How annoying that it's already Christmas time!!! Actually, Christmas was never as much fun before Riley was born. Now we get to watch HIM have fun and that is fun for us. I never thought it would work that way, but it really does! I always heard that once you have a child you see the world through their eyes and it's like seeing everything for the first time again. I am now a believer.


Ben and I had a "friendly" debate over whether we should have a real tree (bundle up, head out, climb a mountain, chop it down, head back, insert trunk into stand, listen to Ben swear) OR set up our perfectly good artificial tree that is right in our closet just waiting to be loved again as much as it was loved (by me) last year. Well, as you can see by the pictures Ben came to his senses and we set up our wonderful, symmetrical, non-fire hazardous tree :)

For Halloween Riley was a girl! It was the best costume ever. We had so many people fooled, even relatives we don't see much who looked really confused when they saw we had a girl, but would say things like "Oh, she is getting so big!" Hello!!! It's halloween, and if we had a girl what would she be dressed up as...a girl? That would be like dressing Riley up as a boy for halloween. We just got back from a trip to Idaho to visit family for Thanksgiving, and had a great time. It was especially fun to see my mom who Riley hasn't seen for about a year. And of course Riley began another one of his "No, mine!" phases just in time for his debut to extended family. Sometimes people don't know what to make of him. Then he'll snap back into his adorable mode and dishes out hugs and kisses and please's and thank you's like you wouldn't believe. What a funny kid! I think I may have a little Jekyl and Hyde on my hands. Anyways, we had a great time with family and spent WAY too much money on...I don't really know. But we had fun and came back physically fatter than when we left, which is why Ben joined a gym this morning and I went and got a fancy new blender and a supply of SlimFast powder. I am determined! At least for today. We'll see how I feel Friday. Uh-oh, I think I'm in trouble with this blogging thing. It's kind of addicting! But I guess it is just like keeping a journal, so it's time well spent. Now I just need to figure out how to let people know we have a blog...since I know everyone is just dying to read it :)

Trip to Colorado
I recently drove to Colorado and met my mom and grandma at the airport. We then spent a couple of days visiting my great-grandma Sprague who lives in a nursing home. It was good to see her, but also hard because her health has declined so much since I saw her five or so years ago. She can't see or hear very well, and is sometimes unsure of who we are. But I have wonderful memories of her and I'm so glad I got to see her.

Okay I have no idea how to blog, but I guess everyone has to start somewhere. A friend sent me the link to her blog and it is so much fun reading her thoughts and looking at her pictures that I thought mabye this would be a good way to share our lives with others, since we lead SUCH exciting lives :) I have not started a blog yet because I feel like I am way too busy, but Christmas break is coming up soon and it might be fun to post a few pictures. I guess I'll write more later....this is just a start. It's also a test to see how the heck this works!