Thanksgiving Trip

Here's our slideshow of our Thanksgiving trip to Gunnison.

We left UT the Saturday before Thanksgiving (just as it was starting to storm) at 4am only to find out that in Addy's new snazzy forward facing carseat the oncoming traffic makes it nearly impossible for her to fall back asleep in the dark. As soon as it got light she did fall back asleep for a short nap. It was a long 8 hours. :)

Gunnison was beautiful but COLD! It was much colder (mostly negative temps!) than usual at this time of year and it snowed at least 3/4 of the time we were there so the sun wasn't out to help warm things up a bit. (We did, however miss a crazy cold snap in SLC and nearly a foot of snow!)

Our pictures show our time with family (Grandma & Grandpa Bursch, Auntie Jenny, Great Grandpa Hulsbos, Great, Great Aunt Evie, Great Uncle David & Great Aunt Mary, and cousins Danny & Kaitlin), a few glorious sunny days in Crested Butte and Gunni, and of course, Addy. You might also notice a herd of elk. We saw this 100+ herd just across the street from my parents' place.

Addy had fun playing with everyone and she learned to play the keyboard and guitar, to twirl and worked on her singing. She loves music and attention.

The drive home was more smooth as we rigged up a headlight shield for Addy between the front seats. Our car was so loaded up with stuff that Brad wouldn't have been able to see out the back window anyway. :) A much more enjoyable 8 hours.

We had a great time. Enjoy.

Catching up

Looking at our blog, I see it's been a while since I last updated. I thought I'd catch you up a bit. It seems like It's been a busy month but without looking at my calendar, I have no idea what we did except for last week.

Early in November, we had an overnight visitor. Our friends were having their 10 year anniversary and having recently moved to UT, they were really only able to pull off an overnight in Park City (funny how at this point, even one night away sounds great!). Their 4 year old, Morgan, spent the night with us and while we were really tired after her visit, it was really fun.

Brad did all sorts of cooking projects with Morgan, we went to the park to run around, and of course, Morgan played constantly with Addy. Morgan adores Addy and did a great job teaching her how to share and how to play WITH someone. It was so cute! It was daylight savings weekend so sleep (for Addy!) was a little weird but Morgan went with the flow and did really great even though Addy woke her up REALLY early Sunday morning.

Below is a short slideshow of the visit.

After Morgan's visit, Addy caught a cold at one of her childcare situations (gym, MOPS, Bible study, church) and decided to share with with all of us. Usually Brad doesn't get colds but so far this season it was all of our 2nd. Brad got it the worst and even had to work from home for 3 days! He never does that. He and Addy are still working on getting over the cough part of the cold and it stinks dealing with respiratory stuff when it's so cold out. We've been a bit cooped up! Ahh!

That's all I can really figure we did in November besides our fun Thanksgiving outing. More to come. . .

Halloween

In Utah, if a holiday (besides Christmas) falls on a Sunday, it is celebrated on Saturday. So, Halloween was Saturday night here and the streets were full of trick-or-treaters! Unlike past years where we turned off the lights on the house and went to bed early with no candy in the house, this year we were stocked with candy and a costume for Addy and we were ready for the masses. (We did get one batch of trick-or-treaters on Sunday night who criticized me for having my porch light on without any candy to give out but apparently they didn't read the newspaper that said Halloween was on SATURDAY!)

Anyway, some neighbors and their kids came by in costumes while we were eating dinner and Addy saw them in their costumes and went and got her costume and bucket out of the basket by the door and started grunting at me to put it on her. Hmm. Different than last year when she screamed bloody murder when we put the costume on her. I guess 6 weeks old was a little young. :)


Getting her into her costume turned out to be a little tricky because Addy has a long torso and short legs so her costume was a bit tight getting over her head. Forget zipping it up all the way. :)

She was ready to rock and roll even before we were!

She loved her giraffe costume and wanted to wear it all evening even when we were stalling because it started raining.

Finally, because it was getting late, we decided to brave the rain anyway. Addy doesn't mind rain and she was ready!

We stopped at the Clark's next door first and Addy scored a full size Snicker's bar! She thought that was so fun to put in and take out of her bucket. She didn't notice that it disappeared later either!

We visited a few other houses and Addy just loved all the treasures in her bucket. She had no idea they were edible. . . and she still doesn't.

She played around the house for a while in her costume, not wanting to take it off or go to bed. Wow. She loved her costume!

Sunday at church they had a fall fest thing where the different kids rooms were themes and the kids were supposed to dress up. Luckily the nursery was the zoo. Whew! Addy looked like the baby giraffe in the nursery and she wore the costume the whole church service and for another 45 minutes after while she hugged and played with everyone in the cafe. I think she liked everyone telling her how cute she looked.

Halloween was really fun this year. We enjoyed seeing Addy having so much fun with her costume. I guess it's always been about the kids and we're just starting to get to enjoy that.

Apple Butter!

Well, we did it again! We made our family apple butter last Saturday. This year we decided to scale down though and we only made 3 dozen instead of 6 dozen jars. :) It felt fairly manageable but it was still a crazy day trying to juggle Addy and apple butter.

Luckily part of the time we were making the apple butter, it was lunch time so Addy was confined to her high-chair and she could see all the activity in the kitchen. She seemed to like the front row seat.

Really, Brad does most of the work in the process. :) I get it ready, make sure all the parts are moving smoothly and he cooks, purees, stirs and fills jars. I just do the boiling water bath and peel all the apples ahead of time. This year it was great to only do 16lbs of apples.

Addy takes after her Daddy so all day long she wanted to go outside. She has really gotten into walks and just sitting on the sidewalk playing with leaves and sticks. Seriously, she can do this for a LONG time! During apple butter making, Addy pounded on the storm door, pointed to outside and played with her ball. She was a good sport and we made up for it by trick-or-treating with her Saturday night (more on that later).

Here's the end of our first batch. I actually forgot to take a picture of the finished project because Addy was napping and we ended up crashing on the couch as soon as the kitchen was clean!

Then it was time for the big Halloween event (after Brad got a wild hair to make chicken and dumplings from a cook's illustrated recipe. . . ).

Where did fall go?

We've had lots of rainy/gray days lately and it's actually been pretty cold (Brad will wear flip flops at any temperature so his attire is not a good gauge!). Addy has gotten some good practice getting bundled and going for walks in the cold and rain. She likes her new boots and her coat is pretty snazzy too. The gloves are pretty worthless though. . .

This morning we woke up to a few inches of snow covering our yard and luckily not on our driveway or sidewalk. :) No shoveling yet. Addy and I decided to venture outside to play. It was Addy's first time to play in the snow and I think she liked it. She didn't seem to mind the funny snow suit either! Again, the gloves. . . worthless!

Sand toys worked great in the snow!

What a mug! She loves the cold!
This was Addy's first shot at eating snow. She watched me do it and then. .

Hmm. I don't think she liked it! What a fun little change in the weather. I prefer snow over rain any day!

Moab!

Last week Brad took the entire week off from work and we took our first Utah roadtrip adventure to Moab. True to form, we did all kinds of research about where to stay in Moab and then 1 hour before we left (when I was not home!) Brad changed our reservation so we could stay at a super cool lodge on the Colorado River. I have to say it beat staying right off the highway hands down! We were 14 miles outside of Moab in a quiet canyon and the lodge had horses, a winery and great brownie sundaes. :) We did get one each night we were there as a treat for having to be 'lights out' at 7pm for Addy to go to sleep.

We arrived in Moab Wednesday night and headed out after breakfast Thursday for Arches National Park. We 'hiked' to several arches from the famous Delicate arch to the more obscure ones that I can't remember the names of already. Addy got to do her first hike to Landscape arch and we got more oohs and aahs out of people than you've ever heard on a hike! I'm pretty sure she's the youngest hiker I've ever seen! She loved it and did really well!

Friday we headed out for Canyonlands National Park only to discover that it was raining and socked in with fog. We couldn't see anything but we drove all over the park looking for any break in the fog we could find. There was maybe one spot but Brad didn't' see it because he stayed in the car while Addy slept. :) Oh well. We did stop by Dead Horse Point State Park (only a few miles from Canyonlands) and there was a break in the fog there so we got to see the Colorado River below. Addy thought the rain was fun and she didn't mind getting a little wet. She wasn't too happy about falling into a red mud puddle right outside our hotel door though. :)

We packed up Saturday morning and decided to try Canyonlands one more time. Saturday morning was beautiful! We did get to see the canyon, the river and all the neat vistas. It was a pretty quick visit though because we knew we'd be on the road for 4 hours home.

What a great vacation!

Zoo & Walking

This week, Addy and I got to visit the SLC Hogle Zoo. We were able to meet some other young moms with kids just a little older than Addy to see the animals and spend time together. Addy was pretty excited to go to the zoo for the first time (am I a bad mom that she's 1+ and she's never been to the zoo?!). We looked at her animal book before going and talked about the animals she might see. She was jazzed as you can see.

This picture is near the end of our adventure with some kind of cat in the background. After the elephants Addy seemed to lose focus and just get really tired. Boy am I glad we got in free! Her stamina was short-lived! She seemed to like watching the monkeys, rhinos, elephants and gorillas though.

Can you believe how much she is changing? She hardly looks like a baby anymore! sniff, sniff!

Addy is 13 months old now and has about 1 1/2 months of walking practice. While she falls down a lot (she big time chipped her front tooth this week falling face first onto the concrete sidewalk!!!), she is getting better. She plays by herself in the living room like this video shows all the time. Her 88 cent ball is the best toy she has. This video is right after I put a ponytail in her hair and it was so funny to see her playing with it while sucking her thumb. It was like there was a magnet drawing her hand to her hair. :) This video shows her current walking skills. Enjoy!