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.  

A long time coming.

Lonnie has worked, oh I don't know, 45 days in a row?  Not really, but it does feel like it.  A few times a year he has a super long stretch with a couple of call weekends thrown in.  It is certainly not fun and this year it just happened to fall during a time when I was super busy as well (wedding prep/wedding, etc).  So it has been stressful for all involved.  

But, dear readers, we have reached the light at the end of the tunnel.  My boo is off this entire week.  

THE WHOLE WEEK.  

This mama is fired up like whoa.  I have been looking forward to this week for what seems like a year.  Maybe I exaggerate a little...  I have finished most of my Christmas shopping and I have even wrapped!  Our Christmas cards have been sent and all the decor has been finished for weeks.  I wanted to get things done so we could just enjoy this week together as a family.  

We have a few things planned and they are all Christmas related.  Go see Santa, go see the Christmas lights, stay in our Christmas pajamas and watch Christmas movies all day.  Sounds amazing, right?  It's going to be.  We need some family time...just the three of us. 

Blakely did go to school today because it is pajama week and they are having a Christmas party today.  She was sothrilled to wear her slippers.  She wants to wear them to school every day but obviously I don't let her.  They are about 3 sizes too small.  Today though, she got her wish and she was one happy little girl!  

Hope everyone has a great week!  I am off to buy new slippers for my girl!

Blakey's Christmas presents!

So.  I was inspired by Shannon and then Kalyn to blog about what B is getting for Christmas.  I print my blog into a book each year and what a great way to look back and see what she got for Christmas each year.  You had me at documentation.  So here we go.  

Santa is bringing her this table and chairs set.  

The child is going to love this.  Every single day she puts one baby in each of my dining room chairs and then saves one seat for herself.  I don't have room in my living room for this so I am hoping that having it will kick my booty into gear to set up the playroom downstairs.  Surely.  

This tea set.  

I can't even tell you how many reviews I read on tea party sets.  Too many.  I wanted something that she could use and use a lot.  I found that most of the reviewers of the tin sets complained about rust unless kept super dry.  Well, we all know that I won't be checking the tea set every day for drips of water.  These are made out of recycled milk jugs so they should last a long time!  I may get her this dining set as well.  

This bouncy ball was Lonnie's idea and it is a great one.  

As you all may know, my child loves to jump.  She will jump off of anything and I am beginning to think she is going to be quite the daredevil.  We considered a small indoor trampoline with handle bars but I could just see her flipping over them in the first 5 minutes.  She can jump with the best of them so I thought maybe we should just bite the bullet and get her a large outdoor trampoline.  Lonnie was not on board with that so then he mentioned this ball.  I think it will be perfect.  She can jump around the house and hopefully not break her arm.  Win.  

Mel.issa and D.oug See and Spell

I'm pretty excited about this.  She still loves letters and calls out the letters on signs all the time.  She knows all of her uppers case letters and I think this will help with learning her lower case letters a bit better, sounds the letters make and a little bit of spelling.

Lin.coln Logs

I absolutely loved these when I was growing up.  Hopefully she likes them as much as I did.  And if she doesn't, well, mommy will have all the fun!  

Personalized name puzzle

We've been trying to teach her how to spell her name so I think she will love this puzzle.  Now if I can just get her to say "Blakely" instead of "Boppy".  Ha!  

Christmas is going to be oh so much fun this year!  

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.

My favorite picture.

We have been stuck inside for 2 days.  I am not complaining (yes I am) because it was 70 degrees the day before that.  BUT we are having an ice storm and this town shuts down like we've had 10 feet of snow when there is any ice in the forecast.  So we haven't left the house and B is, like, totally over it.  I filled yesterday with all kinds of fun activities but today I am over it too.  We are sitting on the couch watching Super Why (she's learning, right?) and blogging.  If the electricity goes out.  I don't even know...

Anyway.  

I was planning on hitting all the wedding highlights with you today but I just really don't have the energy.  And I don't have all of the pictures yet.  So I am going to share with you my favorite photo from the wedding.  Lonnie captured this moment perfectly and I am so glad he did.  I didn't even know he was taking pictures!  This was right after the wedding and I was telling B how good of a job she did.  I told her she needed lots of kisses!  She said "No, mommy, me want nose kisses!"  So nose kisses she got....

This girl....

A party, a concert and a rehearsal.

Ahhhhhh.......  The weekend is over.  Wow.  What a wonderful (and busy!) few months we have had leading up to this weekend.  

The wedding turned out perfect.  We cried.  We laughed.  We danced.  We drank champagne from the bottle.  It couldn't have been better.  But it deserves its own post.  

I want to back up and share a few things that I haven't had time to share before I get to the wedding. 

A couple of weeks ago me and a few of my friends hosted a couples shower party for Sarah and CJ at my house.  We wanted to do something that would involve CJ a little more than you average "wedding shower".  Our theme was "Brats, Beer and Months of the Year".  I assigned each couple a month and they were to bring a gift that correlated.  My thought was that people would be able to get gifts geared more towards CJ with that theme than just something off their registry that, let's all be honest, most men don't really care that much about.

Sarah and CJ

We cooked a few different types of brats and had lots of toppings for them.  I made sauerkraut and we had a few other side items (potato salad, baked beans, etc).  You know, manly food!  Ha!  We had a few tubs of different types of beer (always a hit) and I made some cider.  It was a great time and the gifts were so cute!  Lonnie and I had April so we got them a picnic basket and filled it with wine, personalized wine glasses and a water proof picnic blanket.  

Katie and Tommy

This theme was perfect for a "non-traditional" shower.  They got things like a turkey fryer for November, a heavy duty ice chest for July, tailgating stuff for September and champagne flutes for January.  I think my favorite gifts were a jar full of money for March and the August gift my friend Jenny put together.  She looked up all of the days in August that were "national" days.  For example, she got them stuff to make s'mores for Natio.nal S'mor.es Day, a picture of all of us for Nati.onal Frie.ndship Day, matching socks for wiggle your toes day and her favorite board game for Nat.ional Just Bec.ause Day.  There more more but how cute and original is that?   

Jenny and Matt

Then we played a version of the newlywed game and, as you can imagine, it was pretty hilarious!  

Mark and Casey

It was a great night celebrating a great couple.  I actually think we should do this more often!  Although Lonnie may kill me if I plan any more parties at our house in the near future...Ha!  And would you believe I didn't get a picture of the two of us.  Sigh....

All the girls...

Moving on.  A few days after the party some of us girls went to see Mr. Timberlake in concert.

The concert was in Memphis (about 3ish hours away) and since he is from there they declared it Nation.al JT day.  

We dressed up and even made our own little bow ties!  The concert was great and he put on a great show for his hometown.  

This past Friday night we had the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner.  

Lonnie was on call and ended up having a TERRIBLE day Friday so he couldn't make it to the actual rehearsal but was going to meet us at dinner.  It was just me and B.  Let me just set the scene for you.  It is dinner time and she's starving.  We are outside and it is cold.  The wedding was on a ridge (also known as a cliff...) and it was dark out.  I was wearing 5 inch heels.  So here we go practicing our entrance.  The plan was for me to walk down some steps (about 15) with Blakely and Kyndal holding my hand.  Then when we got to the bottom I would walk down the aisle and they would follow me.  So we start walking down the steps.  B immediately screams NO HELP!  NO HELP MOMMY!  She wants to do it herself.  Then when we finally make it to the "altar" (it seemed like an hour) she bolts right to the cliff.  I am running around chasing her in soft grass with heels on while she screams ME SWING NOW (there was a swing set)!  I mean.  It was stressful.  I told Sarah there was no way the girls could walk down the stairs so we made another plan.  That plan was much better.  But you can imagine my stress about the ACTUAL wedding when Blakely was such a tornado at the rehearsal.

But, honestly, these two could scream the whole time and still be adorable, right?!

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!