My Favorite Things About Christmas December 23, 2011

Christmas is just 2 days away, and I am honestly giddy with excitement.  I look forward to this holiday all year.  Between being able to spend time with my family, give gifts I have lovingly picked out and bake to my heart’s content, there is no reason for me not to love Christmas.  Here are some of my favorite things that I’m looking forward to.

1.  Baking cookies for Santa with the kids.  We usually do sugar cookies, but I might let the kids do most of the leg work with this easy recipe from Picky Palate.

Mason helping with Spritz cookies last year.

2.  Reading The Night Before Christmas to Mason and Cooper from the very book my dad read from when I was little.

Christmas Eve 2009

3.  Seeing the kids’ faces when they open their presents from Santa (and the subsequent other two present-opening sessions with both sides of the family.)

4.  Getting Jeremy’s reaction when he opens the gifts I picked out for him.  (We gave each other a $10 budget this year, which did not include stocking stuffers.  So I had fun with the stocking stuffers and made my real gift to him.  I obviously can’t reveal it yet since my loving hubby reads my blog, but I can’t wait for him to open it!)

5.  Stocking stuffers at my in-laws.  It’s so over the top (and spilled out onto the stairs), and I love that every single gift is wrapped – no matter how mundane or extravagant.  It’s a fun tradition!

Stocking stuffers and excited kids - Christmas 2010

6.  Spending time with all the family.  We get a full 24 hours + with my mom, sister, brother-in-law and nepher.  That’s rare around the holidays so I can’t wait!  And seeing Mason, Cooper and Hayes together is always a treat.  I hear Hayes is kissing and hugging our Christmas card everyday, so I know he and Mason will have quite the reunion together.

7.  The time between opening presents and eating dinner.  We play with new toys, watch a movie and just relax.  Oh!  The joys of relaxing!

8.  Time away from work.  This year it is a huge blesing to have a break – I really need it!

9.  The “spirit” of the season.  (Hopefully drama-free and germ-free.)

Christmas Eve at Meema's 2010

10.  The phone calls and texts with extended family and friends.  I love spreading the love and joy!

There is so much to look forward to.  Sadly it is only a few days of celebration before life is expected to return to normal.  But I won’t think about that now.  I’ll enjoy the moment, the season, the love and the togetherness while I can.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.  May your hearts be filled this holiday season!

Source: Christmas card created on Minted

Random Holiday Musings December 19, 2011

I was on a roll last week.  And then some nasty stuff hit the fan.  Work was full of stress, and Mason got the stomach flu.  It was horrible timing.  I had been looking forward to the weekend so much – my mom was going to take the kids so that Jeremy and I could get stuff done for Christmas and attend an adult Christmas party.  When Mason got sick, I thought the whole weekend was ruined.  Luckily she woke up Saturday in good spirits, and my mom was still willing to take them.  Unfortunately, Mason started feeling bad again Saturday night, so it wasn’t all fun and games at Meema’s.  But thankfully Jeremy and I got the time we needed to buy new tile for our bathroom (more on that later) and attend the party.  Here are my thoughts from the weekend…

1.  I am so glad we got the majority of our Christmas shopping done before this past weekend!  We had to go to Michael’s for something, and it was mayhem in the shopping center.  Sunday we got to the mall at 10am, and it was surprisingly empty.  We were able to buy the last of our gifts (gift cards for all the teachers in my kids’ lives) and get out of there without any harm.  When we were back near the mall 4 hours later, the parking lot was full!  Thank goodness for Amazon and Etsy this year!

2.  Did you know that bull-nose tile (the kind with the rounded edges that you install around the border of the shower) cost just as much as the amount needed for the entire shower surround?  We learned that the hard way this weekend.  Since gutting our bathroom 6 years ago and starting over, we’ve had to deal with a mystery leak.  We’ve spent the last 2 years trying to figure out where the leak was coming from.  And now the end result is that we have to tear out the entire shower area and install a new tub and new tile.  I’m sure you can imagine how happy we are about this.  And I’m sure you can imagine our surprise when the number we had in our head for buying tile came out twice as much thanks to all the bull-nose tile!  BUT we’re very much looking forward to the new look in the bathroom that we chose.  I’ll blog about it when the process starts in 3 weeks.

3.  Every year around Christmas, someone in our family gets the stomach flu.  Every year around Christmas, I spend most of the time worrying about who will be next.  Who will get sick on Christmas?  Who will it be the unlucky one?  I have not been spared that stress this year, but I’m trying to think positive and keep the family healthy!

4.  I can’t wait for vacation next week!  I only have a few days of vacation to use, so I’ll have to work a couple of half days, but hopefully I can do that from home.  Just the thought of having almost an entire week out of work is keeping me going during this stressful pre-holiday week.  Jeremy is taking two weeks off, and I’m super jealous, but I know he needs the time too.  I’m looking forward to some relaxed family time coming up.

5.  Less than 3 months until we’re at Disneyworld!

Time to get back to wrapping presents for Santa.  Gosh, I love Christmas!

Finding the Good December 12, 2011

December 12, 2011…

Honestly the best part of my day today was getting on the treadmill for 30 minutes.  This morning when my alarm went off at 5:30, I had no desire to get up.  And I didn’t.  I slept in until 6:20, and it felt great.  BUT this afternoon, I left work a tad bit early to be able to come home and run.  I really enjoyed it.  (Which may or may not have had something to do with being able to watch the latest ABC Family Movie “12 Dates of Christmas” in peace.)

Finding the Good December 11, 2011

December 11, 2011…

Every night at dinner, we go around and say what our favorite part of the day was.  Mason always asks, “Can I have two?”  We urge her to pick just one, but two still come out.  Well today can I have two?

#1 - It was cookie swap day! Catching up with friends and family and eating a lot of delicious cookies! Need I say more?

#2 - Jeremy. After spending well over an hour modifying Cooper's Star Wars blaster yesterday using cardboard and first aid tape, he spent even more time today making Cooper a cardboard motorcycle. Seriously, it's awesome! I'll have to show the finished product another time. Best Daddy ever!

Great weekend!  Let’s hope I can keep up the energy during the work week!

Finding the Good December 10, 2011

December 10, 2011…

It was easy to find the good today…  Laughter.  And lots of it.  It was one of those days when the kids are so cute and lovey-dovey for 80% of the day that you forget about the 20% of the time that they are fighting and bickering.   I’m glad the laughter won out today.

Finding the Good December 9, 2011

December 9, 2011

My good for today is the fact that Jeremy came home after a long week of travel and hard work deadlines.  We got to make pizza and watch Family Game Night together as a family.  It was so great to have the time together, and I’m looking forward to an exciting weekend ahead.

TGIF!

Finding the Good December 8, 2011

December 8, 2011…

My good for today was getting to give both Mason and Cooper warm cuddles this morning right after they woke up.  Bed head and fuzzy pajamas and all!

 

p.s. I’m in a funk this week, so my goal is to find something good every single day for a week.  My posts may be short, but it’s just what I need right now.   And,  hey?  Isn’t that the whole reason I started this blog?

Early Christmas December 1, 2011

I love this time of year.  I love pulling out all of our Christmas decorations and remembering what we have, why we have it, where we got it…  The decorations all hold a memory.  Unfortunately I don’t have any ornaments leftover from my childhood, but I can already tell that Mason and Cooper love the tradition of pulling out the ornaments and putting them on the tree.  And hopefully I can pass some of them down to them when they have their own trees and traditions.

One tradition we have is to decorate for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving.  So with our bellies full of turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing, we’re crawling into our attic to extract the dozen or so boxes, containers, and tins.  For some, that might seem a bit early.  A lot of people feel the need to wait until it is officially December.  But not us!  We want it up early because we take it all down only a few days after Christmas to prepare for Cooper’s birthday in early January.  We don’t want there to be any confusion of the two holidays.

So this past Sunday, after we returned from the beach and had raked all of our leaves to the front of the driveway for the last pickup, we started to make our home feel like Christmas.  The kids were way into it and very excited and eager to start putting ornaments on the tree.  (Only two broke this year, and one was my own fault!  I think that’s pretty good in the grand scheme of things.)

The hard part is getting the kids to understand how to spread out the ornaments. I think one section of the tree was completely filled up before I moved some things around.

Mason was being very careful and attentive.

Cooper was being very silly and disruptive. But we love him anyway!

The finished product. Oh Christmas Tree!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Some of my favorite decorations. The Christmas tree duo and tall Santa...

We had everything up and ready before we went to bed on Sunday.  It was funny because usually we feel like we have too many decorations.  But now that each piece has its designated spot, and we know exactly how it all goes, it felt like we were short on decor this year.  Which is great for me because I love hunting out new Christmas pieces.  If there’s a need, I have to fill it, right?  I mean, it’s my wifely duty!

In addition to my early Christmas decorations, I also got some early Christmas presents thanks to two friends and their home consultant businesses.  I threw a party for them and their products a couple of weeks ago, and got to enjoy some major discounts.  Since I’m so happy with what I got, I figured I would plug their businesses for all to see on this here blog.  Both sites offer some amazing ideas for Christmas gifts!

Stella & Dot jewelry.  Aren’t the boxes pretty?

Visit Shana’s site

Rendi customized signs.  I designed this all by myself!

Visit Teresa’s site