Zoolights

Every year during Christmastime the Point Defiance Zoo uses a gazillion lights and wraps them around every tree, building, plant and animal (ok, not animal) in the zoo. We headed out in the freezing cold to check it out. We were all quite impressed! Definitely something we will do again next year with all three kiddos!

Hunting for a Christmas Tree

We met up with Sean and the fam in search of the perfect Christmas tree. We found a little farm just south of Tacoma with hundreds of trees that you cut down yourself. Nolan loved running in between the trees! We had a hard time determining size and ended up with tree that was pretty big. Nolan's favorite part was eating the candy cane after we were done picking the tree out.

Copy Cat

Nolan watches us so closely these days and likes to do whatever we are doing. Nate was putting together an IKEA desk (always a fun task!) and Nolan decided he would help out!

Winter Wonderland...or not

Normally I would be extremely excited about snow. I love it. Skiing, snowball fights, building snowman...all of it! But not so much this time. It started out innocently enough. Cold, but not frigid, temperatures and a few inches of the white stuff. It was Nolan's first time experiencing it and he had a lot of fun (see pictures below) until his hands got too cold.

Well, later that night the temperature starts to drop and the wind picks up. (Another topic, but we did NOT realize how windy it gets around here...a problem when you are surrounded by trees.) Right as we are putting dinner in the oven the power goes out. Not completely uncommon, thanks to the wind and trees, but this time it was out for 20 hours. And it was freezing. Like 10 degrees outside freezing. Our house was in the 50's. I'm cold pretty much all the time, so this certainly didn't help things, plus I'm pregnant and still dealing with morning/all day sickness...it wasn't a good combination.

Around 11 am I got desperate and starting calling hotels in Gig Harbor because most of the town still had power. I found a couple of rooms (Nate's parents were visiting for Thanksgiving) and started packing. Literally the car was packed, and we were about to climb in and head out when the power came back on. Praise the Lord! I turned the thermostat up to 80, took the hottest shower and crawled into bed for a nice warm nap!

JUMP!

Gig Harbor has an indoor bounce house place that Nolan loves! We have been a couple of times now and he just has so much fun. The best part is that kids under two are free! We plan on spending some time here now that winter weather has started to settle in. Nate was able to go with us and Nolan loved having Daddy around to play with!

Look at the smile on his face!

Life with a toddler

Nolan is routinely pulling stunts like this! He is able to get into so many things now and he does it so fast! He's so cute though, we can't get mad at him!

And look, he's so proud on himself!

Surprise...Surprise!

We headed to the doctor for my 12 week ultrasound appointment and this is what immediately popped up on the screen:

My first thought was, "hmm...that looks like two heads. That can't be right! Maybe I just don't know what I'm seeing." I look at Nate who has a half-smile, half-shocked look and I realize that I was right when I saw two heads. Our doctor then asks us if we know what we are looking at and I say, probably very loud, "Is that TWINS??"

Well, yes it is! We are expecting two bundles of joy next spring. We are very excited and very nervous! What an adventure this is turning out to be!

Halloween

We dressed Nolan up in his monkey costume and headed to Gig Harbor for Halloween. Most of the businesses in the harbor pass out candy and a lot of families head down there. Nolan was sure what to think at first, but pretty quickly he figured out how to play along so he could get candy! It was a little on the cool side, but we had a great time! Nolan even stopped on the walk back to the car, plopped down and started eating candy out of his basket. He was in heaven!

Spooner Farms

My dad came up for a visit in October and while he was here we headed to Spooner Farms to pick out some pumpkins! Nolan had a blast looking at animals, climbing on pumpkins and exploring the pumpkin patch.

We ended up leaving without getting any pumpkins, but we still had a great time! We will be back next year!

Our First Home

On September 21, we signed the papers to our first house. Throughout the summer we watched the house being built and stopped by almost weekly to check on the progress. We did the final walkthrough and then went over to the office to sign all the paperwork. We weren't able to move until the weekend, because of Nate's work schedule, but on September 25 with the help of friends we were able to move into our house.

Not quite completed in the picture, but oh so close!

Seaside Cross Country Meet

In September we headed south to Seaside, OR for Sarah and Veronica's cross-country meet. V wasn't running because of an injury, but we were able to see Sarah run. I ran at the same meet when I was in high school, so it was fun to be back and see one of my sisters running in it. Nolan had a great time, there was a lot of open spaces for him to run as well! The drive was a bit long, as I was experiencing a lot of morning (all day) sickness at the time, but it was well worth it!

Go Sarah!

Silly faces after the race

Shopping & OMSI

Towards the end of August we met my mom and the girls in Portland for a little back to school shopping. After spending a couple of hours at the mall we headed over to OMSI, which is a hands-on interactive science museum. Nolan had a great time with his Aunts! It is so nice being able to drive a couple of hours and meet up with them, definitely one of the advantages of our big move North!

Hanging out in the car with Jenny

Nolan asleep during the first part of OMSI

What a cute family!

Sarah kissing Einstein

My husband with his forest friends

The big move & a trip to Bend

On June 9th we left California for Washington. Nolan and I were in one car, Nate drove the HUGE truck and my dad drove our other car. We made it to Redding, CA the first night and the following night we arrived in Gig Harbor, WA. It was quite the journey! Once we moved in and settled into our new apartment (I took zero pictures during this time...we were a little busy!) Nolan and I headed to Bend, OR to meet up with my mom and sisters.

This is Sarah. She dresses like this often. Awesome!

Nate was able to come down for the weekend (well 36 hours) but we made the most of it!

The girls attacked him!

Nolan loved the dishwasher

We went to an indoor bounce house place and Nolan had a great time! We will have to go back next time!