Christmas & New Years

We put up the Christmas tree right after thanksgiving so that we had plenty of time for Julian to investigate which ornaments were fragile, so that we could then glue some back together and place them higher on the tree.








We went to one of the community holiday celebrations, the one where they shut down the main street/US highway for several hours, this one might not last much longer. But for this year we were lucky enough to again have the presence of the fire breathing dragon (see Halloween) this time playing carols. Audrey was ready and so excited to meet Santa, then fell asleep within minutes of leaving the house, so we hung around downtown, got a beer, eventually she woke up and we went to meet the man. In the (very short by that time) line Chris explained the process of asking Santa to bring you some specific Christmas present, so she came up with "a stuffed animal Santa".



























Santa delivered his stuffed likeness, among other things and there were other deliverers too...Thanks Everyone!


























The wrapping paper was really fun for a while too.









And then came New Years Eve, which in our gang of friends doubles as a birthday, so we celebrated James's 40th with pointy hats and noise makers.

Thanksgiving in Durango

I was a little worried when, twenty minutes into a drive that lasted another 7 1/2 hours, Audrey started asking "are we there yet?" But the worry was for naught as we had a smooth trip there and back to visit Dan in Durango.

Here's the gang outside the Durango train station:



Welcoming Santa to town:


Playing in the Animas River:








Sliding at one of the parks we visited:



Heading home:

When the leaves fall off the trees

Early in the summer Audrey had a lot of questions about her birthday, most importantly, When?  So I told her that her birthday was when the leaves fall off the trees, she was content and the questions ended...until the leaves started changing colors.



We kicked off the autumnal changes with the Annual Seedhouse Hullabaloo, where we camped in some chilly weather, played by the river, rode bikes, played cornhole, and sat around the campfire, among other things.

As September turned to October, the leaves that had changed colors began to fall, and the intensity of questions grew, "now it is my birthday right?", "is it my birthday yet?".  So we switched the description of When?! to October Sixteenth, Audrey practiced saying those big words and we continued to enjoy the beautiful colors and beautiful weather.

Then October 16th finally arrived and we celebrated at home with a family dinner, menu chosen by Audrey: chicken nuggets, broccoli, craisins, cheerios, and snake soup.  What is snake soup you ask?  Me too, but Audrey couldn't provide an answer so I made something up "out of my head".

Trying out new birthday bike

Then we had another celebration with friends at a park on yet another glorious fall day.










The final hallmark of the fall season is, of course, Halloween.  I was Daenarys Targaryen and the rest of the gang were my dragons.










Halloween also brought houseguests; Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Dan of Durango came.



Now the snow is here and it feels like winter, even though the solstice is still a month away.





We are ready to ski

Julian's first birthday come and gone

Julian turned one, two months ago.  His one year old stats, 29 inches tall and 20 pounds, put him on the small end of the percentile spread, but as a friend of mine joked, those percentiles are skewed by babies in Louisiana drinking grape soda (sorry for the stereotyping).  We celebrated his birthday at the Kelly Family Reunion.

Here are some more pictures from his birthday week.

Julian Loves to play with balls, and run, and dance especially twirling, which he does with one arm raised across his face.  He has been eyeing his sister's bike and has tried to throw a leg over more than once.  He has figured out how to use a spoon:

And he's figured out what to do with a basketball hoop



I was trying to take some pictures of Julian recently to document his growth.  Every time I picked up the camera he ran straight for me, he thought it was a really fun game and it made for some cute pictures.

Here he is coaxing a couple more teeth to the surface, he just got his seventh and his eighth is on the way.