Merry Christmas

to all of you.

Hope you have a great holidays!
We'll be enjoying ours with each other and with family.

9 Days left

Sometimes I forget that we live in a big city. I am soooo not a big city girl. And today it was right in my face why I don't want to stay here! It took me 2 hours to do a 20 minute errand. Combine tons of people and bad roads. And a crying baby in the car seat and a 3 year old chastising me since I was doing nothing about the baby crying. Good times.

On another note.
i love Photoshop.

It's cooooool.

In the Craftroom: Christmas Crafts

I've found a bunch of great links to fun things to make. Some with kiddos and some without.

LOVE the Santa beards and the snowmen garland here. We are totally making those.

If we lived near good trees, I'd be making these.

I think this paper snowfall would be so fun to make and hang up at the beginning December.

Totally and completely love these cute little trees. And love that they are recycled too!

Love this simple holiday decoration.


Easy, cheap, fun sock snowmen.

Any crafts you are making for the holiday season?

And on a completely different note, I can't seem to fix my blog so that I can have an RSS feed and it drives me crazzzzzzyyyyy. I've been playing around with the html but I just keep getting problems. Anyone know lots about html that could fix it for me?? :)

Christmas Traditions

Some things we try to do every year to celebrate Christmas.
Haven't gotten to all of our usual things.
These are ones we've done so far...

Our advent calendar.
I made this last year. This is the first year trying it out.

(I got my advent calendar published in this magazine.)


Decorate the house.
We didn't do a tree this year, so instead I put all my ornaments in a hurricane lantern on the piano.
My angel. I just love it. Bought it a few years ago in Nova Scotia and I still love it every year I pull it out. And my lantern I taught at Super Saturday.
More ornaments from Super Saturday.
Paper Chains.
We love to make these each year. The kids were pretty excited at how long this was. Goes all around our dining room.
Reading Christmas Stories.
Love the costumes with the stories....

Seeing Santa.



I thought this was pretty cool. It's a book and activity to count down to Christmas. And totally an idea I want to do next year. Even if I don't use their books, but use the ones we have, I think it is a good idea. Totally fun!

Guess Who

had cereal for the first time tonight??

(Reg took this picture tonight as I was feeding him)

At 5 Months Eli
• loves tummy time and can lift all the way to his waste (will be on his hands and knees soon)
• sleeps on his tummy with his arms spread above his head and his legs kicked out spread eagle
• really really wants to try food. Often grabbing at any that is near him.
• loves to look at books (and try to taste them)
• can sit tripod (with one of his arms on the floor too) for about 1 minute (most of the time)
• will smile at anyone or anything that comes near him
• has started sleeping horribly lately (up every three hours for the last few weeks)
• has started drooling constantly.
• seems to have started teething (didn't he get the memo we don't teeth in this family until like 10 months!)
• loves to put everything into his mouth
• just noticed his feet
• loves to use his voice to make all kinds of sounds
• thinks Alden and Lucy are hilarious
• is so excited to see his dad when he gets home
• loves to play with toys, especially his little lap music maker, and gets quite a serious face while trying to press the buttons
• is wearing 3-6 month clothes with some 6-9 month clothes too
• tries to sit up constantly (like he is doing stomach crunches)
• breastfeeds every 3 hours
• wakes up around 8:30am each morning
• naps at 10am until noon
• awake until around 2:30 when he napes until his mom rudely wakes him up each day to go get Alden at 3:15pm
• awake until around 6pm has a short hour nap
• then goes to bed around 830pm
• loves to stand up
• thinks that mom laughing is soooo funny
• loves to chew his blanket
• recently decided that the bath is awesome and loves to kick the water and suck on the washcloth (gross)
• has at least one poo blow out a day (even more gross)
• loves to roll from front to back to front
• is just a real sweetheart

On the Bookshelf: Book Tag

My friend Amy tagged me.

Pick up the nearest book to you, open to page 56, write out the 5th sentence along with the next 2 sentences. THE CLOSEST BOOK, NOT YOUR FAVORITE, OR MOST INTELLECTUAL...

My book is the creative family by Amanda Blake Soule.


"Imaginative living needn't and shouldn't be limited to childhood, and it is our job to tell our children through our actions that their imaginations are something they can use, rely on, and find comfrot in throughout their lives. It is through their strong sense of imagination that they will find solutions to life's puzzles and problems, create art in all its forms, and comfort themselves and those around them. The activities in this chapter are all about imagination in childhood."

I love this book. :) She's a little over the top for me, but so many good things in here. (And lots that my mom did when I was growing up and it never occurred to me that other people didn't do it! (like family art time)

And since a photo is more fun with a picture....
My last bride Steff.

Overheard: Alden's View on Christmas

This picture is Santa. And what he wants for Christmas. It is a transport truck.


Alden: "Mom, I want Batman little people for Christmas."
Mom: "I don't think there is such a thing."
Alden: "MOM, silly, Santa has elves that can make it."

Alden: "Mom, I want a new bed for Christmas."
Mom: "um, that's to big"
Alden: "Don't worry mom, 40 Elves can make it."

Alden:" Mom, I want one of these and these and these for Christmas" (while pointing to pretty much one of everything in the Toys R Us flyer)
Mom: "All that is too expensive."
Alden: "Don't worry, Santa's elves can make them for me. It'll take about 49 of them."

In the Craft Room: Challenge with Heather

I saw on Mary and Heather's blogs the challenges.
And I wanted to play along too.

Heather was gracious enough to play along with me this time. I just love Heather. Regan always jokes with me that he should steal the kind things that Heather says to me so he could look like a better husband. That's the kind of friend she is. Always positive, totally boosting of you. SUCH a good quality in a friend. Totally and absolutely supportive, encouraging, and oh so generous. I really have enjoyed getting to know her over the past few years. And wish that we lived closer so we could hang out more!

The details of our challenge were:

1. Polka Dots - (I must admit I knew that Heather loves polka dots, and even though I think they are cute, I find I rarely use them. Not sure why.)

2. Hybrid - i looooooove using my computer for scrapbooking. Photoshop is near and dear to my heart. :)

3. Handwriting - i love to write. it's quick and i like the look of it on my pages.

4. Sewing - This was kind of a cop out for me since I use sewing on most of my pages.

Here's what Heather created:


The thing I love about Heather's scrapbooking is that she is so clean. Her pages are never cluttered but they have lovely little touches to make them homey. Make sense? Love to see her handwriting too - since I know that part was a challenge for her. And the making the digi stuff fit to her tag. AWESOME. And her color scheme. Awesome. Love the whole thing. That cutey little Silas too!

Here's mine....


I'm kinda in a little mojo rut, so it's not my FAV page. But I do love the photo that Heather in fact took for me of Eli. Love it. Just little bits of patterned paper for me. And some cute stickers that someone (forgive me I can't remember who) sent me when Eli was born. My digital part? I made the circle patterned paper that's the strip across the page. Something I designed a while ago when my dreams where to design scrapbook paper. :)

This was really fun to do and I totally want to do it again.
Thanks Heather!!!!!