New Shades=New 'ttude!

i found this picture on my phone from a couple of weeks ago €€and it cracks me up! hannah's face just says it all..."what up homey?! this is my headlight!" i guess it comes with getting a new pair of shades because she does love a good pair of sunglasses!

Finally a Real Update and Finally Up to Date

I have spent so much time just catching up that I haven't really gotten to write a real update as to what's going on in our world! I am finally done playing catch up on the blog, so I can take a little time to update now. Things have just been crazy busy for us, and I don't really know what all I have mentioned on here, so I will just start at the beginning of the school year! Hannah is going to daycare full time now and really likes going. She gets so excited when we pull in and says, "I want to see my friends!" I think she really likes being there and she is learning so many things. Up until recently Hannah is really quite at school and doesn't talk much. The last few weeks they say that she has been talking like crazy and seems to be adjusted. I am not surprised by this at all because Hannah really seems to be more and more like her Dad, personality-wise. She is very social, when she wants to be...but she also needs time alone in the day. Since she talks our ears off when she's at home, we know that she just chooses not to speak at daycare, but I think they didn't believe us for a while. Finally she decided to start using her words at school and they are all shocked to hear how developed her language actually is.

Hannah loves to sing songs and knows a lot words to most of her favorites...if she doesn't have the words correct, she just throws in some other words and goes on with confidence...she gets that from her Daddy! She loves all things "Buzz" aka Toy Story...her favorite characters, in order, are Buzz, Woody, Weezey, Bullseye and Jessie. We hear the request, "I want to watch Buzz, pease!" on a very regular basis. We try not to let her watch too much TV, but she does get to watch every once in a while. Her favorite movies are Toy Story 2 & 3 (we don't have the first one or I am sure she would love that one too), Alvin & the Chipmunks, and Racing Stripes and her favorite TV show is hands down Barney. She loves to "ride" things like the Mommy horsey, the Daddy horsey, Bullseye, Choomi, and her rocking horse to name a few.

She is growing like a weed. I really need to get one of those wall measurement things so I can see how tall she is, but I know that she has gotten taller. She has gotten a couple of hair cuts and her hair is getting so thick. It makes me a little sad because with the thickness her curls are getting weighed down a bit, but that's okay.

Hannah is also VERY independent. She really likes to get herself dressed all on her own, even though she struggles. I usually end up letting her try and waiting until she asks for help, otherwise I get yelled at for offering assistance too early...she's got it! I find myself being so proud of her for accomplishing things on her own, yet I get frustrated too because she doesn't understand there are some things that she just can't do on her own yet.

We are working on potty training, along with daycare. She goes at daycare 3-4 times a day and usually a couple of times at home too. We are trying to be patient, and want to let potty training be her idea. We are not really in any big hurry so we will just let her take her time. I would imagine that she will get really serious about it in the next couple of months though because she really likes to pee on the potty.

In other news, it is fall here in Colorado! Fall is my favorite time of year for so many reasons. I love the colors, I love the changing trees, I love the cool, crisp mornings, and I love pumpkins. It has been a beautiful fall so far and I just cannot get enough of it. We drove up to an area called "Cottonwood Pass" to look at the Aspens last weekend. We read that Cottonwood Pass is one of the best places to go to see fall foliage. It is just a couple hours from home so we went for a drive last weekend and it was completely worth it! It was absolutely gorgeous out and the trees were perfect. It's best to just see the pictures because they speak for themselves...and believe me when I tell you, they do not do the colors justice...I just don't think a picture could truly capture it!

We got a good family picture! We had to set the camera up on top of our car to get it, but it was worth it. Even though it's not the best family photo we've ever had, I think it is pretty cute!

Hannah had so much fun playing in the leaves. Can you tell??

This lake was great! We are going to try to camp out there next year because it is perfect. It is small enough that we can take our canoe out, but big enough to have some good fishing.

Can't beat a little rock throwing! Hannah kept getting into the water despite the fact that it was probably 40 degrees! I kept putting my toes in because she insisted, but I didn't last long. Mountain lakes are way too cold for swimming and/or wading if you ask me!

With fall in Colorado, comes the occasional snowfall. We haven't seen this so much in Colorado Springs, but we saw it a lot when we lived in Wyoming. It will usually start snowing in Wyoming in September, but then it warms back up after a couple of days to have nice fall weather again. Well that was the case this weekend in the Springs. It snowed! Like 3-4 inches! There really weren't that many good snowfalls last winter...until the spring that is and that is not good snow to play in. So when we woke up freezing on Saturday morning because we didn't turn our heater on, we were not surprised to find snow on the ground. It snowed most of the morning and Hannah kept going to the deck door and asking to go outside. She roamed around all morning singing "It's raining, it's snowing!" Finally, I decided that we should just bundled up and go out for a while. It was still snowing, but it was totally worth it. We had so much fun!

Can you tell that Hannah is having a blast?? I was actually really happy to see this because last year we took Hannah to the mountains to play in the snow and she hated it. That's why I was so reluctant to let her go out. I worried for no reason because she loved throwing snowballs at Jon and Choomi and me and really loved building our snowman!

They were getting very serious about their snowball making. Hannah is so competitive already and it cracks me up!

She does not care one bit that she has snow caked all over her hat...she's just gotta throw that snowball!

When Jon threw a snowball at Choomi, Hannah got on board. She really thought it was funny to pelt Choomi...the poor dog!

Rolling up snow for our snowman!

Clearly this was very serious business!

The finished product! All we had for a nose was a baby carrot, so we just opted for a stick instead. Our neighbor Johnny was gracious enough to come outside to take our picture. I had another cute one, but I just deleted it by accident. I can't put it back in the correct order, so this one will just have to do. Hannah loved everything, except for her freezing cold hands towards the end. She refused to put on her warm mittens and instead just had some cheap gloves. She wanted those because they were purple..."I want the purple ones" she said. Maybe next time she will let us put her warm gloves on! By the end of the day the snow was gone and the only evidence of the snow was our melting snowman. It turned out to be a pretty great weekend!

A Santa Fe Wedding

We went to Santa Fe over Labor Day weekend for Jon's cousin's wedding. We got to spend a bunch of time with family, walked around downtown Santa Fe, ate some good green chile, and boogied the night away. It was a great weekend...here are some pictures to prove it!

The whole group...we also got to Albuquerque for a birthday party and some more family time!

Obviously, not the best family photo, but it was the best one of the night. Hannah was pretty grumpy at this point because she had only napped for about 30-45 minutes that day due to the wedding festivities. Since the reception was at the hotel we stayed at, Hannah got to go take a nap for a while during the reception. She made a pretty big comeback later in the evening!

Post nap: All Hannah wanted to do was dance! She pretty much danced for about two hours straight and with anyone that would dance with her! She's dancing with her Dad and Dave in this one...they were some of her favorite dance partners!

Whenever there's a Hanson party (Jon's cousin's...the people getting married) you can bet that there's gonna be a lot of dancing, so we just ate it up. It was a blast, but we were definitely ready for bed by the end!Dancing with Grandpa...

Cindy and Abby

You may have noticed in a few of the previous pictures that Hannah had on some "different" attire...she is wearing her Buzz Lightyear outfit and wore it with confidence. One of our cousins said that he wanted to have a "best dressed for the wedding" contest because Hannah would win! The best part was the goggles...the boys (and by boys I mean cousins between the ages of 21-30) all wanted to borrow them so they could wear them on the dance floor!

Darcy's (mother of the groom) birthday party in Albuquerque. It was at Abby's house (sis of groom) and Hannah just made herself right at home. She loves Abby, so I guess she felt comfortable borrowing Abby's "pretties" without asking. She borrowed several bracelets and a couple of necklaces...she wore them around for a while, then returned them to where she found them! I guess she just saw an opportunity to accessorize and took advantage of it!

Finally, Hannah gets a little antisocial after too much partying, so she decided to watch Dora in Abby's room, with the door closed! Despite how tired we were when we got home, we loved getting to be there and are super happy for Ryan and Desiree!