Exploring

It's been such an unusual winter with much more mild temperatures than we are used to. This was back in early December, it was nice enough to be outside for an extended amount of time. Jaymes took advantage of exploring outside for the first time since he started walking, and he had a blast!

Christmas 2011

My kids are terrified of Santa! (Yes, even Isabella at 5 years old!) We spent an early Christmas with Monte's parents, where we went to Santa Claus Day. Isabella was worried and nervous about seeing Santa, Jaymes was terrified, and a dog (don't know why there was a dog there in a school gym!) came up to Jaymes and took his beloved blanky away from him, which left Jaymes even more traumatized! But, it ended up not being a total disaster because . . .

Isabella's name was drawn to win these dolls! She loves them, she named the big one, Isabelle. :) Oh, and in the picture above she's demonstrating her nervous habit of twirling her hair, that was the closest she wanted to get to Santa.

We spent Christmas Eve here, just the four of us. I love it when it works out that we can spend Christmas Eve alone, just our little family!

Jaymes got a Little Tykes car and wagon for outside play, it should be perfect for this summer. He's not too in to opening presents yet. He enjoyed playing with all of the wrapping paper, though.

Isabella received the much longed for Strawberry Shortcake Market, among other things, including a kids digital camera. Monte says now he knows what it's like to be followed by papparazzi all the time! :)

We met up with my family at my sister's for Christmas day. Jaymes and his cousin both came wearing the same outfit! This was the best picture I could get, neither of them wanted to sit still, imagine that!

Pictures

I just finished making this gift for one set of the grandparents last night, it was certainly a lesson in patience at times, but I like how it turned out. Have I mentioned I love pinterest . . . such great ideas!

We were busy all of last week hosting visitors. My sister and her three kiddos stayed with us for a couple of days, followed by a visit from my mom. When my sister was here, we had 5 kids 5 and under, and three in diapers. It was certainly busy, but SO fun, and the cousins had so much fun playing together.

Jaymes is checking out his newest cousin . . . makes my baby seem not so much like a baby! *tear*

Jaymes has recently found out just how much fun it is to push the shopping cart all over the house, and he's quite good at running in to things!




Excuse the hair, this was right before his last hair cut. Thing #1 I've found I don't love about having a boy - the endless need for hair cuts. He was doing fine at his last hair cut, until the lady turned a hair dryer on high, and pointed it right at his face, she thought it would help him keep his head still, he thought it was quite scary!

Awww . . .

This and That

It's been a while . . . blogging has taken a back seat, and seemed more like a chore lately . . . maybe now that winter is here I'll be more motivated to blog.

My sweet baby boy started walking a few weeks ago, at the exact same age Isabella was when she started (14 and 3/4 months). He still crawls some when he wants to get somewhere really fast! He's had a few accidents since he started walking, and has bit his lip twice from falling on his face (man, those injuries bleed a lot!). But it hasn't been anything a cuddle from Mommy and his blanky can't fix. He's saying more words all the time, and still loves to show off his sign language.

I've been a little, um, addicted to pinterest lately, and have gotten some great crafty ideas that I want to try this winter.

Since we were married at Christmas time, we got TONS of Christmas decorations as wedding presents. I loved them all, but almost 9 years later a lot of them are starting to look out of date, or are broken (from me not storing them properly - oops!). I didn't want to spend very much, if anything, on Christmas decor, so I found a few ideas.

This one is my favorite! The free printable is located here. I spray painted an old silver frame that I wasn't using anymore, and now I have something "new" to display on the piano at Christmas time.

And I found this neat idea for a centerpiece, I bought some mini ornaments at the dollar store, and put in a large vase, but first I put an empty toilet paper roll in, to take up space, so I didn't have to put in so many ornaments.

This one is not Christmas related, but it is one of my favorite crafty things I've done lately. I painted another old frame, then put a piece of scrapbook paper in the printer to print this off. . .

Once you put it in the glass frame, you can write your meal plan on the glass every week with a dry erase marker, and simply wipe off again. It's definitely a lot prettier than bought dry erase boards!

Our tree is up, we haven't been able to use this big tree for a couple of years because we didn't have room for it, I'm so glad we have room for it now, this was my parents' tree when I was growing up! And Jaymes leaves it alone, yay!! He ooohs and awes over it, but knows he can't touch it.

We had our first snow about a week ago, preventing us from going on the four hour trip to my nephew's first birthday party, we were all bummed we couldn't go!

We travelled to one of Monte's sister's for Thanksgiving. They didn't have any snow, and the temp. got up to around 50 on Thanksgiving!! It was so nice that Monte and I went canoeing on the lake they live on. It was awesome, and so peaceful (and a good workout for these out of shape arms!)!!

Isabella is at her grandparents for the weekend, and it's been VERY quiet around here, can't wait to have her back tomorrow night!

Gobble Gobble

Two little turkeys . . .

Tutorial for the shirts located here, they were really fun to make! Beth made some for her kids, and posted on facebook, so thanks for the idea, Beth!! We love them!

Birthday Bash

According to Isabella, "It was the best birthday party ever!!". I'm so glad she had so much fun, and it's not even her birthday yet! I have to say I was relieved when she requested a cupcake party, since cupcakes are easy to make. I've made some extremely time consuming birthday cakes in years past, and although I enjoyed it then, I really didn't feel like doing it this year.

My big girl! Can't believe she'll be 5 in a few days!

The birthday party set up.

I made an ice cream cake, too . . . so I don't think even one person tried a cupcake.

Opening presents . . .

Her cousin showed up in the same outfit, just different color!

Trick or Treat

It's a fun fall weekend around here. This morning was our town's fall craft fair, this afternoon our local nursing home hosted a halloween party for kids, followed by trick or treating at the nursing home. We also carved our pumpkin this afternoon, and in between everything else I've been baking for a bake sale, and preparing food for Isabella's birthday party tomorrow.

And as a side note, I just have to say there are very few things that aggravate me more than people who use foul language. I am SO sick of every public place I go to, (restaurants, grocery shopping, etc.) I have to listen to people swearing! But what bothers me even more is when my kids hear it. For example, the last time we were at the zoo, a guy standing right next to us was dropping f-bombs! And today (at a KIDS halloween party) the guys right next to us were also swearing up a storm. I gave them a not so nice look, and inside I was furious that my kids were hearing that! What to do you in that situation? We moved away from them, but I was SO tempted to say something! And that's my rant for this evening, I better get my house in shape before Isabella's party tomorrow.

My little lion. We kept calling him "Lello" because this is one of his favorite books. Don't look too close at the picture! We were given this costume as a hand me down, and it's size 6-9 months. I was determined to squeeze my 14 month old in it, just to get some use out of it!

And I was thrilled when Isabella said she wanted to use her costume from last year. Her shirt is a little small, too, and her wings were a little crumpled from poor storage, but oh well!