Hello 2018!

After our trip to California, we headed back to Colorado to get started on the new year. We took advantage of a few more days of no school to visit Nana and Papa. Aubrey ventured into her own little world while Carter was napping, and I managed to get a video of it. Unfortunately, the many clocks in the house all went off during it, but I think it's still super cute.

Speaking of those clocks, Carter was going through a phase of loving them. Only he couldn't quite say "clock" correctly...

When school started again and we got back into the swing of things, we picked back up with our house projects. I'm planning a whole separate blog post about all of those, but I had to share this cute photo of Aubrey helping me paint one of our walls. She's wearing a pretty, white tutu, and it just made me think of Cinderella being put to work, haha.

For the month leading up to Christmas, Aubrey kept saying she wanted an Anna doll and a violin from Santa. (We listened to a lot of Celtic Woman Christmas music, which features a violin pretty heavily, and Aubrey was a big fan.) We decided to get her the doll, obviously, but the violin was a bit much for us. Enter Grandma Santa! Aubrey had lots of fun "playing" it for awhile, and I got this video of her.

And then it was just business as usual. We had dance parties...

... and had ice cream dates.

Carter stayed his cute, charming self...

... and Aubrey maintained her awesome fashion sense.

And I guess it rubbed off on Carter!

We also got some park days in. It was such an awesome, mild winter!

We discovered a yummy cupcake shop, which has these fun swings inside. It's probably good that it's too expensive of a place to go too often, because I don't need that.

We also went through a weird phase of making Thanksgiving dinner every few weeks. Daniel had a Home Depot coworker who kept bringing him free turkeys, so we kind of had to. :)

For their part, Aubrey and Carter went through a phase of dressing up a lot. Here Aubrey is dressed as Merida riding her "horse."

And here's Carter dressed as Elsa playing with Daniel's work tag as he's passed out.

And to end, I have an adorable photo of Carter being sweet with Aubrey's doll. D'awww.

Christmastime 2017

I like to decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, so as to have as much time with the decorations as possible (but without overshadowing Thanksgiving, which I love). This is the only photo I got of our decorating, however. I need to be better about taking photos of these kinds of things!

The town of Castle Rock also got some decorations up! I love Christmas lights. Maybe one day we'll actually put them up on our house! *sigh*

However, I think my favorite Christmas decoration was what Aubrey did to Daddy. She ran to me saying, "Mommy, I put a stocking on Daddy!" Hehe.

We participated in the necessary tradition of Christmas cookie decorating with Nana and Papa, of course.

And we tried to get a good family Christmas photo, but my kids didn't exactly cooperate...

At least I got one good shot of me and Aubrey!

Because Colorado weather can be awesome, even in the winter, the kids actually got to go to the park in December! Not too shabby, eh?

I tried to get some cute shots of the kids in their Christmas shirts. I guess this is cute in its own way... haha.

That Christmas, we were very blessed to receive various gifts from anonymous friends. The kids each got a fun toy from these nice people. They loved them (and still do)!

For the last time, we decided to spend Christmas in California. As we waited at the airport in Denver for our flight to San Diego, the kids got to meet Santa and Mrs. Clause! We love Southwest.

And after just a short flight (Hooray!), the kids were in Heaven with Grandma and Grandpa.

We even had a fireplace to hang our stockings by!

And once again, I failed to take photos when I should have, so all of the Christmas day pictures were taken by my dad. Thanks, Dad!

After Christmas, the Nelsen and McEuen portions of the family arrived, and cousin fun time began! Aubrey was smitten with her only Mangum girl cousin, Riley. Love!

And because it is San Diego, we were able to enjoy the spa while we were there!

Both kids loved spending time with their cousins. If only we didn't all live in different states!

One downside to all the fun, however, was that my kids got a little worn out. Aubrey instantly fell asleep like this when we got home from dinner one night. 

But the fun continued, with trips to the trampoline park...

... and Lake Poway...

... and the San Diego Zoo!

As always, it was a fun and exhausting trip to California. I'm so glad we do these little family reunions so the cousins can get some time together!

Fall 2017

One of the things I found myself missing most about Massachusetts were all of the fun seasonal events and festivals. So when I heard about a free Fall Festival here in Castle Rock, I knew I had to take Aubrey (Carter stayed behind to nap, though I did feel bad he didn't get to go). 

Aubrey had a blast! There were bouncy house things, which she loves, so she could have stayed forever. In fact, I only got her away from there when they finally deflated the things!

I, of course, had to get a selfie with the scarecrow.

Aubrey was apparently less inclined to pose with him, or so her middle finger would suggest.

We also had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa, which we always love!

Grandpa even got this cute picture of Mommy and Aubrey reading and snuggling together. These moments are too few, I tell ya.

Then, of course, came Halloween and all its activities. At school Aubrey had a fun Halloween party, complete with "Trick-or-Treating" along the hall. I got this class shot; of course there were three Elsas!

We also carved pumpkins as a family. Aubrey selected the pumpkin on the left and designed the face herself. Daddy helped her carve it!

I saw some cute Halloween shirts for the kids at Walmart, which they loved, but I never did get a good picture of them. This is the best I got.

Then came the day itself. It was pretty cold, unfortunately, but that didn't stop the kids from having a good time!

Carter had his first lollipop, of which he decided he was a big fan. They're probably his favorite treat to this day.

We hit up a few houses in the neighborhood...

... and then Aubrey wanted to help pass out candy at our house, which was fine by me. It was warmer in there!

Though Halloween night was a bit chilly, the days just after were still warm enough to enjoy the outdoors. We were able to go with a friend to the Denver Zoo, where Carter got very excited about the zebras.

He was also a big fan of the small waterfall in the indoor bird exhibit. This boy and water, I swear!

Aubrey and my friend's little boy enjoyed watching the grizzly bears.

And I almost died when they started holding hands!

The highlight of the trip, however, was getting to feed the giraffes. Now whenever we go, Aubrey asks why we can't feed the giraffes. I guess we never come at the right time.

Not long after that, the weather started to get cold. We even got a little snow. So, of course, we built a little snowman. It kind of looked like a penguin...

We spent Thanksgiving at Nana and Papa's house. Unfortunately, the only photo I got was of the red velvet cheesecake cake I made.

I also had to take a picture of this, which melted my Mommy heart. I can't remember if Aubrey did this at school or at church. But I love it!

After Thanksgiving, of course, comes Christmas. But we'll save that for the next post!