It is almost Christmas!

I can not believe how quickly time is flying.  It has been a month already since I updated our blog.  We have been pretty busy. 

On 11/10, we went to take our family Christmas pictures at JC Penney.  They were quite disorganized that day and we were not happy with the new photographer.  Now I am hesistant about going there again in the future, but we do have Nathan's birthday coming up and I like to get birthday pictures taken.  We also ended up getting Nathan's picture with Santa taken that day.  Paul was walking around the mall and saw Santa there.  Kill 2 birds with 1 stone!  Nathan told Santa that he wanted trucks and cars for Christmas.  After taking pictures we decided to go to to zoo.

The next day, 11/11, we went to the NASCAR race in Phoenix.  We sat up on the hill.  We got there late to take pictures before the race, though.  We bought Nathan the #29 car when we got there and #29 ended up winning the race!

11/15, I took Nathan to Reid Park Zoo.

11/17, We went to Patagonia Lake.  It was beautiful there.  Pretty Fall colors.  We wanted to take a boat ride, but they were booked up for the day.  We took a hike and ended up walking on an open range.  We had cows walking around us.  It was a little scary at first until someone told us that they are used to the people walking around them.  Then we even saw a bull...that one we kept our distance from!

11/22-11/26 we drove over to California for Thanksgiving break.  We went to Carsland on Thanksgiving at Disneyland Adventure Park.  Nathan loved it.  The next day, 11/23, we went to Legoland and Sealife Aquarium.  I particularly liked the aquarium.  11/24 we went to San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  We were disappointed in it.  We saw beautiful Fall colors there and it is set up nice for the animals, but it is not a great experience for the guests.  It is a lot of walking and yet it is hard to close enough to the animals to see them.  I liked feeding the lorikeets.  We also saw some baby elephants and a baby gorilla.  My pictures did not turn out that great, though.  The next day we went to the San Diego Zoo.  It was a Sunday and maybe due to the Thanksgiving weekend it was not very crowded which was nice.  Nathan and Paul went their way and I went my way because I really wanted to get some good pictures.  We met up for lunch and then went our separate ways again.  I missed having them with me!  I think I got some good pictures, but I am still going through them.  The last day in town we went to Balboa Park.  I think Nathan would have enjoyed the model train museum and the air and space museum, but there was not enough time to do those.  We went mainly so I could look at some of the gardens.  I was excited to see the Japanese Garden and I was majorly disappointed.  They are working to expand it so maybe in the future it will be better, but it was not worth the few bucks I paid to go in there.  I think my expectations were high because I loved the Japanese Gardens in San Francisco.  Balboa Park's paled in comparison.  I also went in the Botanical Building and it was just alright.  I saw the rose garden across the street and it seemed even smaller than our rose garden at Reid Park in Tucson. 

On 11/29 I took Nathan to Reid Park Zoo. 

Today, 12/4, was Nathan's last speech therapy session.  He has come along way in the last year or so.  He started when he was 18 months and now he is getting ready to turn 3 in a couple of weeks.  I like his speech therapist, but I think a lot of his speech development happend naturally.  It just developed slower and later than with most kids his age.  Now we just hope that he will not need more speech therapy down the road, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it.  We chose not to transfer over to the public school system's therapy at this time since Nathan is going to Casas Christian School and we would rather that he not have to go through the public school system.  It is too bad that Casas no longer offers speech therapy.

So we have Nathan's birthday coming up on the 15th and Tracy is coming into town that day.  Then shortly after that is Chrsitmas already!  I love Christmas, but there is so much to do between now and then.  I don't even know where to start.  I am so frustrated with our house, too.  I hate looking at the clutter and it seems to get worse rather than better because I just get more and more behind.  Maybe I will get a handle on it after the holidays, but it seems like my house is never going to look nice.  I like having friends and family visit us, but I wish our house looked better for them.  There is so much potential.  If we could get some new furniture and decor and if I could get the clutter to a minimum I would feel so much better. 

I also am very displeased with the way I look now.  I have gained so much weight and I am mad at myself for letting it happen.  If my mom makes me fudge and gets me Garret's popcorn then there is no way I will lose weight before the New Year.  I guess it will just have to be a New Year's resolution...again.  My hair is driving me nuts, too.  My bangs are driving me crazy and I just don't know what to do with my hair anymore.  Oh well!