My Happy Little Turkey

    Now that I have some time off of work, I can get caught up on blog posts!  Our little turkey had a happy first Thanksgiving in California. Grandma Cathy kept us busy busy busy seeing friends, and going out to eat; and Mom and Dad even got to sneak away to see Catching Fire.

     It is so sweet to see the cousins interacting now that they are getting a little older.  Gigi wanted someone to read her a book, so she crawled up next to Hadley on Nate's lap, and they both looked at each other the whole time instead of the book. Nola loved trying to hold Hadley, who was beside herself to be so close to such big-kid coolness.

     Thanksgiving is always going to be a tough holiday without my dad: he would have loved seeing the cousins playing together. But it seems like these happy new additions to the family add joy in the sadness.

Hadley and Grandma

Hadley and cousin Nola

Everyone loves Grandma's piano!  I play only slightly better than Hadley :)

Hadley's First Easter

I used to not enjoy the Easter holiday, not because I didn't appreciate the meaning of the holiday, but because I was away from my family and always felt a little like a vagabond, hopping from one random celebration to another. The past couple of years have been different now that we have found a group of friends that has quickly become our Denver family.  We spent Easter with these friends, and I am so happy that Hadley has people that love her and will set a good example for her as she grows.

Before church. I can't seem to get those socks to stay on!

Hadley's Easter outfit #1.

Our church held their Easter service at a hotel downtown so that all three services could be together.  The service was a half hour alter than usual, but it took us so long to get out of the house!  Hadley decided to have a marathon feeding session, and we kept thinking of things we might need for our afternoon out.  The car was filled to the brim by the time we left, and we barely made it on time for the service. 

We covered Hadley up during the service to keep strangers and their germs away, and she slept soundly- right until the sermon started.  She then decided that she needed another marathon feed, so I missed the rest of the service! I did meet about three new moms in the bathroom, though! 

Some actual family in Denver- Hadley and her Auntie Marissa. 

Yard games!!

Easter outfit #2.  Love the little bunny bottom :) 

Christmas in Denver

Our house all decorated.

This was my first Christmas in Denver.  We were so appreciative that Nathan's mom was willing to drive out to Denver this year.  Sitting in a car for 10 hours is not exactly comfortable for me!

It was a quieter Christmas than usual, but it was exactly what I needed. We went to church on Christmas Eve, and Marissa had us over to her place where she had the cutest Pinterest inspired Christmas appetizers ever. 

Christmas Eve

Hall tree from Diane- we love it!

Cute little Christmas tree. 

Christmas Crafting

We got all decorated for Christmas a few weeks ago, and I realized that no one would see our festive house. I decided to invite my craftiest friends over for a Christmas craft party. Everyone brought enough supplies for the whole group and we painted, glued, and created for hours.


I love making centerpieces for our usually cluttered table. This one has lots of vases- my painted snowflake votives and other clear vases- that I filled with candles and epsom salt.

 I had to pretty-up these plastic wine glasses. Wine glass charms would have worked if I had had any, but different colors of ribbon were festive and helped everyone keep track of her glass.

 

I've always wanted to paint one of these glass blocks- the stick-on stencils were perfect!  

 

Glass ornaments with acrylic paint dripped inside makes for a cool affect. Mine is still drying and looks different every time I check on it!

I love these cute little bookmarks!  Popsicle stick, fancy ribbon, and 3D stickers to make these cute little bookmarks- so much better than the receipts I usually use.  I'm thinking this would be good for my class next year! 

We also made yo-yos with lots of fabric, gift tags out of paper bags and metallic paper, and snowflake vases. Now I have lots of projects to do over my break!

Blossoms of Light

Nate asked me if I wanted to be adventurous on Friday night, and my answer was unequivocally "no". When he told me this adventure involved walking around the Denver Botanic Gardens and looking at Christmas lights, I quickly changed my mind. I am pretty fortunate that this is his idea of an adventure.


We went to the Blossoms of Light  and bought the 3-D glasses that make every lightbulb look like a snowflake (I wore them all the way home- stop lights and tail lights were automatically festive).  Maybe it wasn't completely worth the $20 we spent, but it was fun to see the gardens at night and it was nice to do something Christmasy.

 

This picture was a long time in the making- when we were posing, a tiny toddler ran in front of us. Then he grabbed my hand. I thought it was because of the teacher-vibe I cast, but it turns out I was dressed exactly like his mom.  When he figured out I wasn't family, he screamed and ran away. At least we didn't have to Photoshop him out of the picture.

Christmas Shopping Locally

We went Christmas shopping today, and even though I had adds and coupons for Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Target, and Bath and Body Works, we skipped the mall entirely. We decided,  thanks to Fancy Tiger, that we are going to buy from locally owned stores this Christmas.

Nate decide we should go to Fancy Tiger while we were out and about on Broadway. We walked in and they offered us PBR right away- a beer that Nate usually wouldn't drink but easily accepted since it was free. I got sidetracked from Christmas shopping and convinced Nate to try on a pea-coat style sweater- I think I can thank the PBR for that on!

We were so inspired by the things that we saw there that we went down the street to another locally-owned store, Decade. It doesn't have all the clothes that Fancy Tiger has, but there's a million little gifts that we sifted through for at least a half an hour.

We've heard that buying locally is supposed to pull America out of it's economical sink-hole, but if it doesn't, at least our family will have some clever little gifts from our attempts.