A tree, some lights and little Griswold Christmas spirit!

I can't say it enough... I LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME! (Yes, the all CAPS in that last sentence means I am SHOUTING IT!) I love the smell, the feel, the lights, the music, the people (only the jolly ones of course!) Oh..there is just so much I love, I could go on for days! Not only do I love this season, Aaron loves it even more! He starts listening to Christmas music in July at work. Nuts I know but I think part of the reason he does it is to annoy co-workers. Needless to say we are a holiday loving family and you could drop the "P" from Pingul, add a "K" and call us the Kringuls this time of year....haha ok I will stop now.

The day after Thanksgiving we decided to venture out and get our tree. I was, and still am pretty sick with a nasty cold but decided to fill my pockets with tissue and head out. We drove down to Hunters Tree Farm off of Yelm HWY. hunterchristmastrees.com I love this place and have gone there for years. It was opening day so we expected it to be packed. We got there at opening and were pleased that only 5 other cars were there at the time. Getting a tree on Black Friday was in our favor I guess!


We took a quick pit stop to feed the goats... Kaelyn loves them! There were a lot of baby goats this year, so cute!



Next, a quick tractor ride out into the farm....then we were set free to find our tree!!! Not as easy as expected when you have a sick picky wife, a husband that likes every tree,and plenty of mud for your two year old to be distracted by! After about 30 minutes we found one, cut it down and ventured home!





Right when we got home, and I mean right away....the tree was still on top of the car..Aaron began hanging his lights. Shortly after our neighbor Joe and his boys came out to hang some lights on their house too! All of you that know Aaron and how much he loves Christmas would probably expect to see our house glowing from space with all the lights he wishes he could put up! Sadly, we can't do this for two reasons. One, our electric bill would be too outrageous! Second, (and probably the only REAL reason) is that we just don't have enough juice to run that many lights! Last year if the Christmas lights were on I couldn't blow dry my hair, vacuum, or use some of the lights in the house without tripping the breaker. It was a total pain but somewhat funny at the same time!


The rest of the weekend was great, we decorated the tree and the inside of the house! Kaelyn loves the Christmas village and could stare at it for hours! Something about being a parent to small kids during this time of year makes the holiday season even better!




More pics to come later of the finished products...tree, house, etc! We are currently having a 2 year old meltdown because Mickey Mouse is over....mommy must go and deal with this issue!

A year into the 30 year fixed!

Happy 1 year homeowner anniversary to us!! Wow, I can't believe we moved into our house a year ago already. I really wish time would slow down some but it seems to go by faster each year. Funny to think last year this time we were living with a friend, renting the garage of the house we were about to own. Crazy I know! Didn't make sense to move things into storage for a week while we waited for our house to close and get painted so we could just move in! Instead, we had to pay $50 a day for the first 5 days then $100 a day after that to rent the garage of a house that was ours! Seemed to be one of the longest processes!

As for our house, we haven't really done much... Painted the whole interior, changed some hardware and spent a small fortune on all new appliances. (which wasn't something we were planning to do but when they break and you own the place you have to deal with it!) For some reason we didn't take any before pictures of the house and I have no idea why we spaced on doing that. Excited to move I guess!

This was our first taste of the yard work that was in store for us after there was a small storm when we first moved in the house! Woof!! There are 18 fir trees in our backyard so keeping up with the yard has proven to be the biggest challenge for us!




Ah, a much better picture of how we are able to enjoy our backyard instead of being overwhelmed by wind destruction! :)

I wish we had more interior pictures of the house...One day I suppose. The "to-do" list seems to keep growing. Replacing the carpets, painting the outside since the house is currently peach!!! Updating bathrooms and counter tops blah blah blah.....However, the reality is we are a young married couple in our 20's, with a kid (and one on the way) So pinching pennies is the name of the game for us right now! We are just thankful to have a nice roof over our heads, and for that I am thankful everyday!

Little miss copycat

Kaelyn has been very into copying things her dad and I do and say...she repeats everything!! I mean everything! No more free speech in the Pingul house! It's all about kid appropriate words these days.I'm glad the football game is usually during her nap! Even some of the regular words she is learning have a bad twist...for example FROG and FORK. Well, it sounds like something that rhymes with duck. MONKEY sometimes sounds as if the MO has been replaced with an FU. SIT and STICKY sound more like an H has been added in there somewhere! I know what she is really trying to say, but others may not which leads to a very "mother of the year" moment when she yells one of them out in public! Needless to say, we are working on our pronunciation daily around here! She also loves to dance and will try and repeat anything she sees on TV. Good thing I don't watch MTV.

She really loves to read, which is great! This is a good thing for her to copy! Aaron got a few great pictures of her "reading" with me. Which just consisted of her yelling out everything she saw on the pages and then trying to mess up my place in the book I was reading. Oh well, at least she's cute!

I swear she's just really excited about her new book here......even though it looks like she's crying!

An update on life!

Well hello there, long time no see blog. :) Couldn't think of anything particularly exciting to write about so I thought I would give an update on whats been going on in the Pingul household. Not that anyone really cares to read about our day to day activities...I just figure I should document these things so that when I am old and can't remember anything (which sadly is already happening) I can look back and read these posts to help remember!

Let's see....back in October my Grandpa Bill (moms dad) came to visit. He stayed with us for the better portion of a week. I love getting to spend time with him and have been lucky enough to see him 4 times this year! He lives in CO and is my only living "blood" gpa. He is very special to me and I would love to have him here more often, even if that means I have to be kept awake from his snoring. (It doesn't matter where you are in the house, any house for that matter...you can hear it!) I also love seeing him spend time with Kaelyn. She adores him, and I didn't have the chance to get to know my great-grandparents much. By the time I was born my Oma was the only living great grandparent I had and she lived in Germany. I think I met her once. I really love seeing all the generations together. He also gave me the approval on Aaron (good thing since we are already married! Ha.) Actually, his exact words were "Good job with Aaron, he's pretty hands on with this being a Dad shit huh?!" Which in his language is a very nice compliment!

Aaron's Grandma Pingul turned 90 this year and the family had an awesome celebration for her! So many family members were able to come. Grandma is such a remarkable woman and they created a slide show of pictures of her and the family from throughout the years, which was nice to see since I have only known her for a few years. She was a teacher back when she lived in the Philippines (which I didn't know until the slide show!) For being 90 she moves around so well. She lives alone and still loves to travel!

Halloween! This was Kaelyn's first time out Trick or Treating. Honestly, I think she could care less about it!!! The only time she had any interest was if Mateo, (one of the neighbor boys) would take her to the door! We dressed her up as a kitty and she would just meow or as she says "MAAA!" when people opened the door. We tried to teach her trick or treat,but no luck! We had a potluck with our neighbors and some other people in the neighborhood before we ventured out. I thought that was a fantastic idea and was glad we were invited to join the group!

I also started working a bit more for the holiday season. As much as I dislike retail this time of year, the days go by so fast when you are busy! I'm anxious to see what interesting things the good Ole Lakewood Towne Center brings this season! Never a dull moment in that place!

Well that's about all I have. I'm sure I will have more to report later on. My hands are killing me, which is another reason I haven't been blogging much. It hurts so much to type, or really do anything with my hands. Yep, I'm 27 with the bones of an 80 year old I guess. I drop everything, my handwriting is starting to look like Kaelyn's, and they throb all the time. I'm going to see a Rheumatology specialist in December so we will see what he says. It could be something as small as a vitamin deficiency, or something as big as arthritis. I'm hoping for the deficiency...So on that note.....To be continued.......