Updates

Around here in our home there are always things going on. It seems like my children have their own lives then their lives together, then our lives with us. So I thought I would touch base on how everyone is doing...you know, because you must be obsessed with us if you are reading this :).
Nick:
Nick is amazing, as always. He is such a hard worker at work and when he comes home he kicks it into high gear to work around the house getting projects done. He is also super great with the kids. He is such a great husband too. He always seems to know when I need some encouragement.

Me:
I am doing fantastic! I love staying home and I love our kids and our house and I love our husband. I am just so in love. I am in love with God and all that He has blessed us with. Wow, I just have so much to be thankful for. I am freelance writing and loving it! I am still writing my column and loving that as well. God continues to open doors for me to be able to work from home and not have to do too much of it, so I will definitely be walking through those doors. Christmas is my favorite time of year and I am happy to say that I almost done with Christmas shopping and decorating! Next comes the even more favorite tasks of baking and gift wrapping...yippee!

Emma:
What is there to say about Emma? SO MUCH! She is starting hockey back up next month and is excited about that. She is starting another round of gymnastics also. She is starting to read. Last week she read her first book and she is 4! I'm so proud of her! Her Christmas performance is coming up and I am so thrilled to get to see her sing again! Discipline wise she is so even keeled and she very rarely gets into trouble. That said yesterday she got into the linen closet (after being told not to again and again and again and again and...) and of all of the things in there she thought that razors looked like fun to play with. The poor thing slit her finger and she didn't want to tell me so there is blood ALL over her room. I fixed her up and I think the whole slicing her finger thing was lesson enough. She loves playing computer games and doing worksheets and lessons.

Calvin:
Wow he is turning 3 next month! I cannot believe it!!! He is talking up a storm including yelling "suck it mommy!" when he doesn't like something...not cool dude. He is still having issues so I met with a Psychologist with him last week. Its been interesting and we are definitely going to have a long road ahead of us. Poor little guy. He loves trucks, and trains, and firemen...he loves pretending. Everything is a gun or a sword or some type of weapon as he runs through the house.

Well that is what's going on around here :)

Merry Christmas!

Full Of Love Christmas 5x7 folded card

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O Christmas Tree

The day after Thanksgiving we always go and get our Christmas tree. This year we found ourselves back at the place we got our first tree after we bought our house, so it was fun to walk down memory lane :)

Here we are with our tree :). It took us all of about 5 minutes to find our tree which was wonderful, because...

As you can see Calvin was miserable. He was freezing. So I took hiim back to the car and we just sat there looking at Black Friday ads...the kid is so easily pleased. "Hey do you want to go look at pictures of toys?" sure mom.

Here we are decorating the tree. Aren't they so cute? Love them!


This was Cal's first year to put the star on the tree...he was very excited! This is our only picture because our tree is so big Nick had to put the star on, so TECHNICALLY this was Cal's first year to hold the star

And here it is folks, our finished tree. I have to tell you I think this is the biggest tree we've ever had...it is eating our living room! Don't tell Nick that though...shhh, I keep telling him it's not too big. (he reads this by the way). :)

Christmas has started here in our household and we are so, so excited!

Get to Target!!!

Thanks Moms by Heart!

Today is the last day for the Target toy coupons so if you are wanting to snag yourself some bargains, you'd better run on over. Here are some of things things we found:

50% off Thomas the Train starter sets...$12.49, regularly $24.99

50% off Disney Princess select items. Emma wanted a Princess Baby and we got it for $4.99, regularly $9.99

50% off wyb 2 of littlest pet shop, Strawberry Shortcake, or Ponies...we got Emma a remote control car, regularly $17.99 for $8.99, and a Littlest Pet Shop Clinic, regularly $19.99 for $9.99.

They also have the Little People Nativity for half off. We already have this and I highly recommend it!

There are tons more coupons so be sure to check it out! Don't have a Target ad? You can go to their website to print them off by clicking here. Also they have a boat load of coupons in their Toy Book and if you are super lame and didn't keep that either they have displays of them in the store for you to pick up...easy-peasy!

Read to Da Baby!

Having a baby is a wonderful thing! But one of the things that people don't know or understand is that babies have a huge capacity to learn when they are born. Which is why you should read to your child...often. All of the time.

It pains me when I see parents who don't read to their children because you are basically dumbing your child down from their potential. Reading to babies improves their communication skills, builds listening and memorizing skills, as well as really growing their vocabulary. Even kids chewing on books shows a love for them. Having books around makes reading a familiar and comfortable thing...something they will just do and love doing because they've done it from the beginning.

When our children were in the womb we read to them...long books. That is one of my best memories because Nick would read to my tummy and do funny voices and make me laugh.

When the children were born I used to read to them ANYTHING. I even read to them my college textbooks. Yep, my children were learning stocks, bonds, american history, vietnam war strategies...the works. Because the more words they hear in the first months the smarter they will be. That's why I had the daughter who at her 1st birthday party was saying "I appreciate it" and my son who just "knows" his alphabet without being taught.

I don't really know that thatis why our kids did/do those things. And I know I don't do everything right but the facts are out there...reading to your infants from right out of the womb makes them some pretty smart people!

Christmas Cards

This is the card Emma has chosen, super cute!

Have any of my readers ordered from Shutterfly? This is the first year that we have ordered Christmas cards from Shutterfly and I am so, so excited about it! Perhaps even a little too excited, but I digress.





Anyway, I've ordered my Christmas cards from other places before but this year I am so excited to have found Shuttefly's Christmas cards! They are super cute and fun, which I think describes our family to a tee too! We've had a doosy of a year so I was looking for some cards that would be extra special to showcase our extra special time during this year. I just love these cards!!!




Anyway, I love the ease of using the Shutterfly site and they have such cute designs. You can check them out by clicking here. I think I am also getting Cal's Birthday invitations through them...you can check those out here.Let me know what you think about them! You can even edit and crop on the website which helps a lot to get the wonky people out of the background of our photo!

I've even been tossing around the idea of getting our calendars through Shutterfly. You'll have to let me know what you think about them because I LOVE their designs. You can see them here.

Gobble Gobble

I found this picture of Emma and just had to share it with you. Isn't it just adorable??? She was only 1 chowing down on corn. I just love her so much!

Goodbye Barn Wood

Consider this a sneak peek of the living room remodel please! Obviously we are far from done... :/
If you have been to our house you can see that the barnwood that was behind the television has been covered! I am soooo excited for this to be done! This is the color that is going to be in the fireplace little alcove...it is a darker green than is in the rest of the living room. I am so ready for this to be done and I cannot wait to see the end result.

It was awkward and wonky to get everything done and its been a huge pain to have all of our electronics lying everywhere. It just seems silly it took so long to get covered as the drywall piece was $4.00. That's right, $4.00 has changed the entire look of our living room (in my opinion). We are also replacing all of the shelved around the fireplace. The fireplace inspector and chimney sweep are coming in two weeks. It is all coming together. After that then we will be finishing the fireplace with a new mantle and glass tile. So excited to have this done and to see the end result.

By the way Nick has done all of this and he is just such a rockstar when it comes to this stuff. I am continually amazed at his abilities. If he doesn't know how to do something he looks it up, he talks to friends, he makes sure it gets done. I'm just really proud of him and the work that has been done. :)

Ah, Bake Sale Drama

This weekend I have a bakesale to attend. And not just attend but coordinate, bake for, and run. Sounds fun, huh? Well its me and another mother that have to do everything and I am having the world's hardest time getting along with this woman...does anyone else feel my pain in these things?

I wish I had the ability to just keep quiet and not let things bother me, but oh, oh how they bother me. This mother is one of those one's that doesn't want to make a decision but the first thing she does when I make a decision is to change it.

Today we priced the baked goods and at one point she was going behind me as I worked and changing the prices I had written. Seriously? Who does that? This is a cotton pickin' bake sale for a preschool. Who cares if we only make $25.00?

In these situations I try to come up with the reasoning behind the crazies in my world...here are my two reasons. 1) everyone has these people and they somehow, miraculously, ignore them or see past their weirdo-ness or 2) I somehow have some type of magnetic force field for attracting the weirdest people.

I know it doesn't sound like much on here, but its just mind numbing the way this woman was turning things around on me and the loops and dips she was taking me on in conversations. Again...bake sale! I don't need to spend 15 minutes deliberating with you on how much a dozen cookies should cost. And please don't get me wrong, I wasn't doing anything without her consent. but here's how it went:

Mom: hey how much should these cookies be?
Me: I don't know, what do you think?
Mom: I don't know what do you think?
Me: I really don't know, they're just cookies. What do you think?
Mom: I don't know, maybe 75 cents or a dollar?
Me: Let's do a dollar...less change to deal with
Mom: okay.

fastforward to 10 minutes later where she's changing all of the prices because $1.00 is too low and now she's going behind me to change them to $3.00. That's wonky in my book :/.

And this doesn't really matter except I realized as I'm delving into all of this on the phone with Nick, how silly this is. I thanked him for listening to my preschool room parent drama. He somehow always manages to seem interested which is mind boggling to me...I think I'd be playing solitaire on the computer if you started talking all this stuff with me...your doing it now, aren't you? I see you there, playing solitaire!

Nick's solutions are always funny to me. They always seem like something out of a wrestling ring. He always says something like "if that mom shows up again you should flip the table over, grab some cookies, and leave, but make sure you get your tablecloth back". Nice. He always SOUNDS serious, but then I always wonder if he actually expects me to do that? At least he's sensible and reminds me to get my tablecloth back from under the table I've flipped over in the middle of the church craft bazaar....always prudent that boy.

Thanks for listening...feel free to post any comments :)

Shaky the Moyle

Shaky the Moyle for those of you climbing out from under a sizeable rock was a character on Seinfeld. During vacation I was on a busy street corner trying to take a picture of someone across the street (Nick's picture is above) and kept missing, completely. Nick came to my rescue laughing and said "give me that camera, Shaky the Moyle". Could.Not.Stop.Laughing.

And that is what I love about my husband. We've been married over 7 years...I've known him for 10 and he still makes me laugh so hard I can't breathe. He never ceases to amaze me or to come up with new material. :)

In my defense I was standing kind of crooked on a ramp thingy and someone had bought me some wine for my birthday, and I was trying to dodge people as they walked by but, yes you can now call me Shaky. Well not really but I'll let the hubs :)

The Creative Bug

Ihave been dying to get creative...does this every happen to anyone else or is it just me? Creativitiy seems to hit me in waves where one minute I'll be hanging out fine with everything in our home and the next minute I want to be able to use words like "pizazz" and "bedazzle" to describe things around here.

I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. See, I read this blog called Under the Sycamore and she makes me feel inspired every day. Hmmm....except our house looks wildly uncreative...so.not.cool.house.

Then there's this lady named Auntie Bev. She keeps giving me stuff. Seriously. She's just too much. I don't know what I did to deserve her, but she makes my heart smile. First she gave us a piano. Did you hear that one guys? A piano...yep, that's the lady. She's pretty awesome. Then she gave us a beautiful antique mirror. Well last month she gave me a sewing machine as I was a loser and didn't have one. Know how to use it I do not but this past weekend she gave us an entire box of vintage fabric and the bug to sew SOMETHING is eating away at me. And we ate at a little cafe last week where they had the cutest stinkin' curtains in the world. Nothing wrong with any of my curtains (except my dressing room...those are janked up, but that's a whole other issue...) but now I want new kitchen curtains. Like yesterday. On top of the fabric box of creativity, she gave me this adorable mirror which also has feet on the bottom and I know that sounds weird but you can't judge me that I can't describe things. Nope ya can't because God says not to. Anywho...now I want to lay it somewhere and put wildly cute things on it as a tray, but again, can't think of what to do, where to do it. Grrrr.

So if you have any suggestions for me or maybe know the lingo to teach someone of about 7 how to use a sewing machine, I'm all ears. Seriously with the sewing machine, you could tell me it was a giant toaster and I would ask you where to put the bread...that's how sewing machine-irific I am. Yep.

For now my creativity will be used towards making gobs, and gobs, and gobs, and gobs of things for Emma's bake sale this weekend which I am also coordinating, and manning the booth...doesn't this all sound wildly exciting to you? I know you are using this blog to live vicariously through me because it's all so exciting you can just hardly stand it. But anyway, LAST year I made sugar cookies, and boy howdy I made sugar cookies. This year not so much. Shaky the moyle's not doing that this year.

I'll have to explain the Shaky the Moyle thing another time.... :)

29

This past weekend I celebrated my 29th birthday (my first 29th birthday, haha). I usually have a hard time with birthdays. I have this very real fear of death and birthdays always seem like a silent reminder that I'm just getting closer to death.

But this year those feelings aren't here. They've left this place, hopefully for good. I am just happy to be 29 and be where I am: I am married to the man that God made perfectly for me. We have created two fantastic, precious children who we give back to God every day. We have a beautiful home that I get to stay at with our children. I am a Christian, a blessed then could ever deserve Christian, and when I do die, I will go to the Promised Land and one day get to be with my family forever, how amazing!

For my birthday this year we were on vacation and it was the best time. The best time, the best Jerry. I experienced every facet of perfectness I could ever hope for: the silent walks through the woods, feeling God's love, looking at the majesty of an open nights sky filled with stars, I bit into the best dessert I've ever tasted, I laughed until I cried, and lastly, I looked over the table at everyone around and my eyes brimmed with tears as I realized how truly blessed and loved I am.

I come home with a rested body, a content heart, and an inspired soul: all things that combine to make the best Birthday gift of all...peace.

Happy Saint's Day!

Here we are before hitting the town last night for some Trick or Treating. This is going to sound ridiculous but last night was the first night the kids have gone trick or treating! Honest to goodness going to someone's door and begging for candy. Usually we just visit Grandparents and I think maybe twice we went to the mall to get Candy.

Even as a kid I didn't go trick or treating right. We lived on a very busy street and so my dad would shuttle us in as kids to someone else's neighborhood.

But last night was amazing. We stopped at the mayor's house (who by the way gave out peanuts) and talked to them as the first lady loves our children and they adore her. Then to Miss Kathy's house who has the infamous black cat, who let the adults share in some of her Almond Joy love :). Then on and on we went to people who we knew. Everyone loved the children's costumes. I loved the neighborly feel and the classical-ness of it all. We live in a historic district and walking through the streets in the haze of nightfall with the streetlights ticking on, it was very romantic. It might have been 50 years ago and you wouldn't have known it, save from my digital camera!

We decided as a family when we were done that it was the most fun and we would definitely be trick or treating next year :)