning we were able to stop by Bryan and Erin's house and chat for about an hour, then we met Carolyn and Shirley for an In-N-Out lunch, and then headed to the airport to go home. After the worst flight home ever, and Amelia getting a minor motion sickness barfing episode, we are home safe and sound, and it feels great!