Let's Get This Over With...

It's no secret that I don't particularly enjoy the Christmas - oh, sorry, HOLIDAY - season.  There's so much commercialism and hustle and bustle and expectation and ugh - I'd just rather be on a beach somewhere.

However, I do want Ryan and Jack to have good Christmas memories, so today I put on my less Grinch-y face and pulled out the boxes of Christmas decorations.

I love our little fake tree because a) I can put it up out of reach of the children if I need to and 2) we have enough meaningful ornaments that we don't have to use a lot of fillers.

This year I took a chance and put it at toddler/preschooler height, but I only used unbreakable (or easily repairable) ornaments.

The boys had a lot of fun hanging the ornaments and "helped" me with some of the other decorations around the house (which I forgot to take pictures of - this little tree looks very Charlie Brown Christmas without seeing how the rest of the house is decorated!).

Train Show

We attended the annual Rocky Mountain Train Show with our little engineers:

They were most excited about the wooden railway set - I promised them they could go back and play after we saw the rest of the train show.  



Jack was still not feeling so hot so he was content to watch the garden railway layouts...

...and get snuggles from Grandma.

And now back to the toy trains.  Ryan was fascinated by the crane and magnetic cargo cars and we literally had to drag them out of there (yes, Ryan will be getting a crane for his birthday...). They both did a great job playing with the other little boys.



White Ranch Open Space

Today we took advantage of a beautiful day to do some hiking and burn off some turkey calories.  Jack is currently obsessed with putting his hands in his pockets, though I have to think that it's a little hard to keep your balance like that...

White Ranch Open Space is a historic homestead ranch dating to the early 1900s, so there are some fantastic pieces of old farm equipment to explore.

According to the Jeffco Open Space website, this park is "noted for a variety of wildlife including deer, bear, mountain lion, bobcat, elk and wild turkey" - I'm thankful that we only saw the first of those.  They are obviously accustomed to humans traipsing through their territory as they barely glanced our way.

There were also Ryan's favorite hiking trail feature - carved trail markers. 

Why, of course Honu came hiking with us - you seem surprised...

I love hiking in the foothills of Denver when you can see the city in the distance (hard to see in this photo - downtown is just to the left of Jack's tummy).

Jack gets in on the letter tracing...

On a side note, this is probably the last time we take the backpack carrier with us, since Jack hiked the whole way and Ryan is much too big for it now (though he'd LOVE to be carried any- and everywhere, lazy bum).

Giving Thanks

As you know, I love to throw a good party, though the winter holidays are my least favorite to celebrate.  Sam's family friends rotate who hosts Thanksgiving every year, and it was high time we opened our home, so I told Nancy I would happily host if 1) she cooked the turkey and 2) I got to make everything else (potlucks are so NOT my style).

 

She agreed, so the flurry of Pinterest-ing and Evite-ing began. Our dear friend Jillian offered to make quite a few side dishes (despite being pregnant with twins!) and Sarah rocked the appetizers.

 

When the day finally rolled around, Jack was sick with a tummy bug and Ryan refused to nap, so I feared all was lost.  I sampled one of the Pomegranate Prosecco welcome cocktails and stopped worrying....

Pinterest was an endless (and overwhelming) source of table decor ideas:

We gathered all the natural materials from our neighborhood open spaces.

These specimen jars were my favorite - dried yucca flowers add such an interesting architectural element (plus they just look funky).

Pinecones and jingle bells to welcome everyone.

We fit 14 adults and three small children in our dining room and living room, thanks to borrowed card tables and linens.

Sam dutifully followed my vague directions to just "drill a hole in it!" to make these elegantly rustic votive holders.

The dessert table and Thankful Tree - everyone wrote their "thanks" on a little tag and hung them up.

Pre-set Roasted Squash and Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Pomegranate Seeds.

The buffet set up in the kitchen.

Sam performing the duties of the "man of the house" (which Bill gladly ceded to him!).

Turkey, gravy, and all the accompaniments (the Goat Cheese Mashed Sweet Potatoes were DIVINE but I think I might just buy King's Hawaiian rolls from now on and give up making them from scratch!).

Sorry, I didn't actually take any pictures of the people at Thanksgiving as I was just a bit too gleeful at successfully pulling off a feast (which I shouldn't have to host again for another 5 years or so).