Christmas Craziness

Things have been SO crazy around here! I had great plans for posting all of our Christmas decoration wonderfulness before we left for the holiday, but all of my decorating, celebrating, creating and baking have taken up all of my time. I just thought I would drop in to say "Merry Christmas!" We are leaving this morning for the homeland to spend the next week with our families. I promise to be around more often when we get back.

Have a safe and happy holiday!!!

Turkey Day Recap...Finally

I hope your Thanksgiving was as happy as Colby about to dig into his pie! Okay, so he didn't actually eat the pie. He ate all of the whipped cream off the top and left the pie. But he was excited nonetheless.

As usual, we had a great holiday with our families. The first couple of days were spent with Curt's family. We had a large family dinner on Thanksgiving day with aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, grandparents, nieces and nephews. It is always so good to get to spend time with everyone! Curt's grandpa was kind enough (as always) to have the dinner at his house. With the family as large as it has become, this is really the only place that will hold everyone. Here he is doing his traditional washing of the silverware after dinner.

Friday was spent at Curt's parents' house with his sisters and their families. Poppy (Curt's dad) and Curt took the older cousins on a walk in the woods. Always a favorite activity! Here he is with five of his eight grandkids.

This is what happens to kids who don't behave:

Of course I'm joking. Anyway, we had a wonderful time.

After our time was up there, we packed the car back up and headed to my parents' house to spend the rest of the weekend with my family. It is a much smaller and quieter event, but wonderful just the same. Ma Maw (my mom) and Colby got in some quality reading time.

Then my grandma, Grammy, joined us and my parents for a great second Thanksgiving feast.

When we awoke on Sunday morning we were greeted with this:

My parents' house covered with the first snow!

Curt decided to shovel their driveway while I packed up our bags. Colby decided he was big enough to help too.

While the boys were working and playing out in the snow, Chloe was playing in her favorite spot. Under the chair.

I took a ton of photos, including some group pictures of the dinners, but none of them turned out very good. I was too distracted with my kids and all the fabulous food to worry about getting great shots. Maybe next year...if the food is bad. :)

Sicko

We have the stomach flu.

Buried

I swear I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Neither have my crazy, yet too-cute-for-words, kids. It has just been a hectic onslaught of holiday. Our house was buried in snow, but now it is melting. I have been buried in decorating, crafting and laundry. The decorating is almost done. The crafting is in progress. The laundry is still looming over me like a mountain. Typical.

I will try really hard to get in a fabulous post about our turkey day and our upcoming holiday wonderfulness either tonight or tomorrow night. Okay, let's get real...there's no way it will be tonight. See you tomorrow night!

Weekend wrestling

Friday night we babysat for our good friends. Conner and Colby are about 18 months apart in age and have been friends since Colby was a newborn. Lily and Chloe are only about 5 months apart and are already showing signs of becoming friends. The boys, like usual, got pretty hyper. (What little boys don't?) So to get out some of their energy, Curt got them into a pretty hard-core wrestling match. It went on for forever. Not wanting to be left out, little Lily had to get in on the action too.

This is what Chloe and I did...

Saturday was a much more calm day. We had our usual pancakes for breakfast, then went to work on cleaning the garage (again). Afterwards I gave the dog a haircut. Here is Colby in a random pic. Notice Daisy on the floor behind him.

That is what she did for hours after she got her new 'do.

Then Saturday night we rented a movie and roasted brats in the fireplace.

Colby had a breakthrough on Sunday evening. He and Curt were playing in the basement (don't even ask why the guest bed is in the middle of floor), and Colby finally learned to jump! For some reason that has been hard for him. He thought he could jump, but one foot always stayed on the ground. Now I can't get him to stop jumping! Check out the concentration...

Blast off!

This morning I went in to get Chloe when she woke up only to find her pulling up on the side rail with her head hanging over the edge. Obviously it was time to lower the mattress. As some of you know, I got ambitious and made all of the bedding and window treatments and all things fabric for her room. While I was wrestling with the crib I remembered how much I love the way everything turned out. So here is a little tribute to Chloe's room.

It looks like she is posing so sweetly for this picture...

But don't let her smile fool you, immediately after this, she started body-slamming her doll on the floor.

This awesome wall hanging was made by my good friend Jessica.

Colby's typical "don't take my picture" mood.

Unless something super exciting and fabulous happens on Tuesday, this will be my last post until next Monday. We are leaving Wednesday morning for Indiana to be with our families for Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Turkeys and Troubles

Seeing as how Thanksgiving is only a week away, I decided it was time for Colby and I to do a new project...turkey style.

The first step was to tear the construction paper into pieces to make the grass, sky and clouds. Of course Colby enjoyed that, but it was actually a little harder for him than I expected.

Next, we glued the torn up paper onto the appropriate sections of our "canvas." Here is were I get cheap, or maybe thrifty sounds better. Of course I am not going to use a real canvas for our projects. Instead, I take our empty diaper boxes and break them down and cut them to the size I want. They make for a sturdy surface for our projects, but are also very light weight which makes them possible to hang on the wall with just a little masking tape. Cheap and convenient.

Colby always wants to use my scissors whenever I am cutting anything, so I decided to let him try today. We cut out the yellow sun. Notice the look of concentration. Not an easy task for a 2 year old.

To make the turkeys, I simply painted his palm and thumb with brown paint. Then I painted his fingers in feather colors. Once his hand was goopy with paint, he simply pressed it onto the paper to make a hand print turkey. This, obviously, was the most important part of the project...and it almost didn't happen. He freaked out when I told him that I was going to put paint on his hand instead of the paper. "That's too yucky!!!" I finally convinced him it would be fun by demonstrating on myself and pointing out the fact that the brown paint looked like chocolate.

Once we got going with the hand painting he really loved it. After the paint dried, I went back in with markers and drew little feet, beaks and waddles.

Even though this project took us a long time, he wasn't ready to stop creating. So I turned over the paint brush to him.

Then he insisted he NEEDED to color with the markers. (Something he normally doesn't get to do.)

Then Chloe woke up and project time ended.

So that concludes the turkey part of this post. Now for the trouble portion...

The kids and I were down in the basement playing and checking email. Chloe was on my lap and getting sleepy. When that happens she starts throwing herself around and wrestling and basically doing anything she can to keep herself awake. Well, she had thrown herself backwards and when she sat back up she somehow caught the corner of my laptop with her forehead. It didn't seem like she had hit it that hard, so I couldn't figure out why she was crying so much. A minute later I noticed the nice little lump forming and glowing red on her forehead. So we headed to the kitchen for some ice.

Then tonight we were in Colby's room plugging in a space heater. We wanted to show it to him because it glows and we didn't want him to be scared of it if he woke up in the middle of the night. Well we turned it on, he turned out the light and then immediately tripped over Curt's foot. He broke his fall with his face on the end of the bed frame. We knew it was bad before we even got the lights back on. So we headed to the kitchen for some ice.

So that was our day on Thursday, turkeys and troubles.

Movin' and a-groovin'

My little sweetness (and laundry helper extraordinaire) decided yesterday that it was time to crawl. It is still sort of an army-type crawl, but moving in the forward direction nonetheless. And let me tell you, she is quick. Just put the remote on the floor and before you can blink she has army crawled across the room to grab it. Hooray for small milestones!

It's good to be a family

Lately we have been able to enjoy a lot of great family time. Nothing fancy, extravagant or super exciting. Just good old family time at home. After the last several months of Curt having a horribly hectic work and school schedule, we are really grateful for the time we have had together lately. We had a wonderful weekend doing nothing but hanging out at home.

Curt and Colby building a tower to the ceiling:

Chloe trying to do her part:

Couch time with Daddy:

Our traditional Saturday morning pancakes (with a twist):

Helping Daddy bring in firewood for more fires to snuggle by:

Games of Yahtzee and marbles were played and movies were watched by the fire. The garage cleaning project got underway. And of course there was plenty of general playing, laughing and snuggling with my babies.

Even tonight Curt was able to come home from work earlier than usual.

Reading with Daddy:

Wrestling match:

Snuggle time with Mommy after an orange-colored dinner:

Poor Daisy. She was just too wound up and kept clobbering the kids. She spent the most fun part of the evening on the top step. (She was able to join us later when she calmed down.)

Then it was time for haircuts for my boys and bedtime for the kiddos. Here's hoping that you all get to enjoy time doing the simple things with your family, especially as we are approaching this busy holiday season. Have a happy family!

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow...

No, it isn't snowing and I am not obsessing over the cold white stuff. I am singing the song "Snow" from Irving Berlin's White Christmas!

I am a firm believer that the Christmas season does not begin until Friday after Thanksgiving. That is not because I am a scrooge. In fact, those few weeks between turkey day and Christmas morning are my absolute favorite time of the year!!!! I love the sights, the sounds, the activities and most of all the anticipation and the time spent with loved ones. There is just something so magical about it all.

So why am I going on and on about my favorite holiday when I am so strict about not starting the season yet...I bought "White Christmas" tonight! It is my favorite holiday movie by a long shot. The music is best, but so are the costumes and the cheesy dance routines (Choreography? please.) Anyway, I just love it all. I searched high and low last year and could not find the movie in any stores. Well tonight I just happened to see the new holiday movie display at Walmart and they had it! I wouldn't have bought this early, but they only had a couple of copies left. Apparently it is not just my favorite.

So now I am trying to wait patiently for Thanksgiving to come and go and I can forge full force into the most wonderful time of the year!