kicking off Christmas

Our house has been filled with Christmas spirit.  It all started with pulling out the few Christmas decorations we had here.  We never planned on spending Christmas in PA so most of our Christmas stuff is still in Utah. The kids got so excited over the few little things we had we quickly decided we needed a tree. We set off to find one and ended up at a huge Christmas tree farm.  The kids loved hiking around until we found just the right one, a beautiful concolor fir that makes our apartment smell like a Christmas explosion. That same day we went to a fund raiser at the high school, where the kids got to go shopping with one of “Santa’s elves”. We filled out a form to indicate who the kids were shopping for and how much money we wanted to spend and a student dressed like an elf took them on their to shop for gifts.  That night we got to finish up our festive day and a Nativity party at the church.  Hudson got to perform Christmas songs with the primary.  We also enjoyed walking through a nativity display and eating cookies and hot cocoa.



Beautiful Baby Autumn
At two months old  Autumn was 10 lbs 9 oz and 22 1/2 inches long.
(Hudson was 13.8 lbs and 23 1/2 in.; Ellie was 13.6 lbs and 24 1/2in.)
So Autumn is by far our runt.  She is still in the 50 percentile, but I guess we are just used to our Hudson and Ellie who  exploded at 5 weeks. They were both in the 95th percentile.
Autumn is always looking around and seems to be trying to figure out the world around her, and has consequently worn a little round bald spot on the back of her head.




Ellie loved all of the trees that were the same size she was. She kept hugging them and saying, " I yuv this one!"




This is Hudson's new signature move. He pouts like Charlie Brown when he gets scolded. This is a mild representation.  I'm not sure exactly what the cause of this particular pout was, but I believe it had something to do with jumping into mud puddles.



The highlight of the week was certainly Sunday when Jake blessed our little Autumn in church.  It was really strange to not have any family members here to share the special day with us, but we had good friends and home teachers who were able to join in the circle. Jake gave her a wonderful blessing, where in he blessed her with many tools to help her accomplish the things in her life that would be pleasing to her heavenly father and her family. The spirit was very strong.  I was told that during the blessing she happily stared into the faces of the men in the circle. Many of whom approached me later and commented on her beautiful spirit and the joy she seemed to have about receiving her blessing. It was a wonderful day and I wish we could have shared it with our loved ones back home in Utah.



Someone loves her Daddy!





I have aspirations of getting a good picture of the three kids together to use for some type of Christmas card.  I took at least 30 pics of them sitting on the couch together and this is about as good as it gets. I guess whatever I end up with will be a true snapshot into our life.



I really need to learn how to use photoshop!