6 Months…and change

I finally got around to taking Aubrey’s 6 month quilt shots.  She was a bit over half a year, but who’s counting?  She now can get to wherever she wants to by inchworming herself over to it!  Usually it’s over to the tree to get at the ribbons on the presents!  She talks all the time in typical girl fashion, she absolutely adores her daddy, I’ll post a video of that later, she finally has her own bed (woohoo!), and is such a joy to have around.  What a blessing she is to our family.

One week and 6 months!  It’s amazing how much they change in half a year.  Once again it was pretty hard to keep her in one spot trying to get this picture.  She kept curling up her legs trying to grab at her toes, rolling over, and just wiggling around a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s all folks.  We have a super busy and exciting weekend ahead, tonight Ryan’s family is coming over to do an early Christmas before we leave, my parents come tomorrow, the Christmas concert at church is Saturday, my parents leave with the boys to go back to their house Sunday, and we follow with the wee one Monday!  Enjoy the season and Merry Christmas!

Bunk beds = Awesome

It’s official, 3 is a crowd! But it’s also more fun, according to the big boys.  Aubrey now gets to sleep in a bed instead of on the FLOOR in our room, and when she wakes up in the morning, Jake goes to her crib and un-swaddles her, Warren climbs in the crib, and they entertain her for a while until 7:30, which is when they are allowed to come out of their room.  This morning it sounded like a party in there, Aubrey was cooing with absolute delight at having her brothers give her so much attention. 

Here are some shots of before and after the new beds.

Munching on an apple watching Daddy assemble.

 Go Daddy-O!

 They love their new beds!!

And the little Miss all snuggled up in a bed of her own.  I love her bedding and am so glad we can use it now.  Thanks Grammy! And Aunt Jess for the blanket!

Thanks to Grandma & Grandpa and Grammy & Papa for the awesome beds for Christmas, we love them, and especially you!

O Christmas Tree, We Shall Get Thee, Eventually…

And we did, but what an ordeal!  Every time we went to go get the tree, something came up, or there was a really good reason not to go at that particular moment.  The best reason that we did not get a tree one evening when we meant to goes as follows:

After about 3 failed attempts to get in the car and drive to get a tree, we decided that we wanted to go get a quick bite for dinner and on the way home swing by Home Depot, play the Christmas Tree Lotto (more on that in a minute) and head for home to decorate and drink hot chocolate.

We had been wanting to go to Chick-Fil-A for a while after hearing so many southerners rave about it, so we decided to combine the 2 errands. After locating the closest one we set off.  In rush hour traffic.  WITH the rush hour traffic.  A normally 20 minute drive took about an hour.  And on the way back, it took another hour.  Needless to say, we didn’t end up having enough time to get a tree because we are kind of Nazi-ish about bedtimes (usually).  But let me tell you, the 2 hour drive time was worth it!  We all loved it, even Aubrey, who unfortunately had to eat mooshed up cooked veggies instead of juicy tasty chicken.  Which she likes.

check out the cowlick on that boy!

 Num Nums

Well, there you have it.  The reason we didn’t get a tree on the evening we ate Chick-Fil-A.

Now back to the Christmas Tree Lotto.  This yuletide tradition originated with my parents who are very practical people and don’t like to waste much time with unnecessary details.  They rarely get caught in analysis paralysis, so it naturally follows that finding a Christmas tree would be no exception.  Ryan and I have continued on with the Lotto in our family because it just works.  No one gets upset, we ALWAYS get a great tree, and it's in and out of the tree place in about 5 minutes or less, depending on how fast the saw guy is cutting.

Here’s how it works:  You drive to Home Depot.  You locate the type of tree you want, either Douglas or Noble (we choose Douglas, they’re more in our price range), figure out the size (we prefer the 6 to 7 feet ones), grab one that is still bundled up, making sure the top is star worthy (in other words one that our star will work with), have the guy take a little off the bottom, pay, and you’re outta there!  Quick as a flash we have a tree and are headed for home.

Our tree this year is great, there’s a little bald spot, but it’s nothing an ornament or some lights can’t fix and you’d never even know now that it’s all spruced up.

Fantastico!  We’ve never had an argument about a silly tree, we always seem to get great ones, what could be better? 

Even Aubrey was in on the decorating fun!

I also made a nifty wreath with the leftover branches from the bottom.  It was my first time so no snickers from the peanut gallery.

Merry Christmas!

All Snuggled Up

I thought I would tell you all about one of my most favorite things ever—The Heated Mattress Pad!!

I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to slip into a warm bed when it’s chilly outside (and inside).  Now I understand that “chilly” is a relative term.  Here in the land of “Let’s Build in the Middle of the Desert” a.k.a. Southern California, chilly is about mid-50s, maybe down into the 40s during a really cold snap.  I know all you east coasters, and Montanans, and, well, everywhere else except here are all rolling your eyes at the computer screen right about now, but hey, at least you guys get SEASONS. 

My first experience with this modern marvel was at my parent’s house a couple of years ago.  My mom has one on the guest bed and we would use that thing even in the summer because in their warm months, the temperature is about equal to our cool months temp.  (They live in the S.F. Bay Area.) 

Now, the pure genius of this thing is that most have dual controllers for the 2 sides of the bed!  I’m sure my husband and I are pretty typical in that I’m almost always cold and he’s not, so I crank mine up pretty high while he keeps his on a lower setting, and we both sleep comfortably-brilliant!  Before getting ready for bed at night, I turn on the handy pre-heat setting, brush my teeth, wash my face, clean up a little, and bingo-I can get into a toasty warm bed. 

If you have never experienced once of the amazing contraptions, I highly recommend it, especially for those of you in colder weather climates.  A nifty Christmas present perhaps?  (That’s when my parents gave us ours.)

Sleep warm! I know I will.

I’m Still Here.

I’ve sort of fallen off the bloggy bandwagon lately, sorry.  We’ve had lots of sickies in the house, I think everyone’s been sick, and  now I’ve finally received the lovely gift of hacking and sneezing.  I thought I was going to avoid it this time because for days and days I only had a minor scratchy throat, but it found me. 

Poor little Aubrey, I actually had to take her in to urgent care Thursday night because she was having problems breathing.  She had this horrible croupy cough and was wheezing when she would get worked up coughing or crying.  The doctor gave her some liquid prednisone and that opened up her airway almost immediately and she’s fine now, just a lingering cough.

What else, what else?  Grammy came to visit the Master’s Kids with us on Tuesday, just like Grandma did last month.  It’s pretty neat when the kids get to bring a special friend along.

Here’s a funny video of Jake and Aubrey.  She was in the peak of her sickness (you can tell by her huge puffy eyes) but still thought her brother was hilarious. 

Well my friends, that’s about it.  It’s been a pretty uneventful week, except that Ryan is just about done with this semester.  He got the bulk of his work turned in last week, and what a burden lifted that is!  One more semester left, then we’re outta here!  Where we’re going, who knows (only the Lord), but at least there’s an end in sight now!

Ok, sorry about the boring post, I’ll have more for you later.  We’re going this afternoon to get a Christmas tree, so I’m sure there will be some fun pictures to post later on.

Peace out.

Birthday Boy!

 

The turkey turned 4! (This picture was taken on Thanksgiving.)

We had a small birthday party at Grammy & Papa’s house with Brian, Christi, the girls and us.

Party Theme: Dinosaurs!

Brian let me borrow their dinosaur cupcake molds, so we had dino cupcakes and I set up the food table with lots of dino books and toys, it was very cute.

Close up of the cupcakes:

The food table (we had pizza):

Opening presents and playing with toys:

Aunt Natalie even made it to the party all the way from Oregon! (via web chat, that is.)

Fun party, fun times!  Happy Birthday Kiddo!