Merry Merry Merry Merry Merry Merry

Peppermint lattes, the smell of pine, glitter-lots of glitter, cozy cuddles, gift wrapping, cookie baking, houses dressed with strands of lights, Christmas movies, music of the merry kind, and lots of story telling about a little baby who was destined to be our King.

Those things rock, and they totally override: spilling coffee on freshly mopped floors, trying to locate to fast children hiding behind green Christmas trees while camouflaged in green winter wear, broken glass from those cool old school lights hitting the cement, fixing burnt fuses on a latter with kids watching while your husband is in another state and explaining electrical things to you over the phone while you cry like a baby about doing "man work", those 4 glass ornaments among the 100 plastic ones that the toddler found and threw, the "he hit me. he pulled my hair. he looked at me. he touched me. he woke up.", the burnt cookies, the payday black Friday where bills ate our money instead of pretty things in Charming Charlie, and did I say broken glass already because there has been a lot of broken glass.

It is all so very worth it. I love this time of celebration in all of its prettiness, and for me new-found chaos.

A North Pole Party

My friend Talia threw a beautiful, magical North Pole party at her lovely home. If you were wondering what a North Pole Party looks like, here ya go:

12 giddy girlies were seated and served some pretty rockin' cookies and milk in a sweet personalized jar.

It was nice to get away with just Adeline and me and spend some "girl" time together. It was fun to watch the wonder and excitement in her and her friend's eyes!

The girls went on a North Pole scavenger hunt, decorated hand print ornaments, dipped fruit in a chocolate fountain, read Christmas stories, and got sweet little Christmas favors with some homemade peppermint lip gloss Talia made that I stole from my daughter Adeline loves.

It was pretty spectacular; I mean a party you wear your pajamas to=awesome! That right there sold me ;)
Most importantly a bunch of sweet little girls were amazed by a little Christmas wonder. So sweet!

A cold day with warm moments :)

We had a full day planned for today to sum up our jam packed weekend of Christmas parties and festivities.

Then my poor husband woke up with a terrible stomach virus and has been so sick and miserable all day long.

So I took the kids to church while he rested up at home. That's not so bad since they go to nursery while I get a whole entire hour to myself without being distracted by being licked, pooped on, or caught in the crossfire of a wooden spoon turned pirate sword.

but

the rest of my day....

was a little bit rough.

And while I was nursing my poor sick puking [cranky] husband back to good health, he pretty much almost made me cry like ten times.

Lets just say his persistent puking and stomach pain left no tolerance for: the wrong flavor Gatorade, Adeline's whining, my rubbing his back, my moving the remote control and his phone out from under him, a licking puppy, my choice of Walgreens over a gas station for his drink, and my speed at which I'd done so.

Soooo while normally I'd be pretty peeved at the backlash, I'm letting him have his sick time and I'm trying to be sympathetic and helpful ...no matter how sharp a tone I'm given.

Because truth is, I know how he feels and I know how bad it sucks, and since he put up with me like this for nearly 2 years of our marriage, he can have his day!

[Lord have mercy, I hope this only lasts a day.]

So in effort to take some of the loudness out of the house, we went.... well........ out of the house and in the back yard.

 I made a big production out of going on a special adventure and doing something exciting, but really all I had was a couple of blankets and some Christmas stories, which lucky for me suited the both of them fine.

So.... unedited and straight out of the camera I am here to share with you a glimmer of glory in this hectic, dirty day.

Normally I just grab what I can easily carry out of the door, and I already had two blankets, three books, a baby, and a puppy, but after teeter tottering on the edge of the doorstep I decided to run back in for my camera too. Mostly because I love both outfits the kids were wearing today and we were working on a sunset so the light was good. I was instantly glad I had my camera though after reading one of our Christmas touch and feel books and watching in complete delight as both of my children felt each fabric swatch on each page. Gah, it was cute.

and then, right when I finished The Night Before Christmas I laid the book out on the blanket and opened it up to the first couple of pages that are just full of illustrations of candy.

The babies like these pages the most, and since this was my book as a kid and these were my favorite pages too, I took pictures of them running their chubby, cold fingers over gingerbread men and candy canes.

 and SWEET CINNAMON BUNS I'm glad I did because is this not the cutest, sweetest brother sister picture ever. And ooph! A sun spot too!

Can you say framer?:

Yep.

There was a whole lot of warmness in my heart, and that says a lot because it was semi freezing out there.

A little bit of sun ray on our pale, freckled skin was just what we needed.

Outside is such a great place to be.

 The air is fresher, the color is brighter, and perhaps best of all my 2 year old's fits are reduced by 50%, and well I'll take anything in the reduction of temper tantrums.

I really needed this forty minutes of heart smiles.

I enjoyed watching my little girl skip around and giggle at the puppy nipping at the hem of her dress.

I loved the belly laughs Gideon so easily gave me when I wrapped him up in a blanket and invaded his personal space with Eskimo kisses.

It was one of those evenings that I'm glad I went back for my camera, otherwise I may not remember how effortlessly the sun bounced light off of each and every one of their strawberry blonde hairs.

Praise God!

aaaaaaand then I went inside to our usual chaos which this evening consisted of  Adeline throwing a category 5 tantrum where she decided kicking me would fly, Gideon getting his finger smashed in the puppy kennel, and me stepping in dog poop.... and those are just the highlights people. ;)

I can't complain though. I'm blessed these are the extents of our problems.

:)

So while I sum up this blog post, proof read, and go for the publish I take a big heaping sip out of the coffee mug next to my computer................... that I left their this morning.
Yea left over freezing coffee with probably pretty spoiled milk.
Looks like I'll meet you in the bathroom honey.

Welcome, December.

There's a whole lotta jolly going on around these parts right now.

I'm talking stockings on the mantle,

[with simple  monograms since we're always adding family members around here.]

hot cocoa,

[with marshmellows, 3 bigs or 6 smalls work for us]

decorated snowflakes,

[glitter everywhere]

cookie-baking

[plenty of spoon licking]

oh, and cookie-eating.

[uh huh, the baby gets a cookie]

 Lets see, we've got a big ole Christmas tree,

[that the dog drinks water from, the baby swats at branches, and the toddler rearranges ornaments on]

footie, fleece pajamas 

[wait for it.............]

DOUBLE footie fleece pajamas

[cue awwww]

[and can I pause right here and state that my two babies in matching jammies, in front of our Christmas tree, posing ever so cheesy, really really makes my heart ache with really giddy/geeky happiness? I mean it hurts, its so cute.]

aaaand play

Oh and don't forget our puppy girl.

[with her super funny underbite]

Yea, lots of magic at our house right now. I'm pretty happy about December. :)

Thinking Christmas Gifts

I'm finished with Christmas shopping!!!

Yay! [and I didn't even get to do any Black Friday shopping because my wallet was lost (I was convinced it was stolen) So I called and cancelled all my cards and pouted for my inability to shop yesterday. Then I remembered I took the kids to Chick Filet Wednesday for lunch which was the last place I used my wallet, so I called last night on a whim and they had it and I felt like a really big idiot for pouting and crying and wasting our entire morning on looking for a wallet that was so lost I knew some scum bag stole. (Sorry scumbag that doesn't even exist.) (And hello, giant run-on sentence).]

It was much easier than ever before!

This year we decided to only buy toys for the kids in our families, and gift pictures of our kids for the rest of our families. The time has come when it's just simply what we can afford.

Plus I always bake for everyone anyway.

 [shout out delicious apple pie with my secret= Caramel sauce]

So all of the little ones in our lives are having a LuLeLo's Melissa and Doug Christmas, and Santa may bring Adeline and Gideon a little something extra [a fishing pole and a baby Simba toy]. 

He did, after all send us a Labradoodle early!

A cute one, at that.

I would have liked to do some handmade gifts like I often do, but honestly I just don't have the time.

So I thought if you might be looking for some handmade gifting ideas, I'd link some for you here.

 These are owl tag toys for baby with a tutorial too.

I forgot about these until I noticed in my blog stats that it's a link that has been revisited often lately and even been pinned a few times on Pintrest.

Haha, I'm kind of a geek, and I told my husband something like this,

Me: "OMG you know how people like me pin cute things they want to do or buy on Pintrest?"

Him: "Yea."

Me: "Those owl tag toys I made the babies for Christmas last year have been pinned like 8 times by no one I know, isn't that cool???????"

Him: "By no one you know?"

Me: "Yea, that means they didn't feel obligated to like them, they really actually did."

Him: "Cool."

Haha, another link that has been popular on my blog lately is these DIY hooded towels, which I made two years ago, and can I say still are holding up fantastically and are the favorite bath time towel picks.

I need to make some for Gideon!

This post has a link to an easy apron, freezer paper stenciling for a onesie or tee shirt, and a couple of easy bibs and burp clothes you could make really quickly.

I think I might actually do an apron for that Santa stealing Christmas game gift thing for our Bible study group. So I'm glad I reminded myself of that.

Gah, dork.

Okay, well I have presents to wrap, paper snowflakes to make, and a diaper to change.

Our Christmas tree is up, and although normally my Christmas spirit is in full gear on November 1st, this year it took a little longer.

No worries, I'm on my game now.

My Christmas game.

Just call me,

Mrs. Clause.

Peace.

Love Lovin

Did you guys make it through mounds of wrapping paper and multiple servings of decadent food this weekend?

[All of the food] probably why my face is so swollen and my belly is protruding, but I'm going to blame that on being pregnant because I can only ever use that excuse for a few more weeks ;)

Hope your Christmas was warm, and I hope your babies were spoiled with love and presents and both as a bonus! 

As for me? I'm spending consecutive days in warm cozy jammies, on the couch, with my little lovey girl watching The Princess and the Frog on repeat. 

I'm a lucky mommy, I am!