When we were first married, Nick and I bought a 2.5' tall fake tree for Christmas and used it for a few years. Last year I wanted something bigger to actually put presents under, but we had absolutely no room for it in our condo, so I made a paper tree.

This year I convinced Nick to buy a tree we could actually decorate and put lights on. So here it is, the cheapest fake tree with the cheapest pack of ornaments I could find at Walmart. I think it turned out beautiful and so does Atlas. He tells me it's beautiful all the time. He likes to lay under it and look up at the lights. It's fun to finally have a Christmas tree. We'll be making some fun homemade ornaments shortly.

Thanksgiving

It's been a really nice fall here in Rhode Island. The sun is usually out, the weather is in the forties to fifties. There are leaves everywhere.

Yesterday was a great day, even though I stayed in all day and cooked. I wanted go all out and have a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Our friend Eric came over and brought a pie and some turkey for himself. I cooked mashed potatos, sweet potatos, green beans, corn pudding, stuffing, gravy and rolls. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. You have to put extra effort in to make a Holiday great when you don't have friends and family around.  We watched the parade in the morning and stuffed our faces all night. I missed being home, but it was all right.

Children's Museum

Friday evening was free of charge at the local Children's Museum, so we went to check it out. Atlas ran around as happy as can be until we finally dragged him out of there so we could go eat dinner. It was really fun and cute to watch him be so excited.

Thursday night was the opening of Curiouser, a show in the Museum of Natural History of Rhode Island, where we had a piece. We were able to use specimens from the museums collection to create an installation piece that will remain in the museum lobby for about a year. I tried to photograph it, but it is behind glass, I couldn't use any flash, and it's fairly dark in there, so they aren't great, but you can get an idea.

Mario

Last night we recieved a fun package from Aunt Cassie. Atlas is obsessed with all things Mario and watching us play Mario, so it was perfect that she sent him a costume to dress up as Mario. When we first put it on him he just stared at himself in the mirror a bunch. (We have a mirror on the floor that we haven't hung up yet)

He got sick of the mustache covering his mouth so we moved it up for him. Eventually we just drew one on.

This morning when he woke up the first thing he said was "My name is Mario" and then came out to the living room, put on the hat and started watching Mario videos all sleepy-eyed.

Thanks Aunt Cassie!

Things are pretty boring for us right now since Atlas and I are sick. Nothing big- just sore throats and Atlas has a tiny cough. I am pretty achey, and my head is killing, but that is mostly because of a mysterious incident that happened a few nights ago. We were asleep, Atlas was in between Nick and I. Nick and I were both faced outwards so neither of us noticed what happened. I was rudely awakened with what felt like a shovel hitting the back of my head. Atlas occaisionally thrashes around and has hit me before, plenty of times, but this one was different. It seriously made my vision colorful for a minute. Atlas was silent while I cried in the fetal position for a moment and then he started crying too.  I assumed we hit heads because the impact was very hard, but he was saying he had an ouchie on his leg. He cried really hard and wouldn't stop until I picked him up and rocked him and he cried himself to sleep. My head has since been throbbing everytime I get up or down and I have a splitting headache.
Today was a very nice fall day. It was sunny and perfectly nice if you wore a jacket. We dropped Nick off at school so we could have the car (his car is mysteriously not starting and we don't have money to fix it right now so it's just sitting in the parking lot) and we drove to the park. Then we went on a shopping spree for Atlas clothes. Everything Atlas owned, other than a few things my Dad bought him when he was out here last month, wasn't fitting. All his pants were floods. I like buying his clothes at Target cause it's cheap and still cute. I was bummed when we moved here cause I couldn't find a Target in Rhode Island, but I finally found one, in Massachusetts. It's only like 5 minutes from our house. So we drove there and raided the clearance racks. They had tons of stuff on sale so we bought a bunch of it. Later, after his nap, he wanted to try it all on. Here are some photos of him modeling with his best cheese face.

Last Sunday we had stake conference. It was a little over an hour away in some tiny town in Connecticut. It basically just felt like going to church on a crowded Sunday in Utah. It was really nice though cause it feels good to be in a large group of people that all believe the same thing. Also Nick and I really enjoyed being able to belt out the hymns. In our ward hymns are really quiet because we only have a piano (occasionally we sing accapella) and no one really sings too loud so you can always hear when you are off tune, but singing on Sunday with the organ and lots of people is great cause you can basically yell the hymns and still can't hear how horrible you sound.
I think I am getting a little more used to living out here, but I can't help but pine for home with the holidays coming up. Good thing we will be home on Christmas Eve. I can't wait to see everyone.

I won some tickets to a pumpkin festival at the zoo, but mistook them for regular zoo tickets. On Tuesday we went to use them during the day, but were told that they were only for the pumpkins at night. By that time Atlas was already so excited to see the animals that we just paid to go to the zoo that day and came back a few evenings later for the pumpkin festival. Here are some photos from our two zoo trips this week.

Here Atlas is pretending to be a snake.

I was particularly entertained by the Justin Bieber and Snooki pumpkins

And here are a couple goofy smiles from the days in between zoo visits.