A Crib and a Car Seat

For those of you faithfully checking the blog (Jordan), I'm sorry for the delay. Here are the pictures. On December 23 my sister-in-law threw me a baby shower! How fun! She did it now because we don't know when we will be getting a baby and a lot of family and friends were going to be around for the holidays. It was wonderful to see everyone and I got lots of nice gifts! Thanks guys! Here are some pictures from the big event.

From left to right, Cousin Sarah (in red), Aunt Martha, Sister Jessica, Cousin Shera, Mom, Friend/Twin Abby. There were lots of other people too! Thanks Marla, Tiffany, Maren, Ellen, Abby 2, Kristi, Alli, Darci, Brit, & Ariana for coming! I was so glad to see you all!

Did I mention that this was a surprise shower? As in I had no idea! Good thing I got ready that morning! Here I am as I cam downstairs and slowly figured out that this was not just a regular family gathering. Noticed that when I saw my good friends from back in High School! The pink and blue balloons and everyone shouting surprise may have helped too. ;)

Here are almost all of my gifts! I got lots of great stuff. Look at the blue chair in the big box. When you sit on it, it sings songs! I also got bath toys. There is even a fish net that comes with 3 little fishies to catch. I may have to try these out before we get the call. Hmm. We'll see how long I can last...

Thank you so much everyone (again) for coming and bringing such wonderful things! Keep in touch and we'll let you know when we have news!

The Fourth Biggest in Denver History

Here are the updated pics I promised a long time ago. For all those of you chomping at the bit, I'm sorry. Here are your pictures.

Here is the same window well that was photographed in the previous post, only at about 10 AM today. As you can see, a lot more snow fell in the hours between pics.

This is the site that greeted us when we opened up our garage door this morning!

As you can see, a lot of snow fell overnight! Aaron measured and the drift was 38 inches high! Then at least 2 more inches of snow fell, so we had 40 inches in some places!

There were loads of cars abandoned on the roads yesterday, and even more today. This one is just parked at the end of our cul-de-sac, but I don't think they are going anywhere. When we went out later, it was pretty crazy to see all the cars all over the road. The plows just plowed around them, so it will be awhile before they get out of there!
As we were shoveling out driveway, a hummer drove past. He was doing pretty well until he got to the end of the cul-de-sac and had to stop. Then he got stuck. The people in the car were out picking up nurses to take them to work (we have 2 or 3 nurses that live on our street). We helped them out and off they went. It was actually good that they came down. We never would have been able to get out of the neighborhood if they hadn't.
Here is our back yard (and part of our neighbors). As you can see, the snow is up to the fence and in some places it is covering it completely. The fence is about 4 1/2 feet tall, so that's a lot of snow!

All here in Denver are definitely having a White Christmas, so we hope that you are enjoying snow too! Merry Christmas!

The Perfect Storm

That's what they're calling it. Interesting since that was a terrible movie (personal opinion), but here's what's going on in Denver.

It started snowing at 4:15 AM today, and it hasn't stopped! It has been snowing like crazy! All the main highways in the state are closed and cars have been abandoned all over. It took us 2 hours to drive home from work (usually a 30 minute drive) and a few miles from our house, the driver's side windshield wiper broke. Like really broke. It was completely unconnected from the little arm thing. Divine providence is the only thing that possibly could have held it on. We kept expecting it to go flying off. There was no place safe to stop and try to fix it, so we kept going. The wiper cleaned one tiny spot right above the steering wheel, so Aaron was all hunkered down trying to see out of that one spot. We got home (amazingly enough) and found that we had about 1 1/2 feet of snow in our driveway. We got in and had to shovel the snow away from the door to get it to close! Here are our tire tracks in the driveway.

We went inside and made some stew. That was great and yummy. After sitting around inside for a little while, we ventured outside to check the mail. Here are our tire tracks 2 hours after coming home:

You can't even tell that we ever came in! The snow is so thick and heavy! And it is continuing to pound down! Here is our window well full of snow:

And Aaron in the snow. Remember how he is 6' 5"? That means he his knees are about 2 feet from the ground. Well, here they are covered in snow. We have some serious white stuff! We'll keep you updated as more happens.

Christmas at Our House

Merry Christmas to all!

It's Christmas at our house, and you know what that means? Lots of decorations! And Devony making a mess of the house on a daily basis with more projects than it is humanly possible to complete in one month. Unless you have nothing else to do and a great attention span.

So we decorated lots. See?

Ooh that last one was kind of a bad picture. Sorry about that. No professionals here (like you couldn't tell). That was my creative way for showing off my nativity though (putting it on a box covered with velvet so that it stands out a little more). In front there you can see our super cute stocking holders that we bought last year. The stockings haven't quite gotten hung by the fireplace with care yet (the chimney is in the wall). I'm not sure they will this year since I am making them. We'll have to see. Some of you are getting homemade Christmas presents this year, so I am working on those instead!

Here is our tree! You can see a little bit of the tree skirt for this year. It's like a fancy shiny silky candy cane. Ooh. Aah. Thanks guys.
Anyway, enough about the house. We are super excited for Christmas and I have been playing Christmas carols as much as possible. How fun! We had a Christmas party a few weeks ago that was fun. Wish you all could have been there. We did White Elephants and had lots of yummy food. That of course always makes a party great.
The night before that I went to a cookie party. That was great fun too because 18 women each brought 60 cookies and we ate munchies and then everyone exchanged cookies. We got a bunch of plates of different cookies and goodies to give to our neighbors for Christmas, so it was also very helpful. It gave us a good excuse too to run around the neighborhood and say hi to everyone. What is it about Christmas that makes me want to do that? I like it. Let's have Christmas always! Then we can listen to and sing carols all year! You know they really are some of the best songs ever. :)

Projects Galore

If there is one thing that we have learned about buying a house, it's that there is always another home improvement project to do! Over Thanksgiving we got some particularly good ones done:

Here is a picture of our wall. Isn't it nice? Ok, so this is pre-project. See how the top of the wall (there's a staircase on the other side) has nothing on it? Just drywall and paint. Bo-ring. Aaron decided it would be great to cap that wall and make it match the fireplace mantel. He did a good job. :)

Here I am doing my part. Painting the trim. Very important (as you'll see). Aaron and my dad did pretty much everything else. They had to measure angles and do all sorts of geometry (good thing I had my protractor and compass from school!) to get everything to fit perfectly. They did amazing considering the fact that not all the walls are completely square. (Don't ask.) Here are Aaron and my dad getting it figured out and putting it together. It's like a big puzzle! This doesn't do them justice at all, but here is the finished product, routed, sanded, primed, and painted. It finishes it off very nicely, but as I said, this picture doesn't do justice. Guess you'll have to come see it in person.
Additional projects: 1. A Medicine Cabinet in the master bath. YAY!!!
2. (I'm highly impressed by this one) SHELVES IN THE GARAGE!!! YAY!!! This is very impressive and the shelves are super strong. Empty they look a little like the passenger bunks on the old immigrant ships. I guess now we have extra "beds" for people that come to visit.
3. Canning stew. I had to throw this one in to show that the girls weren't complete slackers. My mom and I canned stew while they were here. Vegetable stew. Oh it looks yummy. Yay for more food storage! Oh, and now that we have the shelves in the garage to put our camping stuff on, I have more shelves to use in the basement for my food storage! YAY! Ok I'm done. Bye.

The Mean Reds

You ever have a string of days where nothing particular goes wrong, but at the same time everything seems to? I've been having those lately. It reminds me of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" where they talk about the Mean Reds:

Holly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul: The "mean reds?" You mean, like the blues?
Holly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat or it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid, and you don't know what you're afraid of. Don't you ever get that feeling?
Paul: Sure. Some people call it angst.

I guess I think of the Mean Reds as a combination of scared and sad and downright on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Hmm. Yup. That's what I think. Guess I need to go take a bubble bath, watch this movie (best ever), and eat some ice cream while I have a good cry. It's the only thing for it.

I love Silicone Bake Ware

Ok let's just talk for a minute about how amazing silicone bake ware is.

What I love about it:
1. It looks like rubber and bends
2. It doesn't melt in a big blue heap in my oven
3. It makes my food cook evenly and not burn
4. I can flip it over and "pop" the food out. (this part is fun)
5. It is microwave/dishwasher/oven/freezer safe.

What I do not love about it:
1. It is still hot when you pull it out of the oven. (Yeah go figure. Weird huh? But trust me, I know from experience.)

Here is our newest piece of silicone bake ware:

For anyone unable to tell, it is a mini bread loaf pan. I found it at Ross (along with a couple other great buys) and was so excited. We had been looking for one of these everywhere!

You few lucky people know that Aaron is a great bread maker, especially banana bread! So he graciously consented to try out our new toy.

How fun! 6 little mini loaves of banana bread! I'm sorry to tell you that they got eaten before a picture was taken, but just know that they were yummy! Hooray for whatever genius decided to make non-melt/non-crack rubber pans. I love you forever.

We Need A Little Christmas

Ok so these pictures reminded me of the scene in "Mame" (or Auntie Mame) where they put up the Christmas tree and everything. I must admit that we were not singing and dancing around, but we did have a good time! They were a lot faster than us though. Hmm.
Anyway, on Thanksgiving (I know, I'm slow getting the pics up) my sister and I started putting up the Christmas tree! She is a great tree fluffer. Good job Haylee!

Starting out (above) and then getting some lights on it (below obviously). We were kind of slow goers.

It may or may not have been a couple days later when I actually got the lights finished and the garland and ornaments on. Ok so my family was gone when this happened. Yeah, it took me a couple days. It's done though!

Aaron even put the star on the tree! YAY! Our landing worked really nicely to reach the top of the tree.

So that was the first thing we did to decorate for Christmas. More pictures will follow since I am just about done - only 1 or 2 more things to do! YAY!!!