Happy Holiday Season!!!!

I love this time of year!!!! From Halloween till January 6th I'm on happy la-la cloud! It's a great four months. Halloween and spookiness, Fall, the colors, mulling ciders and wines, baking pumpkin breads, and making chilis, soups, and stews. Love it.

Thanksgiving is a beautiful time to eat lots of food and see family and friends. It's a great excuse to party as well as a wonderful time to remember those less fortunate and to be thankful for what we do have.

Christmas time brings lights and candles, candy and Santa, trees, more baked goods, more yummy mulled ciders, wassails, egg nogs, and wines. It's a time to hibernate during the long winter and hold my dear ones more closely.

Winter solstice or the Yule is a celebration of the Sun. The days start getting longer. It's a time for new beginnings and new goals for the new year.

Yup, it's one big celebration in our house!!! Woot :) So here are a few pics over the last month or so of celebrations and fun!

Thanksgiving craft!

Movie and snow!

Shadow looking adorable

We finished our first big puzzle together!

We went on a pre-Thanksgiving hike and this was the view

Battle Creek hike

His Thanksgiving Day crown

Kitties love trees!

The Tree!

Being Shnuggly

Our shrine to the Winter Solstice

Trees in the Winter

We made graham cracker houses too!

I Love Autumn!

We went on a nice Sunday hike to celebrate the Fall colors. We got some pretty good photos, exercise, and family together time while basking in the awesomeness of Nature!





We got some great autumn leaves shots!









I was trying to be artsy ;)











Gabe got all tuckered out there in the end so Archie and I took turns carrying him down the mountain. It was a fantastic kick-off to the Fall season!!!!

Halloween and Such!

We had a fabulous Halloween this year! This was Gabe's first year in understanding a bit about the excitement for candy and going trick-or-treating. He really enjoyed all the decorations and the "scary" books and the talk of candy, candy, candy, candy! I made my chili and zombie cupcakes! Our neighbors came over and celebrated with us and we all went trick-or-treating together. The weather was soooo amazing!!! I don't remember a Halloween ever being this warm. It was so nice to wear just wear my pirate costume without any kind of jacket or coat.

My zombie toxic bite cupcakes--teeth and all!

Gabe (Archie helped a lot) did a bat for his pumpkin.

Our Halloween porch.

Archie's and my pumpkins

We also drove up to Cascade Springs and enjoyed the scenery with our friends.

So naturey!

Gabe wanted pancakes last night so he helped me mix and cook!

More fun pics...

My little Babushka!

New haircut but a little grumpy

Happier after he got his goldfish!

Wearing Mom's boots!

I also ran my first half marathon on Saturday morning with my friend Annie. It was a costume run and I dressed up as a pirate. We also got a really cool pirate medal! It was the hardest thing physically I've ever had to do but it was a lot of fun. Annie kept me going even when she could have run on ahead and finished an hour before me (I don't think I would have finished if she hadn't have stuck with me!). Probably the craziest thing I've done this year! Woot!

Us, freezing our arses off at 5 in the morning!