Christmas Time!

More presents!

Presents from Grammy!!

tube of horses... he loves all his new horses

what can it be?

a new cowboy shirt! SWEET!

and yet another gift

a new quilt from Grammy.... so beautiful!

he loves the cowboy pattern on the back

We got a gingerbread house to decorate, but Christopher said he wanted to wait until Jared could help him do it.

He may not look all that excited, but he really was

The finished product

I told him he could do a silly picture if he would do a nice smile first

cookies and milk for Santa, and a carrot for Rudolph. Christopher made sure that we went to the store and got a carrot for Rudolph

Look at all the LOOT!!

stockings all full of goodies

a new ornament, and lots of other treats in his stocking

Time for presents!!!

Auntie Denise's present

he loves his new vest!

Auntie Kristen's present

a new stocking!

Madagascar Penguins!!

Even the big guy smiled over his present... some new boots

a new cowboy shirt

a Tough enough to wear Pink, breast cancer awareness shirt

(Gramma Bev made it, and one for Jared too, without the writing on the back)

yup... "Tuff Enuff to Wear Pink"

even tough enough to put his new puzzle together

The one present he's been asking for since October!

A John Deere tractor, one to ride on, with the trailer

Some video footage!

When the little man walked into the living room Christmas morning!

Driving his new tractor around the back yard

This Christmas was a very good one for all of us. This is the first Christmas in 7 years that I have not had to work. I LOVED not having to go to work in the morning! We didn't have to get up at any certain time. In fact I think Chris might have forgotten it was Christmas morning. He crawled into my bed and asked me if he could watch a movie. I had to ask him if he remembered who came last night? It took him a minute to remember, but then he got excited and said we needed to go see if Santa came. I made sure that I got to the living room first so that I could get a video of him coming into the room. I absolutely loved getting to see his reaction when he turned the corner and saw his John Deere tractor! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Far From Home

A few weeks before Christopher was born, while my brother Will was stationed in Iraq, we took pictures of the three boys holding a sign that said "We Love You Uncle Will". Well now Will is in Afghanistan and his wife, Janice, is in Iraq, and now there is Christopher, and little Ashley, so we decided we needed to do pictures again. Its a bit of a challenge to get 4 boys between the ages of 3 and 6 yrs old, and a just under 1 year old little girl, to cooperate and all look at the camera at the same time, but I still think we got some cute pictures.

Christopher, Tristan, Ashley, Scotty & George

Just some big love sent out to their Auntie and Uncle who, in the little guys words are: "Keeping us safe"

Finding a Christmas Tree

We decided to go and cut down our own Christmas tree this year, so we got a tree permit and headed out. After much driving on what, at times, seemed to be 4 wheeler trails and not actual roads, we found a great tree!

Jared working on cutting down the tree

After Jared got it cut down and brought up to the road

Whew, Chris and I got it into the house and into the stand!

Yeah! Got it decorated!

Whew Woo! Look at all those presents!

Not all Fun and Games

So not everything has been all fun for us in the last week or so. Two weeks ago Chris developed a rash all over his body. I took him to the doctor on October 29, and they thought he had a strep infection, so the doctor gave us amoxycillin for it. Eight days later, rash hadn't gone away, but in fact had gotten much worse.

This is how his he looked Friday night after we got home

Saturday morning!

about 8am

Saturday afternoon in the doctor's office

about 3pm

His poor face was getting so red, and started to swell up a little bit

By about 2 hours after this picture, his face was completely red under his eyes and his cheeks.

We told the doctor about how he progressed from the initial rash, to this rash. Turns out they believe he's allergic to penicillins, and told us to discontinue his amoxycillin right away!

We were then perscribed a steroid treatment for the allergic reaction. It worked pretty good.

Sunday evening,

about 9pm!

Amazing how quickly the medicine starting showing results!

Monday morning, about 10 am

I've very greatful that the only reaction he had was his skin. It would not have been good if we would have been rushing him to the ER if he had had problems breathing. It was rather scary for me to come home from work and see him like that. I'm so glad he's on the road to recovering, and that we know not to give him penicillins anymore.

Halloween

For Halloween this year Chris decided that he wanted to be a "Rodeo Glown that rides horses". We had a lot of fun making his costume this year. He was so excited to get to wear his costume and get his clown makeup done. We also got to go to the Wilderness Circuit Finals Rodeo on friday and saturday.

Christopher and his cousin Lainey

and Chris is riding his stick horse Rosie

ready to head to the next house

"Are they going to answer the door and give us some candy?"

Big Guy and Little Guy

At at the rodeo

now thats a scowl!....he didn't want me to take his picture

the actual rodeo clown liked Chris' costume

he came and posed for the picture with Chris

Chris took this picture...its actually a pretty good timing shot!

The guy in the brown shirt is one of Chris' heros.

His name is Cody Wright and he's a former World Champion Saddle bronc rider. Chris has even named one of his toy saddle bronc riders "Cody Wright"

Cody's ride

Cody Wright heading back after his ride.

Chris had such a wonderful time at the rodeo. This was our 6th rodeo this year! Chris loved everyone of them!

Yellowstone, October 13-17

We headed up to Yellowstone for a few days for a little vacation. Chris was really looking forward to seeing all the animals again. I was looking forward to both the wildlife and the geysers, and hot spring.

of course we have to go look at the hot springs

Sapphire Pool

Mommy and Me at the Sapphire Pool

Me and Jared (it was a little chilly that morning)

Chris got a mommy grizzly bear for the baby grizzly bear he got last year, and he wanted to carry it in his jacket....I think its pretty darn cute

our trio with The Lower Yellowstone Falls in the background

Mr Cheeser with The Lower Yellowstone Falls

Lower Yellowstone Falls

Lower Yellowstone Falls, such a beautiful place

My guys

Upper Yellowstone Falls

Just above the falls

top of the Upper Falls

the falls

Firehole River Falls

Black Cauldron.... one of my favorites

3 goof balls with the Black Cauldron behind us

My goof balls

Mommy and me with a mud pot behind us

Lil man pointed out all the buffalo poop along the trail, he thought it was hilarious that there was poop on the trail

another Mommy and me shot

someone stole mom's sunglasses

mmuuaahh ... eat your hearts out ladies

You can't go to Yellowstone and not go see Old Faithful

Lil Man and Old Faithful

Old Faithful erupting

Mommy and me at Old Faithful

another random geyser

Lil man on one of the geyser walks

Of course there has to be wildlife at Yellowstone!

some buffalo

one of the many elk we saw, this was actually one of the smaller bull elk we saw, however he was chasing off an even smaller one

this guy had the largest rack of all the bull elk we saw, however he was smaller mass wise. We figured he must be pretty old, and had been run off by some younger tougher bull since he was all alone with no cows

and we had one of them stick his tongue out at us

one of about 5 coyotes we saw

one of two wild wolves we saw! This was the first time I've ever seen the wild wolves in the park. There were two here, this grey one and a black one, but I was only able to get a picture of this grey one

another shot of the grey wolf

we saw a black bear this time

one of the grizzly bears at the Discovery Center in West Yellowstone

stuck in a bear trap

caught me a little man!

GGRRRooowwwll

checking out a wolf den

our trio

this looks like a good place for a nap

We had a great time on this trip. We had a lot of fun looking for all the wild animals. Chris gets a big kick out of the buffalo that are right along the road and that are close to the car. He thought the geysers were pretty cool, but he said they were stinky.