Goodbye 2014, hello 2015!

We've had a busy couple of weeks starting with Thanksgiving and our birthdays and rolling right through into the New Year. But isn't that always the way? I always look forward to the holidays, but I am always happy to see them go and normalcy return afterward, too. That being said, I figured I'd do a little summary of our holidays and all the craziness that ensued. :)

So for starters my parents visited us here in Clovis for Christmas. For my Mom it was a second trip, but for my Dad it was his first time to the wonderful town of Clovis. They planned the trip months ago, so it was something I had been looking forward to for awhile. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to my parents, they brought a stomach bug along with them for the trip. For my mother it kicked in right when she landed in Lubbock, Texas. Then it hit me on Christmas Eve and my father on Christmas day. My poor parents literally never left our house because throughout their whole stay someone was always sick. :( We made the best of it, though, and still had a really nice Christmas together, just with a few germs in tow. And luckily, my boys never caught the sickness (whew!).

The fort Ethan and Matt made on Christmas Eve

Pop and Ethan with his new Hess truck

The beautiful centerpiece Pam and Kerry sent us, along with the hot milk cake I made (that no one ate because it actually didn't cook all the way through - stupid altitude...)

"Nothing says Christmas Eve like High Life in a Hooter's mug."

 Christmas morning, opening Buzz Lightyear :)

"Big Buzz Lightyear flies!"

Playing with his new Christmas toys

After my parents left bright and early on the 27th, we got out of the house and went bowling, which Ethan absolutely loved. We hadn't taken him since moving here and were super impressed with how well he did. Not only did he carry his own ball, set it down at the foul line and push it down the lane, he also patiently sat and waited for his turn every time. It was awesome.

Patiently waiting his turn and clapping for Matt; Jumping up and down when his ball hit the pins :)

Then on the 30th, we were lucky enough that some of our best friends made the trip to Clovis on their way home to Montana from Texas! We hadn't seen them in over a year and a half so it was absolutely wonderful to have them here with us for two nights. :)

After all the fun and excitement of having an extra five people and one dog in our house ended, everything slowed down and got really quiet around here. I've taken down most of the Christmas decorations (all except the tree that just needs to be packed up and put in the garage). And we even got about 7 inches of snow last night, which always gives the world that peaceful, clean, fresh look (until it gets ugly and slushy in about a day, lol). So yay to a busy end to 2014, and here's to a wonderful start to 2015. Crazy to think in just another 6 weeks or so we'll be our own little family of four, instead of three. I guess things never really do slow down, do they? :)

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. ;)