Christmas is coming...

This weekend was the squadron children's holiday party (aka Frozenpalooza). The spouses who organized everything did such a nice job and I think all the kids had a blast. Ethan especially loved getting to decorate his snowman cookie and then, of course, eating his decorated snowman cookie. Unfortunately, Ethan was a wee bit terrified of Santa. Like mother like son, I suppose. It was really neat, though, because Santa had a gift for each child there and called their names up to sit on his lap and receive their special gift. Our child, of course, was the only one who screamed at the top of his lungs in protest when Santa called his name and we attempted to get him to walk up to Santa. I won't lie, though, I had flashbacks to my own childhood when the whole thing happened so I was a little extra sympathetic. So I ended up taking the gift from Santa, and then Ethan happily took it from me and opened it and (to no surprise) loved the gift. I'm hoping Christmas Eve/Christmas morning will go a little smoother, though, since Santa will just secretly visit us at night and Ethan won't actually have to interact with him, lol.

Decorating his snowman cookie

Mmm... tastes just as good as it looks!

Ethan's reindeer holiday card. Note my "sample" reindeer over on the right side of the card, lol. Matt called this Ethan's "Picasso" interpretation of a reindeer...

Watching Elsa sing "Let it Go"

Frozenpalooza (aka Frozen sing-a-long with real life Elsa, Anna and Olaf)

And Santa has entered the room...

Our attempt to have Ethan simply walk up to Santa and accept a gift from him...

Cheery old Santa Claus

Unwrapping his gift. Note the tear still streaming down his cheek.

And now we're all smiles with our new farm book! Yay!

All that Frozen-Santa-fun was on Saturday, so then on Sunday we ran a few errands and then after nap time we worked on some holiday crafts. Matt was outside in the garage (still unpacking) so at one point when he came in Ethan proudly announced, "Look Daddy, Ethan do art!" :) It was pretty adorable and made me happy because I could tell he was really having fun with what he was doing.

After all that we spent the rest of the weekend continuing to unpack boxes (yes, we still have boxes left to be unpacked). Slowly but surely we will unpack this house and every box in it! I mean, my goodness, yesterday I found a wedding gift that had never been used. We celebrated our 3 year anniversary this year! For so long we just lived with half our stuff in one place and half in another, it's definitely nice to finally have all of our stuff, together in one house. Now to just finish unpacking all these darn boxes! :)

Turning 30, or what I like to call the "Week of Surprises"

Well folks, the time finally came. I turned 30. Wohooo! Knowing I was about to turn 30 really didn't bother me at all, and to no surprise, actually turning 30 also did not bother me. Being a December baby and the youngest of three, I've always been the baby amongst my family and friends, so I've always wanted to be older. I remember being desperate to turn 10 and receive the coveted birthstone ring from my aunt (my sister and older cousin both received their's at ten, so I knew it was coming). Then there was the slow crawl to turn 16 like all my friends. Oh and waiting to finally be in my 20's just killed me. We were in college and everyone around me was in their 20's, but I was still a wee little teenager. Turning 20 was probably equally as exciting to me as turning 21. Now fast forward a decade and here I am, 30 years old. It feels right. It fits. And if the first week of my 30's is any indication of the rest of the decade, then I think I'm in for a great ride.

Now since we just moved to Clovis and I don't have a lot of good friends around here, I really wasn't expecting any big hoopla at all for my birthday. In fact, Matt and I put a $50 limit on our birthday presents this year (pah!). Little did I know, Matt had lots of big hoopla plans already made for my birthday...

Surprise #1: My New Car
Matt and I had been discussing buying a new car for a couple months. We'd test-driven a few and had pretty much decided on what we wanted. The tricky part (or so I thought) was actually getting to the dealership (preferably without Ethan) to sit down and buy the car. Matt had just been so busy with work it had been all but impossible to make the trip there (again, or so I thought). I had just convinced myself we would buy a car when we had the time and it wasn't worth stressing out about because we just didn't have the time. Ha.

Monday evening I was driving home from picking up Ethan and on my way through our neighborhood I passed the car we wanted. I didn't think much of it other than, hey, that's the kind of car we want. So I pull into the driveway and call Matt. I needed to run an errand and wanted to know his timeline (i.e., should I just run back out and do it now, or should I stay home and wait for him). Well he answers his phone and we have a 30 second phone call before I see headlights from a car I don't recognize pull into the driveway behind me. He says, "Are you still sitting in the car in the driveway?" And I'm like, "Yes, why?" to which he answers, "I just brought your present home, happy birthday!" Yeah, it was the car I'd just seen drive through the neighborhood, lol. He was driving down to turn around. Haha. :) I was completely shocked and ecstatic! My husband had completely blindsided me and went and bought the car without my knowing! It was the best present ever!

My new 2014 Nissan Pathfinder :)

Surprise #2: My Big Sister

As if one awesome surprise wasn't enough, my husband (have I mentioned how amazing he is recently???) surprised me again for my 30th birthday and flew my big sister out to help me celebrate. How freakin' awesome is that?? I will admit, I got a little nosey and kind of figured this surprise out the day before it happened, BUT, it was still soooo cool to have Candice here with me for the weekend of my 30th birthday. Like I said, I don't have a lot of friends around here yet and that can get a little lonely, especially during holidays and special celebrations, so having family here meant so much to me and having Matt know how much that meant to me and surprising me like that was just truly wonderful. I am one blessed girl.

At the shooting range to celebrate Matt's birthday

Making yummy Peppermint Oreo Truffles

Out to dinner at Roosevelt Brewing Company

Sisters, sisters... <3

Thanksgiving, Roswell and Carlsbad, oh my!

With Thanksgiving this past Thursday we were blessed to have a four-day weekend. I know the time will come when Matt is gone for months at a time so I really try to soak up family time whenever we have it.

Thursday
So to start our "weekend" we had a relaxing Thanksgiving at home - just the three of us. Matt cooked our turkey (all 7 lbs) on his new rotisserie and I made the sides (homemade mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and homemade cranberry sauce). It was a lot of food for just the two of us, but it made it feel like Thanksgiving, which I loved. Other than cooking food (oh and munching on appetizers like pigs in a blanket and homemade bruschetta), we pretty much just hung out outside with Ethan. It was a gorgeous day so he loved being outside and we enjoyed relaxing.

Brining the turkey the night before

The start of my homemade cranberry sauce (cranberries, pears and oranges - yum!)

Let the rotisserie begin!

Playing catch outside

The delicious end result :)

Friday
We woke up Friday morning and took our time getting ready to head out the door. We knew we wanted to eat lunch at home and drive during Ethan's nap, so we weren't in any rush to get on the road. So around noon we started our drive down to Roswell, the first stop on our mini Southwest New Mexico trip. Fortunately, we had heard from friends that there wasn't really much to Roswell, so our expectations were set before we even got there. We did, of course, visit the International UFO Museum, which cost us $3 each and took us all of about 20 minutes (including a bathroom break) to work our way through. We were just happy that wasn't the real goal of our trip and was more of a pit-stop along the way to get to Carlsbad, and now we can say we've been there!

Naptime while driving to Roswell. He used his hat to block the sun. Smart little guy. :)

The best part about the UFO Museum? The man carrying around two birds on his back...

So after Roswell, we kept driving South to Carlsbad where we spent the night so we'd all be well-rested to go to the caverns the next day. We've learned that traveling with a toddler is totally doable, but takes a little longer and includes a lot more "rest" time than if it were just us. :)

Saturday
Saturday we woke up and headed straight to the Carlsbad Caverns, which were awesome. Seriously, awe-some. We took the natural entrance in, which is definitely the way to do it. It was much darker than I expected, for some reason I remember Luray Caverns being well-lit, but maybe I made that up? Either way it was really cool and I highly recommend it to anyone who comes to visit us or just happens to be in that area for whatever reason. Matt even made a video of our trip, which you can check out here, so I won't post a lot of pictures, since all the good ones are in the video. :)

Sunday
Sunday was the official start of Christmas cheer for me! :) I got out our tree, decorated that baby, decorated the house, drank eggnog and watched some of my favorite Christmas movies (in between football and a few episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, of course). And by the end of the day I totally remembered why I like to decorate so early - because it takes forever and there is no way I am undecorating the house for quite sometime! Lol.

The annual torturing of Beaker with the Santa suit :)

I got this advent calendar as a gift years ago and was super excited to hang it for Ethan this year. He has no concept of only putting one ornament up a day, but loved playing with it, so that's good enough for me!

My happy little reindeer!

All done (before Beaker climbed half-way up, possibly payback for the Santa suit...)

One of my favorite ornaments - my Dad's fire engine that Hallmark made into an ornament :)

So excited that we finally have a real mantel for our stockings! Also makes the whole "Santa comes down the chimney" thing easier to explain. :)

So that was our awesome four-day weekend to wrap up November! I hope everyone else had a great holiday and got to enjoy family and friends and do something they love. :) Now it's December, which means birthdays... and I'm 30. ;)

Mini Update & Thanks

I haven't blogged in awhile, so I just figured I'd give a mini update on life over the last month.

- The MP (aka Gigi) came to visit us for a week at the beginning of the month and man were we thankful! She helped us get so much done around the house in terms of unpacking and settling in. It was just so nice to have an extra set of hands and an extra spirit to keep us (read: me) motivated and moving. Plus, she helped me bake cookies - yum! We were all sad to see her go, but are looking forward to her visiting again (next time with Pop, too!) at Christmas time. :)

- Ethan has been at his new daycare for almost a month now and the kid LOVES it. Seriously, he's excited to go to school everyday and comes home singing (literally, his teacher sings all the time and now he sings at home too, it's adorable).

- My pregnancy is moving right along. I just hit 28 weeks on Monday (aka my third trimester) and am feeling great. My only symptom these days is a little bit of heartburn, but I had that with Ethan, so it was no real surprise. Maybe this little guy has a full head of hair, too? Only time will tell. :)

- As for Matt he is just busy with work. He actually worked this past weekend, so we're all looking forward to some family time over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Oh and he is super excited to use his new grill to rotisserie the turkey. :)

And speaking of Thanksgiving, I just wanted to take this opportunity to say what I'm truly thankful for this year. So many wonderful things have happened, I think it's important to sit back and reflect on those things and never take blessings for granted.

- I am thankful for my husband. He is my best friend and my rock. I couldn't have picked a better person to go on this journey with and feel so blessed to call him mine every day.
- I am thankful for Ethan. He is the most wonderful little ball of joy and energy that continues to amaze me everyday. We have put him through so much this year with two moves and four different daycare classes, and he has just been awesome through the whole thing, continuing to show us his strength and ability to adapt with each life change.
- I am thankful for a healthy second pregnancy and can't wait to meet the newest member of our family next year. Now if only we could come up with a name... lol. :)
- I am thankful for my family. Leaving behind everything I knew in Maryland and DC was definitely a new adventure, but my family has been so wonderful coming to visit and making time to Skype and always keeping in touch. I know they are all hundreds of miles away, but they are always there when I need them.
- Finally, I just want to say how thankful I am for all the men and women in the United States Armed Forces. Joining this new squadron this year has opened my eyes to a different side of the military that I was never exposed to before. It's no longer "if" Matt will deploy, but now just a matter of "when" Matt will deploy and that has brought everything so much closer to home for me. I am just so thankful for all the men and women who sacrifice their lives daily for this country and wish them peace, health and happiness during this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! <3

Our East Coast Visit

As most of you know, we traveled back East earlier this month for a two-week-whirlwind-family-and-friend-visiting-extravaganza. It was the perfect time to go since Matt just finished 13 months of training and hadn't been assigned any responsibilities at his new squadron (which can make it difficult for him to travel and get away from work) and I'm not too big yet to be really uncomfortable flying. As for our other traveling partner, let's be real, there's never a "perfect" time to travel with a toddler, lol. He did do really well on the flight out, but the flight home definitely pushed us to our patience limits a little more. Note to future self: Make sure the tablet actually charges prior to flying so you don't end up with a dead tablet 30 minutes into a 4 hour flight.

Anyway, we started our trip in Clovis (obviously) and drove to Albuquerque where we slept our first night. Then from there we woke up and flew to Baltimore, where we stayed at my brother's house. We woke up bright and early there and drove to New York, where we got to spend time with both sides of Matt's family and some of his friends, too. Next we went from New York down to Delaware where we stayed with one of Matt's best friends for a night. From Delaware it was onto Maryland where we visited with my family and friends. Whew. I'm tired just typing that, lol. It was seriously SO wonderful to see everyone, but darn if we weren't tired when we got home! And I think when all was said and done we slept in 8 different places... over a period of 14 nights. Ha.

Now for pictures. I'm just sorry I didn't remember to get my camera out and take a picture with everyone we saw, but hey, if you took pictures while we were visiting, please send them my way, I'd love to have them. :)

Hotel snuggles in Albuquerque

Flying from Albuquerque to Baltimore

Playground in Highland Falls

Apple picking in Warwick with Philly friends

Playground in Warwick

Visiting with Sarah and Kim

Ethan's first selfie

Feeding a friend's horse in New York

G-ma and Ethan feeding another horse

It's pizza time!

Ethan and Grandpa

Cousins!

Four generations (me, my mom, my grandmother and my son)

Matt's first ride in the firetruck

Dinner in DC with Matt and Candice

Me, my oldest friend and our babies <3

Boteler Family Photo

Tractor ride with Pop!

Goodbye, East Coast!