Time to trim the trees!

(spoiler alert.....if you do not care about Christmas trees, don't waste your time looking! That's all it is.....) We used to have one tree with a hodge podge of the kid's ornaments on it. There is nothing wrong with that, but as the kids got older, I wanted to give them their ornaments for their own trees and decorate one of my own. That first tree has now turned into 4 full size decorated trees (to be honest, I used to do one more in the basement, but we don't really use the family room anymore, so I don't do that one anymore). I like several different themes and colors, so this way I can indulge in them all!

I always do it the day after Thanksgiving. No Black Friday for me. This is my tradition instead. It was so much nicer when Sarah was still home because she liked helping. Now it's a long day, but worth it.

This is my absolute favorite tree. It's in the living room. I don't even want to think about how much money I have in ornaments on this one, although it has been spread out over 10 years at least. The pictures really don't show how beautiful it is.

I fill every space that I can. It is loaded with ornaments.

 

This one is in the dining room. It started because I love the rustic look and went from there.

 

This is on the porch.  We don't use the porch much this time of year, but this tree mostly has overflow from the dining room tree.

The final one is in the kitchen. It's the newest one, and I just did it because I liked one ornament and it went from there.

The only other real decorating that I do is to set up my village.

This also started just because I found this one in Menards a few years after we moved to the park. It really fits us perfect for where we live. I even found a "Ranger Al" to go with it!

And of course, you have to have a bar & grill.

This was one that Grandma Sara had, that I received after she passed away last year.

Now at least my relatives in Wyoming can actually see what they look like. Maybe next year we will have to try to talk some of you to come out here for Christmas instead of us going there? :)

Wyoming, cousins and what's important.....

It was a nice, short weekend to be able to go to Wyoming last week. We left Wednesday, and drove back Sunday. It's 720 miles each way. We have driven this trip so many many times the last 20 years that we finally have it down to where we stop for gas and to eat, and it usually works like clockwork. It's usually not too bad if you leave at 5:00 am, you get to Wyoming at 5:00 pm. Long day, but manageable.  And so much cheaper than flying.  I do miss this, though. You definitely don't get to see this in the middle of Iowa!

This time, however, was a teensy bit different. To start off with, my dog, Tai, has epilepsy. He has to take meds twice a day, every day to (hopefully) keep him from doing his "stevie wonder dance". He thinks flies are flying around his head and has fits trying to bite them. We also give him Valium sometimes in between to fend off the fits that come between the daily meds. Whenever we travel he gets worse, but he's even worse if he's at home in the kennel. So we had to take him. We had to give him two Valium on the trip out. (only 1 on the way back, maybe he knew we were going home!)Then you put a 4 month old baby in a car for a long drive. Then you top it off with a (actually very well behaved on the trip) Chihuahua who Tai doesn't care for.  And then you put Sarah in the car. She just got off a 12 hour shift at the ER and had had no sleep. Then you put us all in a Tahoe for a 12 (at least) hour drive! We couldn't leave until 8:00 am. To say the least, the trip out was a bit long. It took us almost 14 hours, and it usually only takes 12. I just wanted to snap my fingers and wish I was already there, but sadly it didn't work.  I usually drive when we go to Wyoming and it's fine, but this day I was wishing I wasn't doing all the driving.

But it really was nice when we got there. I got to see new babies of two of my cousins, and everyone got to see Ava. Mandy's baby McCoy is so all boy. He is 10 months old and just loved Ava's toys and Ava as well. He's a big guy, just like Matt was. I'm not sure that either of the girls thought too much of him yet, though, although he had a great time!

I think Mandy's older kids, Markie and Mason really wanted a little sister, as well as a little brother. (anymore on the way Mandy?) Markie just packed Ava around everywhere we went.

My other cousin Jamie has a girl Jacie, who is 6 months old. She was very quiet. She's a big girl, too, and very laid back. Except when McCoy decided to check her out.  Then she didn't really care for that. Keep it up Jacie. Boys are bad!

Even Uncle Blake got in on the act, although not by choice. I just plopped Ava on him and he didn't have a chance. She was happy to see him, though. 

Aunt Susie made her laugh and giggle like crazy. Maybe it was the new boots she bought? I think Ava is just telling Susie that she liked them.

But the best one to get to see her again was Great Grandma Pat. It was nice that Ava is older now and able to laugh and smile and interact. It makes it better to be able to see that, especially since we are so many miles apart.  Ava found out that she can ALMOST grab what she wants while we were in Wyoming. It was fun to see her try to find her feet, and to see Great Grandma help her.

Overall it was a great weekend.It was nice to see everyone and let everyone see Ava.  There are some other things going on right now, that I'm not going to get into, but I just want everyone to make sure and cherish your family because you never know if they are always going to be there or not. And you do not want to be wondering "what if only....".

Trick or Treat!

Since we don't live in town, we obviously do not get trick or treaters. And this year there  was a special one that we really wanted to see, but the only way to do that was to go to CF (her mom said it was TOO far to go to bring her to us!) This actually didn't work out too bad, though because Lauren loves to hand out candy and Joe ditched her to spend the weekend with Matt and Matt in DSM, so we kept her company.

She had the walk and porch ready...

and the dogs in costumes. This is Violet, I missed a picture of Clover in his Broncos shirt.

There were over 75 kids that came. (she said this was a record for the last 3 years that they have lived in the house.....I'm not telling how she knew that, and I'm not going to post the photo I took to prove it, either!)  Love ya Lauren!

But the cutest one by far was the giraffe that visited at the end.

 

To be fair about the dogs in costumes, I did do that with Roxie last year (she's a bit too grumpy now to mess with that). I know, pretty silly, but oh well. 

 

Tai doesn' t really need a costume, he pretty much always looks like a freak. Although he's a very loveable freak.