The Most Perfect Unperfect Christmas Tree

To most, our Charlie Brown tree wouldn't necessarily be considered "perfect." But to us, she's a gem and we're happy to spend the month of December admiring her. We comb the mountain forest for a good hour before we decide on the perfect tree, so we take pride in our final choice. I'm lucky there's always a group of us or I would still be trying to find my way back to the car.

Dude has already fallen in love with our little Charlie. It's the 3rd beauty we've cut down, strapped to the roof of our car and hauled down the mountain to our home (3 different homes to be exact). We look forward to many years of Christmas tree hunting adventures to come!

Chicken Nuggets & Floss

I sat down the night before Thanksgiving and started a list of everything that I'm thankful for. Forty five minutes later I was still writing, so you can imagine I came up with quite a list. Bottom line...God is incredibly good to us. We have so much more than what we could ever possibly need and then some. Below is just a sampling of some of the things (aside from the obvious most important things like loving parents, family, friends, health, a house etc) I say thanks for.

*The Light & Fan Department at Home Depot (dude and I can spend half hour there grunting at the beauty of it all)

*TJ Max/Homegoods...I am my mother's daughter

*Floss (oral hygiene is a good thing)

*Contentment (Tim and I just had a conversation of how amazing it is to not feel like we're wanting for anything)

*Dude's big blue eyes (no matter how much I want to take a long break from motherhood, those eyes bring me right back in)

*Chicken nuggets, turkey dogs, yogurt, raisin bread etc. (the staple of dude's finicky diet)

*Communication in my marriage (I can't image where we'd be without being able to tell each other anything and everything and know that it'll be okay)

*Grace....boy do I need that

*All dude's little friends and friends to be

*Model upbringings which have grounded Tim and I to provide the same for dude

*The sounds of dude talking and singing in his crib in the morning through the monitor

I won't continue on. If you're reading this, I'm thankful for you too! Hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving. We spent the day with our Denver family and had a wonderful time, as usual. We don't know what we'd do without all of them. They complete the circle of home for us here in the Mile High City. Below are some shots from our day o fun & incredible eats!

Who Said Kids Gymnastics Open Gym is Just for Kids?

Aunt Cara found the open gym session to be just as exhilarating as the children did.

We rolled PR around in this huge spongy ball with a hole in the middle.

Dude then insisted on rolling the ball around the entire gym.

We call these "hats"...apparently Dude thought Brady needed a couple of them. On his face.

He might have been a bit scared, but the kid hung on for like a minute!

Don't be fooled. There's no grip there. Not even a slight inclination to hold on.

"Wow. We wish we could do that awesome rope swing. And that girl's not wearing any pants!"

Life. It doesn't get much better than this.

An Assortment of Fun

We haven't updated ya'll on our fun factor for a while. Last weekend we dined with our buds, the Tebbens. We made nice with them in our last neighborhood and then ditched them shortly after to move further west. Luckily they've decided that we're still cool enough to hang. Their daughter Emma is one of dude's most favorite little people. Every little girl he sees in a catalog is "Emma." Dude had a blast jumping on their couch and on Mike and Emma. See evidence below.

Another new and innovative treat is our outdoor plastic pool filled with balls. Dad and dude spend loads of quality time throwing balls at each other and off the walls while the little man sits in the midst of all the colorful circles of endless fun. At the moment, the duo are upstairs watching "Cars" together for the first time. I hear constant grunting and "vrooms" which brings joy to my heart.

Today we invited our bestest buds, PR & Brady, to our gymnastics open gym time. Boy was that a hit for all! I'll do the next post on that hour of glee. We're excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow! Have a great Turkey, ham, whatever suits your fancy, day!

Friday Night with Fresh Prince

Ok, so really it was like 15 minutes with the Fresh Prince, but who's counting. I didn't expect to find myself jamming a camera in Will Smith's face on Friday night, but I'll take it! Will and Sony Pictures came to town for the red carpet premier of his new movie "Seven Pounds" and decided to donate a slew of turkeys and a bunch of food to my work. SO....we were invited to the festivities, which meant Tim, Dude and I got to stand in the "VIP" area and take pictures of the man. He really does love his fans. He spent at least 45 minutes taking pictures with everyone who wanted one.

Of course, my boss, who had to ask us who Ben Affleck was when he came to our warehouse, got to accept the check from Mr. Smith, shake his hand and do whatever else he could fit in while being 2 inches from him. Oh well. I'll accept my role as the food bank paparazzi any ole' day. Dude however, could have cared less about the star appearances but LOVED the big speakers and flashing lights.

An Update on Our Cyclops

We've received many concerned phone calls about the state of the dude's "silly eye" (that's what we called it so he would think it was funny rather than horrifying when he looked in the mirror). Visit #1 to the Dr. told us that it was NOT an infection, but rather an allergic reaction in one of his eyes. The benadryl did nothing and the eye got scarier and scarier throughout the day on Friday. To the point where it was completely swelled shut and people were looking at me like I was a child abuser.

A little Internet research on Saturday morning (gotta love that WebMD) told us that it probably WAS an infection and without immediate antibiotics, it could spread to the eyeball and cause permanent damage. We marched our fannies right back to the DR. (a new one this time) and she confirmed that it was as we thought. 12 hours after the first dose of drugs the eye went down 75% and dude's energy level skyrocketed. And Mom and Dad were able to relax and smile big big smiles to have our little man back. Although the cyclops was kind of endearing.

Lessons learned...

#1. Don't assume that your Dr.,despite their white coat and friendly demeanor, knows what he/she is talking about.

#2. Cut your kid's finger nails more than once every 2 weeks so they can't cut their eye, welcoming an infection to occur in the first place.

These pictures are pre-cyclops at the single most funnest hour of the dude's life. We signed up for a "gymnastics" class where he has free reign over a huge gym full of child friendly, cushy, obstacles. He didn't stop laughing for 45 minutes straight and fell in LOVE with the huge pit of Styrofoam blocks (see below photo). He would take running leaps and fall head first. We can't WAIT to go again this week. And the next. And the next.

Mmmmm.....now that I'm thinking about it, maybe that pit of foam had something to do with the massive eye infection......

You Should See the Other Kid

No, we didn't throw a baseball at his face. And no, he didn't throw a baseball at his own face, although that's more probable. We wish we knew what has caused this half face full of awfulness, but we don't. And the doctor doesn't quite know either. His eyes watered for a couple days and BOOM. This started happening yesterday, but only half this bad. This morning was very traumatic when the dude woke up and couldn't see out of one eye. It didn't make for happy times, but as soon as he got used to his state of half blindness, he's been his chipper self.

Has anyone else seen anything like this????? We have him on Motrin and Benadryl and try not to look at him straight on. It's enough to make me burst into tears.

The Awesomest Week Ever

Dude has been flying high lately. The weather has allowed for tons of outside time, which is our favorite place to be. Lots of trips to different parks, running through leaves (the new house offers more raking opportunities than anyone could possibly want) and walks around the neighborhood (translates into dude pushing the stroller with his head down and grunting the whole way). This past weekend topped off all the glee that Fall has brought with it. Nana & Papa came to town on Thursday night...that's where the F-U-N began.

It's safe to say that Nana & Papa had just as much fun as dude did. They didn't stop smiling or laughing the 3 days they graced us with their presence. How could they not? Our little man is pretty dang cute and full of darling surprises. We visited the Children's Museum, a neighborhood Halloween get together, party at Oma & Opa J's house, romping around in dude's cowboy boots, breakfast at Panera, hanging at the park, hiking in the mountains, throwing balls around every inch of the house, wrestling with Papa, reading with Nana etc. etc. etc. This mile high mom was pretty sad when Sunday afternoon came around. We didn't want to see our blissful weekend end:(