The downside of January?!

Wow... it's almost February! It felt like this month just flew by. Probably because it did! Charlie and I didn't get home from our Christmas MN trip until the 9th, and poor Matt had to drive in terrible weather to pick us up from the airport. What was supposed to be a 2+ hour drive turned into a 5+ hour drive. Yuck. After getting back, it took a whole week to get the house back in order and everything unpacked from being gone so long! Christmas decorations were put away and the house finally got back in order a mere 6 days later. Ugh! Matt went on a hunting trip and came back to a sickly wife. I thought I had strep, so I went in for a culture, but no luck. Turns out it was tonsillitis! (Why didn't I get that as a kid instead of now?!) It took a week to recover from that nastiness. Thankfully, Matt stayed home three days to help with Charlie as I was flat on my back on the couch. Combine all that and we're knocking on February's door!

I'm trying to upload pictures as I've got some cute ones of Charlie, but it's not working. I'll have to try again later. Just picture Charlie, pulling himself up on the couch (and everywhere else), playing with toys while wearing these adorable slippers I got at Target. C.U.T.E.

More soon!

Kansas Pheasant Hunting, January 14-16

Went out pheasant hunting in Kansas with a couple of co-workers and one retiree. Safe to say I was the youngest on the trip by 20 years. Had a really good time, but weather was nice and the birds were running. On Friday, we hunted a half day and one guy shot one bird, but as a group we should of had three more. On Saturday I was the lucky one. I had four roosters get up in front of me throughout the day, and was able to get all four; another guy was able to get one more. On Sunday, the luck shifted to a different guy, and he shot all three we got that day. Here's a couple pictures with the birds I shot and my company.
The beard is back for another year. I have two more weeks before I shave it off; Julie can't wait.
From left to right, Dave Gilbert, Tom Grette, and Fran Ackley (the yellow lab is Dave's named Rufus, and the black is Fran's, Sidney).

This was my last hunting trip now until spring turkey opens up, but I had a good year. I'll be looking forward to next year's hunting seasons.

Our Family Christmas 2010

What a fantastic day we had yesterday. Just Matt, Charlie and me, celebrating Christmas together as a family for the first time. It was so much fun! Church, family dinner, pictures, naps (for Charlie!), a walk in the beautiful 60 degree weather, reading the Christmas story out of Luke, opening gifts (so exciting!), and looking at Christmas lights were some of the highlights of our day. We had a perfect day together and I was sad to see it end last night. Oh, well. We have more celebrations coming up later this week, and many, many more years to celebrate together as a family. We are richly blessed.

I also received gifts - a new cd player and a dutch oven! - but there aren't any pictures to document it.

(To be fair, Charlie got a shirt about Grandpa, too. :)

Charlie's Crawling!

Well, Charlie started officially crawling today. He has been scooting on his knees a bit the last couple of days, but today, he put it all together and was moving his hands and legs to crawl. Yeah Charlie!

Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving "Helper"

It looks like he's using the spoon to call Grandma or something, but it's a total coincidence. He doesn't know how to do that yet.

Charlie's first Thanksgiving was pretty fun! I SO wanted to get him a onesie I saw at Walmart with the words Baby's First Thanksgiving on the front. The cute part was underneath that: different jars of baby food (peas, sweet potatoes, etc.)! It was adorable, but they didn't have his size. Anyway!

We were invited over to some new friend's house for Thanksgiving, but due to the fact that she didn't have any fixin's for a meal and I already did, we swapped and I invited them over instead. It worked out well! I made a 15 1/2 pound bird, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean cass, carrots and croutons, and a blackberry salad and Karen (my new friend from MOPS and they live 2 blocks away!) brought sweet potato cass and a pumpkin pie. After she brought her food, she said that the marshmallows needed to melt onto the sweet potato casserole, so I stuck them in the oven. Well, those little things wouldn't brown! Karen suggested I turn on the broiler, and hardly 2 minutes later, I opened the door and BLACK SMOKE POURED OUT. Oops. Real nice, right? "Wanna come over for Thanksgiving? And can I burn your food?!" It actually was still really tasty, burned mallows and all. She and her husband have two kids, so it was super informal and relaxed. We were able to get some good conversation in and get to know them better, too. Karen and I have gone walking a handful of times and I think that I might dare say that I have a friend here! But don't tell her that. I don't want to scare her off. :)

Right after Karen and her family left, we ventured out in search of the perfect Christmas tree. Matt bought a permit from the Forest Service and scored some tips on where to go, so he packed up the saw and we hit the road. It was pretty fun! It was a bit chilly and if it would have been nicer out, we would have hiked longer and searched harder. We found one pretty close to where we were parked - less hauling for my lumberjack! I'm pretty sure this will be our tradition on Thanksgiving day - big meal and chopping down the Christmas tree.

It looks like Matt isn't getting any credit because there's no pictures of him cutting or anything! It was a little hard to juggle Charlie all wrapped up in a blanket and take pictures at the same time. But he was there! Without him, we wouldn't have a tree! Matt hauled that thing around like some kind of Christmas tree wizard; sawing it down quickly, throwing it up on his shoulder, strapping it to the car, etc.

(Note: Did you notice I mentioned bringing a saw along? You didn't think we'd end up like the Griswold's, did you? You know, with the huge tree roots hanging off the car? We kept waiting for the bright lights to shine down on the one we were supposed to cut, but it just didn't happen. :)

Garden of the gods

A few weekends ago, we headed to Colorado Springs to check out Garden of the gods. I'd been there before but it had been years. We spent an hour walking along the paved trails while Charlie rode in the stroller. It was cool, but the sun still has so much power that it balanced out. It was fun to see something new and enjoy the sunshine!

So far, this has been the only trip/outing where Charlie has lost a pacifier! I can't believe it, especially considering all the places we've been. It was in one of those pictures, and the next time I looked, it was gone. We even walked back to see if we could find it, but no luck! I'm thinking that someone's dog picked it up and kept it as a chew toy. Or choking hazard. I'm HOPING some other kiddo didn't grab it and just start sucking!! YUCK!

Sweet Cheeks

Lots of things make me smile, but one that tops the list is bare baby butt cheeks.
Top or bottom cheeks. Take your pick! They're BOTH sweet!

Matt and I usually take turns giving Charlie a bath, and he still loves it. Daddy lets him play more than I do, something I didn't know until I was in the bathroom taking pictures!

Guess he likes to have some covers up over his ears like his Mommy... I was nervous the first few times when I went to check on him and he had blankets over his face, but now they mostly stay around his head, leaving his nose and mouth in the open air.