Birthday Celebrations

Last week we celebrated my 26th birthday.  The day started out great- I had my first OB appointment! For those of you who haven't heard yet, we are expecting our second baby in July.  Matt was able to join me for the appointment and we heard the heartbeat as well as saw the baby on an ultrasound.  Everything checked out great.  It was a great birthday present!

I was not actually feeling great on my actual birthday, but Matt brought me home a chocolate birthday cake that he bought on base and he and Hayden sang me "Happy Birthday" together.  Afterwards Matt gave me a couple of gifts to open, so all in all a good day.

The day after my birthday we hired a sitter and headed to Boise for a date night.  We went to the Idaho Botanical Gardens which hosts an event every year called "Winter Garden Aglow."  It was very pretty!

After the gardens we went to Tucanos for dinner.  It's a Brazilian grill that has great food and a really fun atmosphere.  Their birthday club offers a free dinner any time during the month of one's birthday, so that is always our choice restaurant for our birthdays!  

 

Oh Christmas Tree...

 Last week we finally got around to putting up our Christmas decorations.  And now I am finally getting around to blogging about it.
While we were pulling everything out of the hall closet we came across the Christmas mugs that my mom gave us for Christmas last year.  I had actually forgotten about them so it was a nice surprise.  Matt made us some peppermint hot cocoa to enjoy while decorating and Hayden enjoyed his first cup.  

Here is our finished product.  We actually have many more ornaments but we opted to keep it simple this year and just put up some of or favorites.  

This year I decided to take a few pictures of my favorite things on the tree to share with everyone.  This first one is Hayden's handprint that we made last year.  He thought it was fun to see how much he had grown since then.  

Hayden's first Christmas ornament from my parents.  It reads "'How delightful,' said Pooh 'to be so brand new'".  I love Winnie the Pooh quotes!

When I was young I loved Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  I had quite the collection. My mom gave me this Lenox ornament one year to add to it.

The manger scene depicted in the word "joy"  "Joy to the World" is one of my favorite Christmas songs.  

Another manger scene:

An ornament from my mom the first Christmas we were together:

My "Baby's First Christmas" ornament from 1984.

Our friends Kevin and Cherise gave us this one our first Christmas married.  I always think of them when I see it on the tree.

Snow Fun and Thanksgiving

We got our first snow a couple of weeks ago, before Thanksgiving.  Hayden had been asking for two days to go out and play in it so he was very excited when I told him it was time.  We got out there ad he just wanted to run back and forth in it the whole time.  The first time he ran across the yard and turned around and saw his footprints in the snow he looked at me wide-eyed and whispered "Mommy, that's where the dinosaur goes!"

The fruit trees across the street at our neighbors still had a few apples on them.

We had a nice Thanksgiving, although a quiet one.  One of Matt's co-workers who wasn't going home for Thanksgiving came over to join us.  All the food came out yummy.  Here is our Turkey on the table with the horn of plenty that Hayden and I put together: 

The weekend after Thanksgiving we took Hayden to the movie theater for the first time.  We saw Tangled here in town.  He loved it!  I sat and watched the whole movie, with the help of some popcorn and snacks, of course. 

At the beginning of this week we got some more snow, enough to really go out and play in.  Matt had bought a snow disc on black friday and we took Hayden to a park to try it for the first time.  Another big hit!