Its a Trailer Park Christmas...

i am so excited to finally share pictures of our trailer again this year! i had fun making christmas crafts (and gifts!) pintrest is such a great invention ;)

this year's december will be a first for me, we will be spending christmas here in Bozeman. just the four of us... i'm not going to lie, i do get a little knot in my stomach thinking of not waking up with christopher at 4 am, but its time for us to start our own tradition. we have a very busy month coming up. i am trying to think realiscally and get in my mind i will probably be doing a few things with just me. we're not sure if mike will be going to 7 10's yet (i'm praying hard they wont... 6 10's is plenty!!) so that only leaves us with one day to fill with christmas joy, give or take a few hours after work. here ya go here's how we'll be spending our december in the trailer park...

• decorate wesson's first christmas tree- we did this before we went home for thanksgiving... i didn't take any pictures though, i know bad mommy. wesson wasn't really into but now he's always reaching for the tree
• holiday parade- we lucked out and get to attend two holiday parades (aren't we lucky!?) cda's of course was last friday and so much fun. wesson really loved watching all the lights and trucks... bozeman's holiday parade is this saturday (unfortunately its at 3 and my dear husband doesn't get off until 6... momma/son day?!)
• bake/decorate gingerbread men- in the past we've done gingerbread houses and although they've always been fun they never taste good and they're typically in the way. so this year we'll be attempting gingerbread men!
• go on a sleigh ride- now next to watching wesson on christmas morning and getting remmi back, this is what i am most excited for in december! well i guess i should say after seeing my parents as well ;) they are coming to visit in a few weeks to babysit so mike and i can take off to big sky for a real, old fashion sleigh ride. its going to be beautiful and romantic, i cannot wait!
• chicken soup for the christmas soul nightly readings- we started this tradition tonight! we read to wesson nightly anyways but to tell the truth we're a little over reading about pokie the puppy and to get into the christmas cheer we decided to switch. i love having us snuggled on the couch without any distractions, its wonderful.
• snow shoeing- i'm really hoping this will a december thing but most likely will turn into a winter event.
• operation christmas shoe box or christmas angel- we all should really practice giving all year long but especially during such a special time. i will fully enjoy shopping for a little girl!
• build a snowman & snow angels- wesson's first!! yay!!
• attend christmas eve service- ideally it would be a candle light service but the chances of wes lasting that late is slim.
• bake christmas goodies to take to the neighbors and crews- i love, love, love baking but come on i do not need the extra calories in the house... spreading christmas cheer!
• polar express night- pintrest idea? you betcha. i love it... popping popcorn, putting hot cocoa in to go mugs, throwing sweats on and grabbing blankets to hit the town and look at lights. can't wait!
• visit santa- we'll see how wesson does but after getting passed around to strangers and putting on quiet the sweet act i think he'll do great. probably stick his tongue out at him, haha.
• visit a live nativity- not sure if bozeman actually has one or not, i heard a rumor.
• watch the classics- of course this has to be on here! buddy the elf, Rudolph, grinch anyone?! you bet my dvr is filling up as i type!

so there we have it....it may seem like a lot but this time of year is so special to me, i really want to start out right with wesson "a family is a little world created by love..."

our whittle tree...

thank you again tyler & aimee... the candles are perfect!

few pintrest ideas! i love my diy glitter candles (old bath & body jars?! heck yes!)

cozy :) just missing Remmi laying by the fire...

chicken soup for the chrismas soul...

aren't they the sweetest?!

my little christmas blessing

FINALLY get to put these out... my favorite gift from my parents last year... personalized santa plate/mug... you can bet santa will be enjoying goodies off these gems...

Thanksgiving 2012

i think i am still stuffed from our trip home... i think i literally ate my way through our vacation. classes are going to kill me this week, ha. we had the best trip home, much needed! it was very, very busy... i can't wait to be home for good so we don't feel so rushed in each of our visits. even with our extra day i didn't get to fit in everyone i wanted to see, boo. i am so glad we got to come home though... the thought of trying to cook in the trailer again makes my head hurt. in case you forgot that  fun experience here ya go ;)

i won't bore ya all with the written details instead here's some pictures... by the end of the week i got lazy with pictures, my bad!

Jussy came over to visit. short trip but oh so sweet!!

wrestling with oakley... i think its time remmi comes home

our fav place!

uncle bug showing wes how to drink...

happy thanksgiving :)

we were stuffed

my most favorite people in the whole wide world!

lights parade

my very, very best frans. finally we're all married :)

the boys... and mwalls manly drink ;)

got to see ash for a little bit, also nicole came down after for awhile...

married people can get crazy too. haha

here's the back to wesson's new wagon g.grandpa made :)

3 generations

i love my dad!!

 



on our way home we got to stop in Butte and visit more family!

 

all in all we are so incredibly blessed with wonderful friends and an ever growing family... this has been a year of so much to be thankful for....we love you all and really appreciate those who squeezed us in your busy holiday week. 

 

these are a few of my favorite things... par deux

its no surprise i'm an anxious person. i like to have things planned out and if i get an idea in my head it needs to happen... like right this second. so with our upcoming trip home for thanksgiving of course i've been preparing so we'll have an organized, stress free trip.... problem: i did that last week. so here i am bored out of my mind, seeing facebook updates of "heading home" gah. i wanna post that! to make matters worse wesson has been a dream baby all week (yes i said worse... i don't have little mister distracting me from time watching) and Mike has been packing on the hours this week... he's already at 70 hours and that's not counting today monday or tuesday. plus he's beens studying like a mad man for his upcoming JL test so he comes home, eats and leaves again. as Kristina (another fellow linewife blogger) said I did not move into the trailer to be alone! -insert big sigh!-

so in light of my pity party today i'm trying to focus on little positives we have going on and since i'm bored why not share it with all of  you?? ahh aren't i sweet? ;)

• the fact we are 75% done christmas shopping! woop. wednesday we'll be completely done... mike and i are finally getting a whole day to ourselves to go christmas shopping for wes and rem, seriously its going to be wonderful.
• we only have 3 weeks left until we get remmi back! this of course is a half full/half empty deal... i miss that dog so much its kinda pathetic. i went for a walk last week and the neighbors asked where he was. now that's sad.
• i've managed to sneak away (before mike sneaks away to study... boo) the last two nights for a quick run. again bittersweet deal because running at night is scary enough and without remmi its really terrifying!! but the neighbors still cheer me on so that makes me feel better, ha. i better get my booty running, seeing all my running friends throwing the miles behind them is really exciting slash really intimating! proud of you all!!
• finally finding tea i really like! i love, love, love coffee but its been really messing with my head if i drink it in the afternoons so i've been testing different teas out and have decided i really like the brand Yogi. (i know right?)
• speaking of i've found a new studio right up the road! i've only had a chance to go once but after vaca mike said he's giving studying a rest (thank God) so i can go twice a week.
• finishing the last 8 week challenge and still managing to keep up and loose another pound this week. i think i've finally found a solid routine with eating and working out where its just habit now. fyi we'll be doing another challenge the start of the new year... any and everyone is welcome to join!!
• being able to finally put our flannel sheets on the bed. flannels + electric blanket makes me never want to leave my bed!
• my linewife ladies... they are the best group of ladies. even though i've never met some of them in person i feel like i could call them up (and i have) any time of the day if i needed to bitch about the job, trailer, or just life. they understand. they get it. they are all totally my person.
• having so many baby options in this community! its so great, the library really does a great job of providing an up to date schedule of events.... so far we've only gone to books & babies. but its on our december list to check out baby yoga and baby sign language. wesson is getting to be so active and now that he claps he's able to really show when he's excited! sometime in december we get to go sign christmas carols at the retirement center, fun!
• having our dvr is the best. i don't have to miss any of my old favorite and new favs... nashville anyone?! love! plus since mike's been ditching out on me this week we have a whole week of shows lined up that we didn't have to miss.
• oh and how could i not add the most recent happy moment... that i'm 5 1/2 weeks along! hahaha seriously that whole post just made my day yesterday. i did recieve a few phone calls and texts for those dear friends who did not read the whole thing. and of course again my favorite of christopher calling me basically in tears because he had to find out over facebook. poor guy... i'm glad to see if we really were expecting already how many people would be happy for us :) thanks for the chuckle!!

alright i could really go on and on about the little blessings (like my diy spa night i planned! haha my life is so lame...) but really i know i'm boring you all so i guess i'll sip my tea, do some facebook stalking, probably call mom and bug them..i know they're bored. dad took a picture of a cookie on wesson's high chair saying wes needs a cookie. i know where i get my lameness from ;)

all rambling aside i am so ready for tuesday night!! i have a bag full of junk food and a new pandora station ready to roll! only roughly 52 hours left, but who's counting.

snow weekend

our area went into storm warning effect late thursday night, giving mike's crew an extra few days to enjoy family time! yes they could have still worked but i'm pretty sure the guys were needing a break from working 6 12s for the last few months. i was not complaining! especially now mike's working the week straight until we leave for home next tuesday night... there's also talk of them working seven days a week until christmas vaca. pros & cons as always with that... guess i won't stress until i know for sure.

we got about 8 to 10 inches of beautiful fluffy snow friday and saturday, we finally got to show off our snazzy new coats! i loved it and may or may not have woken wesson up a little early to take him outside ;) he wasn't too impressed. it made me miss remmi a little more because i know he would have been playing in it with me!

don't mind my awesome pjs

 

the four day weekend defiantly got away from us but man we got a lot done! we got all of our christmas shopping done for family since we don't have a mailing address and it'll cost a pretty penny to ship we're bringing our gifts home, we cleaned, oil changed and put a little love back into our rigs. saturday we had to take the truck in because the four wheel drive wouldn't kick out... turns out its so flipping cold the slush froze on our transfer case! oye. we did get to relax a little bit, well i got a break while mike rolled around the floor with wes while i got a few crafts done, i can't wait to show off my christmas decorations! i'm pretty proud of myself :)

 

 i repainted the cookie sheet to match our sweet new birds picture! i spray painted the canvas than had my artsy husband draw the birds out so i could paint them on! i'm actually very very impressed with how this turned out. i laugh every time i look at it, especially at our cute little fat tweety bird :) we also got our pictures back. i love them all! i wanted to hang a few up but of course picture frames are so heavy so i stole the idea from my linewife pal Astra and modge podged our picture.

i painted this a few weeks back but never shared it... i painted this on canvas also. yes i stole the idea from pintrest but i plan on doing the kids bathroom in blues and whales. love!

and lastly i did another canvas picture and made this little gem for right when you walk in.... i may live in a trailer in a sketch trailer park but damn it i am pretty proud of how when you walk in, it smells like home and feels like home. you all just wait and see what i can do once i get a house! ;)

 

 

on sunday we loaded wes up and braved the 2.5 hour drive to billings to go see our fur baby. i know its only been a week but i won't lie i cried when i saw him! i am soooo ready to have remmi back! i miss my running buddy.... he is doing a great job and is learning fast. we can already tell this was the best thing for him. only four weeks to go!

 

yes marty the trainer sends me pictures through out the week... i love it :)

 

 

 

the way back to bozeman took a little longer because of course you drive a big truck you're expected to help everyone who slides off the road! i was tired and ready to get home but mike got that typical shit eating grin all men get when they get to show off their man skills lol (linewives know the look, the trouble call look!! ;))

 

seriously, he's growing too fast!! proud of our little man!!







Baby Food

happy november ya'll! i have been having so much fun with trying new solid foods with wes that it would be wrong of me not to share. so here ya go mommys and mommys to be :)

here's our november stash of solids... i didn't take a picture of our mixtures though!

 

like most other bloggers i pulled all my resources together and figured out what worked out best for us. i do have a baby bullet that i use to puree all his food but any food processor works.... we would have just used our magic bullet but we use that for salsa making and for making peanut butter so i think for safety its best to separate them!

we started wesson into solids about a month and a half ago and honestly i was really overwhelmed with his reaction thinking he didn't like anything, now i understand he was just getting used to using that tongue of his. now he loves eating any and everything.we buy all of fruits and veggies local if we can, i bought the makings for his november batch for around $20... sooo much cheaper!! he eats solids twice a day. in the morning he has just fruits and some rice cereal and the evening he gets a veggie and a fruit. i just blended everything up, froze in either the baby bullet containers or an ice tray, than put it in a labeled baggie. i didn't put dates because wes goes through everything so quick but frozen foods are good for one month and in the fridge they're good for three days.

for just the simple one fruit/veggie servings i just peeled and chopped whatever food, boiled if needed (carrots, green beans, peas etc) to make them squishy than throw them in the bullet and blend. the baby bullet recipes told me how much water to add but i was finding it was making it too watered down so i just started adding a little bit at a time to find the consistency i liked.

i read a lot of mixing foods and found most people (and my local ped) suggested not mixing until they're 6 months old so we literally just tried mixing last week so i only have a few "recipes"

Rice Cereal & Pears...i made both separate than added more pears than rice in the same bowl.
Peas & Carrots... i boiled both separately than added them both into the bullet (i only made one serving of this to make sure he liked it... he did so its one next months list!)
Banana & apricot... he loved this one!! both bananas and apricots are super easy to mush up on the spot, no prep needed except peeling.

i have a few recipes we're trying soon that i just found on a couple blogs....

apple & carrot
blueberries & quinoa (or brown rice, cereal)... cook qunioa first,a little goes a long ways!

i know these dont seem specific but all resources i've read either didn't come with it or literally came out with a completely different portions. maybe i suck at reading directions... i've had more fun with trial and errors anyways :)

hope everyone had a great Halloween, i know i enjoyed my night and loved seeing all the sweet babies in the first costumes!

 my happy lil fox :)

little pumpkin all tuckered out after cruising the neighborhood!