December

Let the holiday craziness continue... As is "tradition" in our family we had a little disaster of sorts Thanksgiving morning and it took us a little while to work up the energy to get it repaired. Thanksgiving morning we heard the toilet in Thatcher's bathroom running forever, so Aaron went in to investigate and found a puddle of water on our new floor! We were headed out for the day so we just put down towels and turned of the water to the toilet and left. (Aaron did check in on things mid day and the water had stopped). The line into the tank had failed so we ended up replacing the tank- easy enough right? Well the new tank is smaller than the old tank so you can see where we didn't get all the old wall paper off and the wall painted- OOPS! Guess we will add that to the list. Aaron only had to peel up about half of the floor and we had left over flooring from the original install so it was an easy fix, just time consuming. 

Thatcher likes to "supervise" while daddy was working in the bathroom- he is getting to be quite the little mover now that he can crawl and pull himself up on things. He also loves to play with his toys and dump the bins out and put the things back in.

I was able to hold off on decorating for Christmas until the weekend after Thanksgiving. We love the look of the white fireplace and decorations. Our little collection of nutcrackers and nativities is growing little by little and we are finding new places to tuck them in (and that are now out of baby reach).

Aaron loves scheming all year and planning how to put up the outside lights. I just do my best to smile and nod. I have a feeling we may be headed into Griswold territory in the near future if we aren't careful. :) He does a great job of putting up the lights and our house always looks so festive and sparkly with the lights and the little snow we have.

December also included another trip to Rexburg to watch Mike graduate from BYU-Idaho. We made it just in time to listen to the speakers, but Thatcher was too sleepy to stay for the whole time so we headed out before seeing him actually "walk". Congrats to Mike and Lara for all their hard work we are so proud of them!

We were super lucky to be able to travel over and spend time with Mike, Lara, and Carter. We stayed in Victor again at Mark and Romy's beautiful home (Thanks again guys!). We were a little leery of driving in the "extreme weather conditions". We had blowing and drifting snow and ice, it was quite the drive over. The next morning on our way back into Rexburg we were able to see all the farms that we drove past the night before and all the snow starting to pile up.

Thatcher and Carter had fun playing together while we helped Lara and Mike box things up so they could start preparing to move the Friday after Christmas. We were able to get quite a few things taken care of for them so they could enjoy their last few days in Rexburg with Mike's family.

(Thacher playing with blocks at Mark and Romy's)

(Looking out the window at Jack)

We were able to go check out the new aquarium in Boise with Thatcher right after Christmas. There aren't a lot of super "baby friendly" indoor places to go here so we were excited for a new thing to try. We weren't sure how Thatcher would do and if he would really be interested in the fish.

He wasn't too sure about the touch tanks- he liked to watch mommy touch the rays and sharks but did not really want to try himself.

They have this little boat all decked out as a little touch tank with sea stars and sea urchins, there was also a rather large iguana hanging out on the bow of the boat enjoying some lunch under his lamp.

(Thatcher meeting Beam the sea turtle)

Next to each exhibit/tank/aquarium they have a little info sheet about who lives there, and a little about them. Beam is a rescued turtle, his shell was cracked by a boat then he was cemented and zip-tied back together and now lives at the aquarium. (Neat huh?)

Thatcher liked the bigger tanks that he could stand next to and look into and see the fish. He thought it was pretty fun when they would swim by.

Our DIY project for December was finding Thatcher a little dresser that was also the right size to use as a changing table. We hunted around on Craigslist and a few favorite thrift stores and consignment shops before we found one. It needed a little love but was solid wood! The little handles/knobs were however plastic with little ribbons tied through them! We couldn't find anything with the same spacing as the original pulls so we opted to just put two knobs on each drawer.

We got to work washing, sanding, and painting the dresser after Thatcher went to bed. Call me a party pooper but a crawler + open paint didn't really sound like a good time to me...

Thatcher's crib is shiny bright white so we wanted the dresser to match. A few coats of paint with primer and we were good to go.

Who knew that the #10 cans of food storage were also excellent to use as blocks to elevate a dresser when painting?

As the white paint dried we started seeing yellow streaks, we slapped on another coat of paint, still streaky. We think that the original finish was oil based and it was coming through our paint! It was late and I was tired and frustrated, so we pulled out some odd gray/green paint from the garage and it seems to be covering the yellow. Not the color I wanted but at least it was done. When it warms up I guess I will sand it all down and start over and see how we do.

We were super lucky to have some pretty awesome friends who ended up with two extra tickets to Disney on Ice at Taco Bell Arena. I had never been and we thought it would be a fun little outing. Thatcher has never been to something like that so we set our expectations rather low and headed in. The skaters were AMAZING! We watched a couple different "princess stories". Thatcher knew some of the songs from listening to them at home and was dancing/singing along in my lap (It was hilarious! We had to keep apologizing to the people around us because he was having a great time singing along).

We made it through the whole thing! Thatcher got a bit tired toward the end but stuck it out and watched the end- complete with fire works!

Grammy started a new job in a big fancy office downtown so Thatcher and I decided she needed a lunch date. We met up and had a fun visit and got to see her little cube. :) This summer we will have to go and walk with Grammy at lunch on Fridays.

That just about wraps up our month and year! Can you believe it? What a year it has been! We were able to skype with Grandpa and Grandma Beal in New York on Christmas and for Grandma's birthday New Years Eve. We didn't party too much to bring in the new year, just hung out with family and enjoyed some down time. We are looking forward to all kinds of adventures and new things in 2013 and watching our baby turn into a little boy!