Does anyone else love this house?

We have been watching a lot of Andy Griffith Show lately.  Every time I see this house, I think "look at all that character!" and notice something different.  I love the side porch, the front window and half window above it.  I love how the chimney isn't where you would expect one to be.  There are lots of cute things about this house.  I want to see inside it! 

Happy Christmas!

We have had a nice Christmas here.  We're all sad that it is almost over but grateful that we have been able to spend so much time together.  I hope everyone else has had just as wonderful of a day.  Merry Christmas!! 

Henry and Daddy fighting off bad guys.

 

Henry's tent with a little Christmas tree.  You can see his new sleeping bag and garbage truck.  Other presents are in there with him too.

After watching parts of Brave, Henry spent the rest of the night on a bear hunt.  He protected us from lots of stuff today.  Santa picked well! 

Getting Ready

I am always take fewer pictures than I think I do. We had family here and did not get a single picture of it. (I know pictures exist, just not on my camera).  Grandmother, Faye, Emily, Ian, and Rubye were here to help us decorate our Christmas tree.  It was a nice, fun Christmas-y evening. 

These are some of my favorite pictures of pre-Christmas fun.

Helicopter helped us decorate the tree.  Henry attached ornaments to the helicopter hook then flew them to the tree.

Henry and Daddy made and decorated a train shaped rice krispy treat. 

Cousins

Henry and Rubye are sweet together.  Henry loves seeing Rubye and I think Rubye loves seeing Henry.  She watches everything he does and he loves to help her and play with her.  It's cute.

The other night Henry and I were driving around with Emily and Rubye.  Henry and Rubye were both in their car seats in the back seat talking to each other.  Rubye was babbling like 6 month olds do and Henry was repeating all of it to us.  As he was telling us something she said, she kept talking and Henry looked at her and said "What was that?"  I guess he was really interested in what she was saying and didn't want to miss any of it.  Funny boy.

Fire Hazard Gone

Let it be known that I am currently cooking on 2 big burners at the SAME TIME!!!!  A few weeks ago we got a new stove.  This is very good because the last one was completely missing one big burner and the other was a bit of a fire hazard every time I turned it on.  

This isn't the first time this has happened this month but I smiled to myself when I thought about it and wanted to share. 

Somewhere I have a picture of the old stove and the new stove but I can't find them (they may have been deleted in a panic to capture Christmas fun), so you'll have to just imagine old, terrible, fire hazard stove and new, beautiful, 5 burners on a glass stop stove.  So beautiful in fact that when it was delivered, Henry said "It's beautiful Mama!"  A stove that is beautiful even to a 3 year old little boy.  Now that you've got it all pictured in your head you can imagine how happy I am right now.

Summer Vacation

This summer we got to go Oregon for Rubye's baby blessing and to spend some time with my family before Caleb headed off for his mission.  (He leaves on Tuesday!!)  We did had a lot of fun and I'm glad we got to go!

The pub we ate at on our way.

Fish and chips does not sit as well with me as it used to.  Henry had a blast in the Hotel pool though and lucky for both of us, he has the best Daddy ever that was willing to swim around with him for hours.  

 

 

Henry's pallet at G.G.'s

 

Feeding fish at the Hatchery

We spent a day at Silver Falls.  It is a fun little hike where you start at the top of the falls and end up walking behind them then around the pool at the bottom.  Henry loved the waterfall and all of the caves around it.

We spent a couple of days at the coast.  Henry LOVED the beach!  He's talked about it ever since.  We built sand castles, walked on the beach, flew a kite, went swimming (in an indoor pool), had seafood and lots of fun!

(A picture of Daddy looking out the window at the ocean.  One of many beach condo pictures taken by Henry.)

 

Henry "lub"s Rubye!

 G.G. and Henry

I would really reccomend the condo we found.  It could easily sleep 8, there is an indoor heated pool, pool table, sauna and it is right on the coast.  There is a balcony and picture window overlooking the ocean and it was a good price.  Can't get a better combo than that!  I wold love to go back again!!

The second day at the coast we went walked around a couple different towns.  Henry had fun watching all the boats, seals, fish and crabs.

 

Henry having fun on our way home

 

Henry and his Great Grandpa Dixon

 A month later, I found Henry emptying his closet into his diaper bag.  I asked him what he was doing and he said "Go G.G's house and go beach!!"  Agreed, Henry.  Agreed.

Summer

Dear Future Me: 

When you "publish" this years book, put the summer posts where they should be chronologically. 

Thanks,
Busy and Behind

~

We had a fun summer.  I couldn't even begin to go through all of the things we did, but the whole summer went something like this:

 
A chaotic blur.  (In which Henry spent a lot of time wearing fireman hats and Teddy a leash.)

It was actually a pretty fun summer.  My lack of blogging probably had more to do with my desire to spend all my extra time outside or doing something fun as it did with our being busy.  I love being outside and for the first year since we've been married, I had a decent garden to spend time weeding and admiring.  The first part of the summer I spent figuring out how to get rid of the snails that kept devouring my plants.  Once that was figured out I was able to keep things alive.  

 

Fun with Daddy in the Sprinkler

 

A little cocoon we found living under the protection of our zuchinni

 

 

Brussel Sprouts!

They actually got some creepy bug on them so we just tossed the whole plant, but next year I know how to keep that from happening.

 

One of our pumpkins, an onion and some beets

 

We built logs of blanket forts this summer

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