Merry Christmas!

We finally took Blakely to see Santa this weekend.  We've been talking him up this entire month.  As I am sure you all have been doing too!  

When we first got there she wanted no part in it.  She just wanted to sit at this little table they had and color.  Finally I convinced her to go tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas and she totally nailed it.  We didn't get many smiles but she wasn't scared.  She was just....content.  She looked up at him and said "me want shoes, hat, socks and mitts.  Bye bye Santa.  Thank you Santa."  

"Santa" ran to the nearest store to get the child a hat.  "He" already had the other things but it seems like she adds a new accessory every time we ask her!

It turned out better than last year!  

MERRY CHRISTMAS BLOG PEEPS!  

Hello! and more countdown shenanigans...

Hi!  I hope everyone is having a great time leading up to Christmas.  We really enjoyed having Lonnie home last week and we really didn't want to send him back to work today.  But the good news is that he is not on call for Christmas so we get him home on Wednesday too.  Winning!  I officially purchased and wrapped my last present today and we are ready for Santa to come.  (Except Santa hasn't put B's table and chairs together yet!  Hopefully tonight!)  We have Christmas with my dad later today and I am really looking forward to that.  B is going to love the presents from him.  I need to catch up on the Christmas countdown so this post will be a little long.  I have just been doing so much snuggling with my honey that I haven't had time to blog.  ;)    

We may not finish all of the activities by Christmas but we will try.  Some of the activities that are left are for Christmas Eve so maybe we will finish after all.  As usual, I have changed some of these for whatever reason.  The full list is at the bottom of this post with completed activities crossed off or highlighted.  

We watched some Christmas movies one night.  I attempted to make a pallet on the floor so we could all just relax but I obviously picked a bad night for this little activity!  This is basically what happened the entire time.  

jump off ottoman, climb back up, repeat

Last year, I bought a Christmas coloring book and Blakely "colored" a page in it.  I decided to let her color a page each year, write down her age and a little tidbit about it and see how it turned out when it was finished.  This may be my favorite tradition so far.  She loves coloring right now and the hardest part was not letting her color on every page!  Ha!  

she goes back and forth using her right and left hands.

finished product

Last Friday night Blakely spent the night with GranDi.  She helped decorate her tree and B still says "GranDi pretty little tree"!  

I'm ready to go, Mom!

My mom sent this to me that night.  

I cried.  I cried my ugly cry.  I saw that picture and it hit me that my baby is growing up with my mom in the house that I grew up in.  My mom still lives there and I don't know what it was about that picture but it just squeezed my heart so much.  I am so thankful.  

We decorated a gingerbread house.  This went much better than last year!  She liked putting the decorations on but she really liked pouring them from one cup to the other.  

We made hot chocolate with a ton of marshmallows one night.  She loves marshmallows (that is what I bribed her with at the wedding) so this may have been her favorite night.  

We went downtown to get our family pictures made one morning and stopped by the life size gingerbread house.  There was a preschool class there at the same time so she was a bit distracted but still neat to see.  

One day I made cranberry apple cider (SO GOOD) so we enjoyed that while reading some new Christmas books I got for her.  She carries these books around all of the time now.

A few nights ago we went to Garv.an Gar.dens to see their display of lights.  We took my mother in law since she has never been.  The display was beautiful and we all had a great time.  I didn't get many pictures because B did not want to stay in her stroller so I was making sure she didn't get lost in the woods.  HA!  

The parade this year was on December 1st and it was about 15 degrees outside.  So I decided real quick that we would be skipping that one.  My Grand turned 78 and her sister (Aunt Jerry) turned 90 on December 19th!  We went to a birthday lunch for them and B was very excited about it.  She talked about birthday party and cake all morning.  She even took an early nap because I told her she had to be rested to celebrate.  Worked like a charm.  She was so sweet the whole time and had such good manners.  I was very proud of her.  You never know how a sit down lunch at a restaurant will go when you have to be there for over 2 hours.  She was a trooper!  

Beautiful ladies!!!  (Aunt Jerry on left and Grand on right)

One other thing we did was give gifts to her teachers.  I forgot to take a picture but we got them gift cards to the book store.  B said over and over that she wanted to get them books for presents.  So I just went with that.  I also baked and sent them a bunch of treats with the gift cards.


We are planning on driving around to look at Christmas lights tonight on the way home from my dad's house and I am really looking forward to that.  Merry Christmas Eve Eve!!

1.  Go to a Christmas Parade. (changed to go to birthday party for Aunt Jerry and Grand)

2.  Go to Garvan Gardens and see the lights.

3.  Make some treats for some special people.  (Can't be too specific!)

4.  Fill a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child

5.  Open an early Christmas present

6.  Make a pallet on the living room floor and watch Christmas movies. 

7.  Make hot chocolate (with lots of marshmallows) and sit by the fire.  (NO TV) (oops...we watched a movie!) 

8.  Make a Christmas craft for family.

9.  Decorate Blakely's Christmas tree.  

10.  Go to the Arlington and see the life size gingerbread house. 

11.  Color another page in her Christmas coloring book and date it. (same book from last year)

12.  Daddy/daughter date night.  

13.  Spend the night with Gran Di. (because we all know she will have fun Christmas stuff for      B to do!)

14.  Get pictures made with Santa. 

15.  Decorate cookies and leave them out for Santa

16.  Read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas.

17. Do three random acts of kindness

18. Make a red and green lunch or dinner.  

19. Cut out snowflakes and decorate the windows with them.  Changed to make felt tree

20. Decorate a gingerbread house.  

21. Make a pine cone bird feeder.  

22. Make apple cider and read Christmas books before bed

23. Drive around to see Christmas lights.  

24. Make or pick out gifts for her teachers.  

25. Go to a Christmas event (Santa story time or Christmas craft) at the library.

I posted about the items crossed off the list HERE.  

Countdown update!

Since we have marked a few things off of the countdown I thought it was time to do a little catch up.  

I posted the full countdown list here but I also added it to the bottom of this post as well with some of the activities marked off.   

We sent a shoebox for O.peration Chr.istmas Child.  Blakely went with me to pick out all of the toys to put in our shoebox.  I explained to her that we were going to send some toys to a little girl who didn't have any toys.  She said "me sad" and did really well picking things out.  When we got home and started packing up the shoebox, well, that was another story.  She wanted to play with everything and was saying "me new toy"!  So yeah, we are working on that.  But all in all it went well and I am glad we did it.  I think we will do something else similar this month too.  And I have no pictures of this one...I was too busy making sure she did tear open all of the stuff!  

We decorated Blakely's Christmas tree.  2 things come to mind when I see these pictures.  One is that this child has grown up so much in a year!  

And two is that she needs a bigger/better Christmas tree.  After Christmas I will be hitting up Hob Lob to get a new one for her!  

We also painted some ornaments to give to family members.  I don't think I have mentioned this but my girl is obsessed with painting.  OBSESSED.  They paint occasionally at school and now that is all she talks about.  I swear she would have sat in her chair and painted all day long.  You should have seen the struggle it was to get her to go take a bubble bath....her second favorite thing to do.

During her nap one day I decided to make her a felt Christmas tree.  I was going to have her cut out snowflakes and decorate the windows with them but I quickly found out that she can't be trusted with scissors juuuuust yet.  Also, I have a ton of felt in my craft closet so it was easy peasy to whip this right up.  She thinks it is awesome and plays with it every day.  I highly recommend doing this with your littles!  

We have also made pine cone birdfeeders.  She wasn't all that interested in this but I think it was because I had it all set up for when she woke up from her nap.  She was still a bit cranky and only wanted to eat the peanut butter!  She really loves checking to see if we have any birds though.  So far we don't but my mom said it can take up to a week for the birds to find new feeders.  We shall see.  

sneaky grin...

She is really enjoying the Christmas activities.  I have a bunch set up for this week.  I don't do one a day I just do one when we can.  Lonnie is off next week so I am saving quite a few things so we can do them as a family.  This time of year is just magical and I can't help but walk around with a smile on my face.  I am so lucky.  

1.  Go to a Christmas Parade.

2.  Go to Garvan Gardens and see the lights.

3.  Make some treats for some special people.  (Can't be too specific!)

4.  Fill a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child

5.  Open an early Christmas present

6.  Make a pallet on the living room floor and watch Christmas movies. 

7.  Make hot chocolate (with lots of marshmallows) and sit by the fire.  (NO TV)

8.  Make a Christmas craft for family.

9.  Decorate Blakely's Christmas tree.  

10.  Go to the Arlington and see the life size gingerbread house. 

11.  Color another page in her Christmas coloring book and date it. (same book from last year)

12.  Daddy/daughter date night.  

13.  Spend the night with Gran Di. (because we all know she will have fun Christmas stuff for      B to do!)

14.  Get pictures made with Santa. 

15.  Decorate cookies and leave them out for Santa

16.  Read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas.

17. Do three random acts of kindness

18. Make a red and green lunch or dinner.  

19. Cut out snowflakes and decorate the windows with them.  Changed to make felt tree

20. Decorate a gingerbread house.  

21. Make a pine cone bird feeder.  

22. Make apple cider and read Christmas books before bed

23. Drive around to see Christmas lights.  

24. Make or pick out gifts for her teachers.  

25. Go to a Christmas event (Santa story time or Christmas craft) at the library.

Christmas Countdown 2013

You may remember my Christmas Countdown from last year.  We had so much fun doing it and I did eventually get most of the stuff marked off of the list.  This year I am even more excited about it.  Mostly because Blakely will understand more this year and I know she will enjoy most of the activities a little more.  She already gets so excited when she see "Tissmas Tees" and when you say Santa Claus she screams "HO HO HO!"

Quite a few of the things are the same but I did change some up.  I am sure throughout the month I may change or add a few things to the list if needed.  The idea is to do one thing each day until Christmas. 

1.  Go to a Christmas Parade.
2.  Go to Garvan Gardens and see the lights.
3.  Make some treats for some special people.  (Can't be too specific!)
4.  Fill a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child
5.  Open an early Christmas present
6.  Make a pallet on the living room floor and watch Christmas movies. 
7.  Make hot chocolate (with lots of marshmallows) and sit by the fire.  (NO TV)
8.  Make a Christmas craft for family.
9.  Decorate Blakely's Christmas tree.  
10.  Go to the Arlington and see the life size gingerbread house. 
11.  Color another page in her Christmas coloring book and date it. (same book from last year)
12.  Daddy/daughter date night.  
13.  Spend the night with Gran Di. (because we all know she will have fun Christmas stuff for      B to do!)
14.  Get pictures made with Santa. 
15.  Decorate cookies and leave them out for Santa
16.  Read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas.
17. Do three random acts of kindness
18. Make a red and green lunch or dinner.  
19. Cut out snowflakes and decorate the windows with them.  
20. Decorate a gingerbread house.  
21. Make a pine cone bird feeder.  
22. Make apple cider and read Christmas books before bed
23. Drive around to see Christmas lights.  
24. Make or pick out gifts for her teachers.  
25. Go to a Christmas event (Santa story time or Christmas craft) at the library.  

We have already done a couple of the things on the list but I will post about them once we have completed a weeks worth of activities.  HAPPY DECEMBER!  It's the most wonderful time of the year!