Christmas Tree Farm & Trans-Siberian Orchestra

On Thanksgiving weekend it's tradition to shop for a Christmas tree! Since we are spending a large portion of December in Seattle, we decided not to get a tree this year. But we didn't want to miss out on all the fun! So we went with the rest of the Fish Fam to tag along on their hunt for a tree. 

hay ride out to the tree farm

visiting the horses

love my little red-head! 

sippin' hot chocolate in the barn

After the tree hunt, we dropped off the kids at the Farm House and hired a babysitter. Then all of us went into downtown Portland for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. It was an early Christmas gift from Mom & Dad Fish and it was amazing! Their music was even better live than on the radio. I was glad we left Briggen at home because it was very loud, lots of laser lights, and even some fire!

November

By November, life has usually slowed down a bit and we are able to enjoy more time as a family. We were lucky enough to have some nice weather at the beginning of the month. We took advantage of it by exploring a new park/waterfront by the Washougal River. We also had time for a weekend trip to Seattle. Then we ended the month with Thanksgiving dinner and some colder weather. 

We began house hunting in October, and are still searching! There have been two houses in particular that we have thought seriously about, but eventually decided against it. We know the right house is out there, we just have to find it! In the meantime, I am working on cleaning out and eliminating all of our extra "stuff". 

Sunday morning naps

Sunday matching 

exploring the Washougal River

beautiful fall colors at my parents' house

During my organizing, I came across a box of cards from over the years. The pictures below show many of the cards from my sweet grandparents. And this is definitely not all of them! I love that my grandparents (on both sides) are so thoughtful and send holiday/birthday cards. 

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving at Uncle Lance and Aunt Brandee's. We were responsible for bringing a dessert, so we made a double-tiered pumpkin cake. Brodie took on the job of frosting the cake and it turned out amazing! I can't believe this is the only picture I have from the whole Thanksgiving night!

And to end the month we visited a Christmas tree farm/attended a Christmas concert (more on that later) and snuggled up by the "fire".

Briggen: 9 months

Weight: 18 lbs 10 oz (28th %ile)

Height: 28" (26th %ile)

Head: 45cm (44th %ile)

Likes: eating food (esp applesauce and bread), playing with blocks, Where's the Ladybug?

What's new: feeding himself a bottle and pulling himself up onto furniture, picking up food with fingers

Firsts: visit to Santa, Zoo Lights, left with a teenage babysitter (!!)

As always, it required a few attempts before getting a good shot. I even put the frame on the wrong month before realizing he's only 9 months. Whoops!

The colder weather means lots of jackets, furry hats, and vests. Good thing Briggen doesn't mind, and I think he looks the cutest! 

already sporting his red and green Christmas clothes

attempting to get a good picture for Mom's yearly calendar

While we were out house hunting, we stopped at this park. It was beautiful but freezing!

at Camas Antiques

Oregon Zoo Lights

October - Halloween

We dressed up and attended 3 different Halloween events this year: Boo Bash, church Trunk or Treat, and Dexcom's Halloween office party. Somehow I only managed to get pictures at Boo Bash, so here's what I got!

For his first Halloween, Briggen dressed as a caterpillar. Thanks to our family friends, the Gillespies, we had a caterpillar hand-me-down costume. Since he was a caterpillar, I was on the search for another bug costume. I found some ladybug wings at the dollar store for myself, but were still undecided for Brodie. He thought about dressing as a gardener, but his outfit looked more like a farmer. That's when we decided to go with an Eric Carle theme, and dress as characters from his books: The Hungry Caterpillar, The Grouchy Ladybug, and Around the Farm. 

Boo Bash is a Camas downtown event where businesses open their shops to Trick-or-Treaters and hand out candy. Brodie's chiropractic office participated, so we started out at Columbia Chiropractor and handed out candy. There were so many trick-or-treaters we ran out of candy within the first hour of the event!

crawling around the office

handing out candy 

After we ran out of candy, we did some trick-or-treating for ourselves. Briggen was just old enough to hold his own bag, but it's pretty obvious the candy isn't for him. We felt a little weird getting candy for ourselves, but Briggen loved it, and it's hard for me to say no to free candy :)

Briggen: 8 months

the sequence of events that took place to capture the one semi-decent photo above :) 

Now: crawling, sleeping in a lower crib mattress, waving hello

Loves: swings & smoothies 

Dislikes: people walking by without waving hello

Teeth: top 2 teeth have broken through!

swinging at the park

hanging with the Gillespies

we now find him standing up in his crib and grabbing things off the shelf

(his mattress was lowered just after this picture was taken haha)

playing with his friend, Laykin