Christmas Tree!

We really wanted to cut our own Christmas tree this year...so we did!! We actually got it a couple of weeks ago (the beginning of Dec.) and it's a funny story! We didn't find any trees at the first stop so we drove around and found another tree farm and set out hiking around to find the perfect tree! Well, they were pretty picked over and we were deciding to just buy one already cut. Then we found one that looked pretty good. It needed to be cut about 1/4 of the way up the tree because it was so big but we got it down! It was so big and heavy that Andrew almost killed himself dragging it through the snow! When we were checking out they said it was going to be $50 (which is a lot for a tree up here and surprised us b/c we saw that the trees were all $28 at the most) but that's b/c we picked the most expensive one that was charged per foot. So we made it home and realized we had to cut about another 2-3 feet off (remember we payed for those feet!!!) Well, we got it set up and as we were decorating we realized it wasn't a very nice tree at all!! It's very scragly and thin at the top! We tried trimming and shaping it and did the best we could. We were really upset that night because we could have bought a perfect really nice tree for a lot less but really wanted to cut it (even though the selection wasn't good!). We are laughing about it now though. I guess this is just our "Charlie Brown" year!!!

Changes!

Well there have been lots of changes in the last few days in the Tomlinson household. For starters Gavin had his first real big open mouth smile Sunday morning. He had given little ones a couple of time before but there was no mistaking this one!! He was looking right at me and had a huge smile! He did it a few other times too (hurray daddy got to see cause he was home!). I sort of got a picture of it (it's really blurry and bright because I was so close and did it so fast) but I had to post it because it was the first morning he did it!! After smiles he also gave us a couple of on purpose "coos"!! Again, looking right at us! It was so cool to see him starting to communicate! Now we just watch all day (and night!) long for more smiles!!




The other big news is that it's really winter here!! We've had tons of snow the last few days! Sunday we woke up to everything being covered and we still didn't have a shovel! As you'll see Andrew found a way! He used a piece of ply wood to shove it off the driveway (he actually still uses it some instead of the shovel). Last night Andrew could barely make it home from work because it was a blizzard. He said at times he couldn't see past his hood and could hardly even see that. Everything is closed today and it's still coming down!!! I'm loving it because I can just sit cozy with Gavin and watch it from inside!! Hopefully we'll get to have a white Christmas!!!
Part of our backyard Ahhh!! Our driveway!!

Andrew's handy dandy "shovel"!!

The view from our bedroom Sunday morning!! What a surprise!!