Christmas at the Osbornes

Trevor and I had Christmas at our little apartment this year. It made for a very cozy Christmas and if I can cook a turkey dinner here, then I can do it anywhere.

On Christmas Eve we went to breakfast with my family and Trevor's mom, step dad and grandma. We also had Starbucks, a movie and church on our list, as well as a little visit to Trevor's dad and step mom. It was a full day, which made not getting out of our pj's till the afternoon the next day, wonderful!

Here is a peek into our day...

looking fabulous after waking up on Christmas morning. 

New Christmas tradition...homemade cinnamon rolls. I'm still dreaming about these.

My first turkey!

Trevor carving my first turkey.

The women tearin' it up in the kitchen.

We are all about the games and puzzles. The boys even played a whole game of Risk all on their iphones.

Even though the day is over I am still bursting with joy not because of anything I got under the tree or even how yummy my turkey turned out :), but because of the reason we have Christmas in the first place. It's unfathomable to me that God would send His son to be born and live on this earth only to die for me. I would not have true peace and joy without Jesus. All the presents, cookies, and warm-fuzzy feelings won't last. Nothing on this earth lasts. I hope you know Jesus. He sure knows you and loves you more than you can imagine.

And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

'tis the season

The best part about Christmas is spending time with the ones you love. And I love these 4 girls a lot. A close second is decorating and eating cookies. We did a lot of both.

The hubby was out all night so my home was filled with Christmas music, sugar cookies, hot cider and girl-talk...aww bliss.

I am very blessed to have such amazing friends.

3 more days...

meet chubbs

Keeping with tradition (all one year of it) we went searching for the perfect Christmas tree at the good ol' Busy B Christmas Tree Farm. You may remember our tree last year, Thirsty. What a perfect little first-year-tree it was. I decided we should go a little bigger this year. We went bigger alright. Bigger and Wider! We got the tree into our apartment, set it in the stand and cut off the binding. The branches flew out of that binding and made themselves at home taking up half of our living room. I, of course, loved it. Who cares if it's a little big for the space. If Christmas wants to take over, that is ok with me. Trevor, on the other hand, was worried about sitting areas and walking room....who cares about that stuff. I finally agreed to let him trim down some of the branches that were a bit out of control. So our tree has actually slimmed down quite a bit, but the name stuck.

Meet Chubbs...

I know he doesn't look too chubby now but just wait till we get him out of his natural environment and into our tiny home.

Jack and Melinda found their perfect tree too.

Decorating Chubbs has been a work in process. I am waiting for a few more ornaments and then he will be picture (and blog) worthy.

giving thanks

It just kills me that I am so slow. I know everyone has long forgotten about that thanks-giving, turkey-eating, football-watching holiday, but in my uber slow blogging world I haven't quite gotten past it. And now all I can really focus on is Christmas...I will be posting all about our tree adventures next! But I don't want to leave out the wonderful 4 days that Trevor and I spent with my family.

We survived Seattle's "Arctic Blast" (if you live in Seattle you are well aware of the medias complete overreaction to snow, yet the city's utter incapability to prepare for it) the week of Thanksgiving and made it to Spokane. My Grandpa, Aunt, Uncle and cousins came over and my brother even came up from college in California. We did all of the usual Thanksgiving stuff...of course we made a lot of food and ate a lot of food, but the best part was hearing everyone share what they are thankful for. A few even regaled us with a full blown speech. We have a few theatrics in our family.

As soon as I woke the next day, on went the Christmas music.

23 days

I like to think that you, my readers, are eagerly awaiting each of my posts with bated breath. I know you aren't, but I can dream. I really wanted to have my Thanksgiving post up by now, but I couldn't let another day go by without acknowledging that there are 23 days until Christmas. I love Christmas. Trevor would probably call this an understatement.

I am head-over-heals, crazy about Christmas!

We are getting our tree this weekend and it is all I can think about.

Thanksgiving post to come...

the chain

Remember when you were in second grade and your classroom was all decked out in construction paper chains and you would count down the days of the school year? One of these chains now hangs under our calender and we are counting down the days until Thanksgiving. Yes, when I should have been studying or doing anything else more productive, I cut up strips of construction paper (in Fall colors, of course) and glued together this little chain. It has become our nightly ritual to break off a piece right before we go to bed. We look forward to it all day.

This either means that I really am meant to be a teacher or I haven't gotten past second grade.

my bubble

There is a special little feature in the wii version of Super Mario. If you are playing with a partner and your character dies, you don't have to start all the way over. You come back in a bubble and shake your controller until you float over to your partner who pops your bubble and gets you back in the game! If you don't have a wii or have never played Super Mario you probably have no idea what I am talking about, but this is the best way I can describe what my life feels like right now.

I feel like I have been living in a bubble...watching life happen down below me, desperately trying to shake my way back into the game. Unlike my little Mario character, my bubble is filled with work, homework, dirty dishes, and laundry. Lions and tigers and bears..oh my!  Trevor is in my bubble too, which is the only thing that makes it OK. Other than that I have no idea what is even going on in the world! Yes, I did vote and yes, I still shower. I have just been so overwhelmed lately. This feeling has been manifesting itself in one of two ways: 1) I don't sit still (except for the other night when I let Trevor give me a back rub. I sat still for that.) or 2) Inaction. My husband knows this all to well as there have been many occasions when he has come home to find me in the fetal position. The latter is becoming more common. The boy hasn't eaten a proper meal in weeks...thank goodness it's almost Thanksgiving.   

A lot of things are about to change for us, we just don't know exactly when. 

In other news: Prince William is engaged.

I hope this bubble bursts soon.

Linnea and Minnesota

One of my best friends came to visit from Minnesota. She just had to marry a guy from Minnesota. It's a good thing I really like him or I might be extremely bitter, instead of only slightly.

Trevor and I have done our best to convince them how much better it is here in Washington. I mean what do you really have, Minnesota?! Snow and Brett Favre. And which would you rather have: harsh winters and flat, boring prairies or luscious greens and beautiful mountains? Me and Trevor in the flesh or me and Trevor over skype? I rest my case.

 Of course, this isn't completely fair since I have never actually been to Minnesota. I'm sure there are a lot of positives...I just don't care to come up with any. We just miss our friends so we will keep doing what we do best...manipulate and harass them until they cave.

We were very cool in high school.

Here we are now. Still very cool.

I do think the Minnesota accent she has acquired is pretty cute.

I'm a sucker for accents.

the apple harvest

This weekend we drove over the hill and through the woods...or more accurately: down traffic-jammed I-5 and into the gated community to Grandma's house for her annual apple harvest. My Grandma's poor little apple trees had a rough year and didn't produce nearly enough apples for us to turn into pie and cider...so we had to buy out Safeway's supply as well.
My parents and sister were visiting from Spokane and my good friend Megs had flown in from Denver. They may not have come JUST for the apply harvest, but I think it was a pretty good bonus.

Just a few of the many pictures from our apple photo shoot.

Sometimes I can get a little camera crazy. I may have snapped at my husband once or twice, as well as taken away photographer privileges from my dad. I need cute pictures, doesn't anyone understand that?! I already feel sorry for my future children.

Someday, Trevor will be happy to have all of these smiling, happy memories and he will overlook the fact that I dragged him through the trees to the the cute wooden fence (that you can't even see), punched him in the arm, and threatened him to smile nice. See, happy memories.

And then the apples turn into this, and everyone forgets my neurotic picture taking behavior.

Miss you already Mom, Dad, Holly, and Megs.

a very important letter

It's official. I am going back to school.

A little old lady once told me I have kind eyes and would make a great teacher. Welp...that is good enough for me so starting in March, 2011, I will be takin' my kind eyes to the Master in Teaching program at Seattle University.

Teaching has always been a dream of mine, or at least a thought that I could never quite get out of my head. There are a lot of things that I am not good at, but I am good with kids. I love kids. I just love them in all their silly, dirty-faced, snot-nosed glory.

I am extremely blessed that my hubby supports me as I trade in my paycheck for student bills. He even supported the $80 rock kit I had to buy for my summer Geology class. And by rock kit I mean a box of rocks...for $80. I would have preferred a new pair of shoes. He has also put up with a lot of extra emotional breakdowns as I balance a full-time job, certification tests, prerequisite classes...all while I try to keep our little family fed, healthy and happy. It has been a little crazy as our life's game changes, but We know it will all be worth it.

I can only hope that one day all the kids will be requesting Mrs. Osborne's class!

a welcome change

It's October. It's time to get cozy. I love that I get to start bundling up and wear boots and scarves. Oh how I love scarves. I love that I get to start wearing slippers and drink hot chocolate. I love having something baking in the oven while I'm curled up on the couch reading as my husband watches football. I love extra blankets, popcorn and old movies...cozy cozy cozy.

I have started decorating for the new season. And by decorating I mean adding a few Fall accents here and there. I am not the kind of person who will go outside, chop down some branches, collect some pine cones and fashion together a center piece. I tend to be over-the-top about a a lot of things....elaborate, artsy, nature decorations are not one of them. The most important additions will be the far-to-many perfect amount of new candles that all smell like Thanksgiving and make me feel very cozy. Are you sensing a theme?

This weekend I did pick up a few things to Fall-ify our home a bit more.

Our weekend also included a trip to Barnes and Noble. As a couple of literary nerds, we find ourselves there quite often. I could live in Barnes and Noble. There is nothing like a brand new book to stick your nose into.

This also has the makings of more cozy.

fun on the farm

Trevor and I didn't make it to the fair this year. I really wanted to go. I have the best memories of my family and I going to the fair when I was younger..OK high school and college too. I'm a sucker for tradition and any place that will deep fry a candy bar.
Luckily, I have a wonderful Aunt who has her very own mini farm and who will make me fair scones with homemade jam. She and my Uncle had us over to play on the farm. My cute and sporty Grandma came too.

All the goats loved me. Or they loved the carrots I was holding. Either way, I felt very popular.























Trevor made a new friend.

I wanted to take this little one home with us. I hear urban goats are all the rage.

I ♡ DC

From the moment we landed at Reagan National Airport until the moment we boarded our plane to leave, we took full advantage of our time in our Nation's Capital. My blisters had blisters from all the walking and running around. Our motto was: "we'll sleep when we're dead." And by the end of the trip we actually were dead. And it was absolutely wonderful. Neither of us expected to love DC so much. Nowhere else can you experience the power of the Holocaust Museum or witness the magnitude of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, go for a run passing monument after monument or see things like Lincoln's top hat and the very first American flag. We were constantly reflecting on the thousands of lives lost giving us our freedom as we toured Gettysburg and Arlington Cemetery. Our country's history spills out all over the buildings and landscape. As two lovers of history we were kids in a candy store. And these kids ate a lot of candy and loved every minute of it.

The Lincoln Memorial. Our favorite.

World War 2 Memorial. we are proud of our Grandpas. 

The White House and the lovely rusty barrier keeping me out.

Thomas Jefferson's home in Monticello. 

Gettysburg. 

Ford's Theatre.

On a balcony of the Capital right above the spot the President takes the oath of office. 

Inside our magnificent Capital.

Arlington Cemetery. Overwhelming. Amazing.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Changing of the guard.

National Cathedral.

Supreme Court.

Library of Congress.

Smithsonian. Natural History.

The one place Trevor HAD to eat at in DC. Ben's Chili Bowl. 

We loved the fun shops and quaint brick houses in the neighborhoods of Georgetown.




















Our generous hosts. Bob and Sue.

Proud to be American.
and proud owner of a brand new camera thanks to my amazing husband.