Christmas Season!

 Excited to have a two-year old for Christmas this year, I planned plenty of activities (one each day, to be exact), and we got to...most of them. Unfortunately, I didn't take as many pictures as I should have. Here we are at the Hammond's Candy Cane Festival (Santa goes there to pick up his candy canes before Christmas.) We met Ty's friend Elizabeth there.

 Greely Festival of Trees.  I liked the snowman and reindeer made out of logs:

 Ward Christmas Party:

 Up until very close to Christmas, we had really warm weather. It was nice to get outside (since it's been snowy and icy since!)

 

We even had fun after the snow fell!

 Ty's letter to Santa. He claims he was a good boy!

Thanksgiving in Georgia

 Tim had a conference in Atlanta the weekend before Thanksgiving, so we rounded up the Larsen's and all headed to his parents' cabin in the mountains of North Georgia. Ty and I flew there a few days after Tim, so I had the joy of flying alone with a two year old. He was pretty good, but the flight was during nap time and he didn't actually fall asleep until just before we landed. Oh well.

Our first night in Atlanta, we headed to Gladys Knight's Restaurant, Chicken and Waffles where we had, well, chicken and waffles. It was delicious!

Tim presented at his conference the next day, so the rest of us met up at the Georgia Aquarium along with some family friends, Seth and Sarah and their kids. Over all, there were 7 kids and 7 adults. We were quite the party.  Ty was scared of the aquarium when we went in Denver, so I was glad he had a good time.

 

Afterword, we headed up to the mountains. Grandma and Grandpa had so many cool toys set out, Ty was just in heaven.  He kept busy for hours in the basement, but also enjoyed all of the extra attention he received from the family.  While there, we celebrated Grandpa Rod's birthday! One of his gifts were these cute matching jammies Diney made! These are some happy kids (and grandpa)!

 Thanksgiving day was very cold. I had planned a turkey trot of sorts, but we decided to keep the activities close to home, so we set up some Turkey Games in and around the cabin. In this one, the kids had to get the acorns from one hanging bucket and put them into another bucket. They thought it was pretty fun.  We all helped with the big meal, and the feast was delicious!

 Family picture time.

 

  I have some talented relatives. DeAnne sewed these adorable Christmas PJ's. We spent a LONG time trying to get pictures, but these are the best we could get. It made for some laughs from the grandparents, at least.

 

 

The day after Thanksgiving, Diney threw me a "Pink Party" baby shower! Even the boys were invited. I got some really cute baby clothes that made me pretty excited to have a GIRL!

 On our last day in Georgia, Tim and I headed to Cloudland Canyon State Park to check out the scenery. It was so pretty, and quite different from what I am used to in the West. I loved all of the waterfalls and tropic-looking trees! Later that afternoon, we headed back to Colorado. It's always sad to leave family, but we were glad especially for Ty to spend some time with his Larsen cousins!

Pre-Halloween

These pictures are not quite in order, because I posted about the funeral earlier, but here are some of our pre-halloween festivities including pumpkin patches,pumpkin carvings, and

It's a pirate

We had a wild weekend the week before Halloween. Some friends rented a cabin up in Nederland and threw our annual wild Halloween party, then came back on Saturday night for our ward Trunk or Treat.  I made our trunk into an Alice in Wonderland Mad Tea Party theme.

Emily and Benjamin Thevenin and Eric and Jaime Forsyth

Me, Em, Breanne, and Jaime

Me, Emily, and Jocelyn

Natalie's wild dancing

 The Girls: 

Grandma Bywater

A few days before Halloween this year, we found out Tim's Grandma Bywater had passed away. It was kind of a shock to us because she was always so active. We felt so grateful that Tim had talked to her just three days prior, and Ty (along with all of her great grandchildren) received a small package from her in the mail a week earlier. We headed out to Utah for the funeral. It was nice to spend time with family and remember what a talented person she was. I was amazed at all of her talent. Aubrey read a beautiful poem Grandma had written (I'll have to post it when I get a chance), and she had maybe a hundred beautiful watercolors that none of us knew about. We all got to choose a few to keep. Tim got to speak at the funeral. It was a beautiful service. It is obvious she touched many lives, including ours. We will miss her.

Grandma B visiting Colorado for Ty's blessing in 2012:

Ty "driving" Grandma B in Utah March 2014:

It was Halloween while we were there, so the great-grandchildren dressed up and did a little trick-or-treating to the other relatives. Ty was ready for a nap, so he wasn't very cooperative.

 

 I went ahead and took Ty down to Santaquin to spend the evening with his cousins and go trick-or-treating. He took a marathon nap on the way down and wasn't really up for taking pictures once he woke up.  We had fun trick-or-treating with the Lotz cousins and all of their neighbors.  After the festivities, my dad and Sheila came over and we all had pizza. It was an even quicker trip to Utah than the one I took two weeks earlier, but we're glad we live close enough we were able to all make it.