Christmas Traditions

The other day I was thinking about Christmas traditions and it felt as though we didn't have any and it made me feel sad especially since, as Kelle Hampton puts it, "we are the ones who write the chapters of our children's story"...or something like that. It got me thinking about Christmas traditions from my childhood and which ones we've kept and which ones we've ditched and what traditions we have now for our children to look back on and remember fondly.

Our current traditions that are new are:

-Opening new Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve and wearing them to bed
-Leaving cookies for Santa
-Writing a letter to Santa

Some of my traditions that never made its way to adulthood:

-Having a big family supper on Christmas Eve with Rappie Pie and seafood chowder
-Grandma's cheese ball
-Going visiting on Christmas Day to see family
-Going to church on Christmas Eve

However, there are some that were so good we had to keep them around:

-Cutting down our own Christmas tree
-Going to see Christmas lights (this year we decided to walk around our neighborhood instead of taking the car because we were worried the baby would fall asleep and it worked out awesome. Mya liked being able to get a closer look at the lights and she enjoyed running around and eating snow. Walking to see neighborhood lights might just be a new thing!)
-Opening a gift on Christmas Eve
-Watching A Muppet Family Christmas
-Reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve before bed (this is one that Adam remembers doing as a child and he wanted to do it with our children.)

Ok, after going back and reading them all I guess we do have more than a few traditions. Well, that makes me happy. I hope when my children are grown they'll look back and remember these times happily and even do some of them with their children.

Oh and this was the best pic we could get of the two of them before we left to go Christmas light lookin'.

Wordless Wednesday

10 on Tuesday

1. Mya woke up on Friday with a fever of 103 degrees. Yesterday Henry woke up with a fever of 100 degrees. I do not like this. She did a lot of this on Friday:

2. Since Mya woke up the next morning feeling a-ok and fever free, we went Christmas tree shopping. By that I mean, we went to a Christmas tree farm and hunted down our own. In the rain and all. We ended up a lot more muddy than I thought we would.

3. It was Adam's birthday last week and we made him a cake!

4. Henry likes story time, even if it's about Cinderella.

5. Mya has been practicing her letters and is getting very good at it, if I do say so myself.

6. My bread this afternoon had a heart in it. Proof that the pb&j it was used for was made with love.

7. I'm almost done shopping. I have one stocking stuffer left to get for each Adam and Henry and one last gift for Adam then I am so done.

8. I can't decide if I should honor the preschool's request to not give the teachers gifts, or just bake them some cookies anyway. Cookies are a little something you can give without feeling like you're breaking the rules because you aren't going out and buying something and really, it won't even be wrapped. Adam says I keep finding loop holes in their rules.

9. Today is two weeks from Christmas Eve. That is nuts.

10. Uh oh. It seems I've run out of pictures! Guess that means I'm done for today!

9 months!

Yesterday was Henry's 9 month birthday but I didn't post then because it was Adam's actual birthday and we don't want to overload the blog now do we? Can you believe it's been 9 months since Mr. Henry has come into our lives? Well, lets bring you up to speed on what this little guy is up to:

He jabbers non stop and is always telling us stories
He is a master sippy cup drinker

He's still breastfeeding 4-5 times per day
He weighs 21.4 lbs
He can go from laying position to sitting position by himself

He gives kisses when you ask for one
He imitates certain actions like when we slap the floor with our hand, he'll do the same

He tries to pull himself up on furniture all the time but has yet to get that one figured out

He has four teeth on top and 2 on the bottom
He responds to his own name

He still can't crawl but tries really hard. He can scoot backwards on his tummy and on his bum though!

He now eats chicken with his veggies
He is super attached to me and cries when someone else is holding him and I leave the room

He's wearing 12-18 month sized clothes
He has said "ma-ma" a few times and at the time it seemed specific but we haven't been able to get him to do it on demand

We have to always have two spoons when we feed him so he can have his own cause he likes to copy us and dip it in the bowl to get his own food
He has mastered the pincer grasp and is a pro at eating cheerios, raisins and toast

We can still count on him falling asleep in the car if it's around nap time

That's pretty much it for now! After Christmas I'll have to start stressing about how quickly it'll be before my baby is 1!

Twenty Nine

Today is Adam's birthday so I thought I'd share 29 things I love about him since he's turning, y'know, twenty nine.

1. He is really good about playing with the kids. Even though neither of us are "playing parents" he makes the best of it and always takes one for the team.
2. Mya said she wanted to put "I love hugging him and saying I love you" on the list.

3. He is a directional wizard. I know the stereotype is that men get lost and don't ask directions but he never gets lost!
4. He is really laid back and helps balance out my crazy, go go go personality.
5. He is always encouraging me to do whatever it is I have my mind on.

6. He is always singing.
7. He still wants and tries to look nice for me everyday.
8. He is always willing to try new things even if he might not know what he's doing.

9. He makes a mean homemade hamburger!
10. He always gets up with the kids in the morning and lets me have an extra 30 minutes of sleep time.

11. He is a very generous person and is truly understands "it is better to give than to receive".
12. He is always willing to help out around the house.
13. Even though I tend to roll my eyes, I love that he is a cheese ball and romantic.

14. Family is very important to him.
15. He is always up for a good time.
16. He is good at every sport. Seriously. Golf. Hockey. Rock climbing. Tennis. Squash. You name it!

 17. His selflessness. He works 2 jobs to take care of his family even though he'd rather have his evenings to himself.
18. He is such a good dad!
19. I love that he can't hide anything because it always comes through on his face when he's trying to be sneaky.

20. His willingness to do things that make me happy.
21. His honesty.
22. His musical abilities. Mya loves to sit in the play room and play guitar with him in the evenings.

23. His support of my hobbies and interests.
24. He's so handsome!
25. He's also very funny.

26. And smart!
27. How much he loves me!

28. His imagination! This guy can come up with some pretty impressive scenarios when playing pretend. I don't know how he does it.
29. His desire to learn. He is always wanting to expand and learn new things!

Fat Lip Wordless Wednesday

10 on Tuesday

1. I feel like I can relax a little bit now. Ugly Christmas Sweater party is over, birthday party is over, advent calendar is made. All those things that I felt had a deadline for me are now over and I can breathe.

2. I baked a lot of cookies yesterday. Molasses cookies, pumpkin cookies, chocolate chip cookies and four loaves of bread. I hadn't made bread in awhile. It felt good.

3. The birthday party me and Mya went to today seemed like it took a lot of work to pull off. It makes me scared for March.

4. I found a Bath and Body Works candle from last year and it was barely used so we fired 'er up tonight and now my house smells deliciously Christmas. O Christmas tree!

5. Adam's birthday is on Thursday and I think we'll be going to get our tree the weekend after. That still seems early to me but now that everyone's getting their trees so early, there aren't any good ones left by the time we get there. At least that's how it seemed last year. It took us forever to find a half decent tree!

6. Getting Christmas shopping done with a 9 month old and a 3 year old is hard. Especially when I'm not sure the 3 year old can keep secrets but we've been testing her lately with things that aren't a big deal like today when we went to pick up cake mix to make Adam's birthday cake I told her that we had to keep it a secret cause it was for daddy's birthday. I know it won't be a big deal if she tells but I'm interested to see if she keeps it inside.

7. I realized the other day that we get to whip out Mya's old wooden sled for Henry to use!

8. I've done so much laundry today...but at least it's all caught up!

9. I heard/read yesterday that Kate Middleton and Prince William are having a baby!! Woot woot!

10. We missed our neighborhood Christmas party on Saturday because we had so much running around to do but that's ok because there's always next year!

Advent Calendar

A couple days ago I decided to try my hand at an advent calendar for a couple reasons. One being that Canadian Tire was out of the cute ones I had seen there last week and the second being that I was tired of being asked on a regular basis "is it Christmas time yet?" I'm hoping that by being able to actually move the marker from day to day will help her to figure out that each day gets us closer to Christmas.

I don't think she really gets that "Christmas time" is a holiday and "winter time" is a season in which that holiday falls. At least once it's December it'll make more sense that people have their trees up.

So, want to know how I made my advent calendar? I took Michaels by storm and bought a 16x20 blank canvas, some red ribbon, some Christmassy looking card stock, some mini clothes pins, and a package of little red envelope/paper bag type things (found in the wedding section).

Next I cut four lengths of ribbon long enough to reach across the canvas and tacked them behind the frame like so:

Then I took my little red envelope bags and cut a little off the top because they were too big to fit all 24 on the canvas

After cutting all of my envelope bags down to size, I decorated them in different card stock that seemed Christmassy and I attached numbers that I printed from 1 to 24 that Adam printed off the computer.

Once all the envelopes had been decorated, I clipped them all onto the ribbons with little clothespins I bought at Michaels.

I filled each pocket with a Hershey's kiss and attached a wooden star that I bought on our travels to PEI earlier this year. I threaded some of the red ribbon through the star and tacked it onto the side with the ribbon I attached to hang the canvas from.

When I showed Mya my crafty expertise this morning she seemed genuinely impressed and that made me happy since this was first real crafty project. I'm hoping this will help her understand that each day brings us closer to "Christmastime" so her daily questions will stop. And if not? Well, then at least I have a cute calendar to whip out year after year.

10 on Tuesday

1. Henry has started trying to pull himself up on things. He hasn't succeeded yet though. It's mostly resulted in him losing his grip, falling on his bum, then falling from there to his back and then crying.

2. Our family is suffering from preschool cold #2. Well, everyone but Adam. This time I know exactly which kid it was that brought it to school. She greeted me one morning when I was dropping Mya off and came right out and admitted, "I have a cold so my mom sent me to school with some tissues." Three year olds are so honest. And not that I needed her to let me in on her little secret. It was obvious by the giant rings of snot encircling her nostrils. Disgusting. I should wait till my kid has something worse and then arrange some kind of play date. I hate when my family is sick.

3. I cannot (cannot!) believe how many people have their Christmas trees up already!! It's alarming actually. I said to Adam the other day that by the time we're all old and kids think we grew up in the 'olden days' it'll be the norm to have your tree up and decorated anytime in November. It won't just be a few people, it'll be everyone. That bothers me.

4. I think I posted about the alarming number of people putting their trees up in my last 10 on Tuesday...

5. I am officially done shopping for everyone except Adam. I finished the kids stockings last night and I even knocked off a couple birthday presents. I'm even done our Christmas cards. I just have to wait for an appropriate time to send them.

6. We have an Ugly Christmas Sweater party to go to this weekend. Adam is really pumped. I'm sort of pumped. I don't long for my parties like he does. I figure that's just because I'm a mom and he's a dad. I can never truly enjoy myself when the kids are still young enough to need someone to watch them while we're out. I'm not worried about it though, we still have lots of time left for parties.

7. I've let Mya help me wrap some presents this year and I've even gone as far as letting her know what's actually inside and who it's for. She seems to have been able to keep the secrets for now but that might just be because the people we wrapped for don't live here and we don't see them often.

8. Me and the girl baked cookies the other day and while she was licking her beater and watching me use two spoons to put the cookies on a cookie sheet she said she wanted to do that part. I told her that because you have to use 2 spoons that it might be too hard. She said, "yeah and i need ONE hand to keep on the beater!" That's right. Priorities. Can't let go of the beater!

9. We woke up the other morning to the season's first snow. We were all pretty excited. It resulted in us bundling up and going outside as soon as we woke up. It wasn't even light out yet.

10. Henry's new trick is being able to sit up from a laying down position all by himself. Soon it'll be time to lower the crib! Insert sad face.

Wordless Wednesday

10 on Tuesday

1. Wow. It's been a long time since I blogged!

2. Halloween is over. Remembrance Day is over. It is now time to look forward to Christmas!

3. We put our Christmas lights on the house the other day while the weather is nice but don't worry. We haven't turned them on. We won't do that till well into December. Compared to the rest of society we're late bloomers when it comes to Christmas...even though we start our shopping in October. We just don't think it's necessary to put our tree up in November and get our kids all excited for something that's more than a month away.

4. Mya had a bit of a tumble the other day. She came down the stairs and was running full tilt when she tripped over her own feet and smashed her head into the coffee table. I'm thankful that a) our coffee table is rounded and doesn't have corners and b) that it wasn't more serious than a goose egg. We did call 811 (which is awesome, by the way! I'm glad I didn't have to trek out at 7pm with a 3 year old to wait at outpatients for hours just to find out it wasn't a concussion) and they said that she likely didn't have a concussion but to keep an eye on her.

5. I just searched "Christmas" on Pinterest. I don't know what I was thinking but after looking at 3 pictures, I'm already overwhelmed.

6. Mya spent the weekend at Auntie Elisa's house and while I was disappointed I missed the Santa Claus parade this year, I'm happy that me and Adam were able to knock out a lot of stuff!

7.

8.  I'm kind of bummed that the matching jammies I had made for the kids don't fit Henry. The neck is super big and even though I've washed and dried them a few times to try and shrink them, I think I'm going to have to safety pin the back for a couple pictures and then change him into something else for bed.

9. It's occurring to me that I'm going to have to go back to work sometime after Christmas. That sucks.

10. I am having the hardest time finding a cake stand that I like!

10 on Tuesday

1. Today was Family Photo Day. Don't let the caps fool you. It's not a national holiday.

2. Today was also fucking freezing. Please excuse the language but that's just how cold it really was!

3. Henry is 8 months old today!

4. We've been winter tire hunting...can you believe it's already time to put winter tires BACK on our car!?

5. I joined the pinterest bandwagon this morning. I don't know what came over me. I think I was bored which is strange since today was a chaotic mess.

6. On our drive home today we saw a couple decorating the outside of their house for Christmas. Seriously.

7. We're heading to Yarmouth this weekend to see the fam. Adam wants to take Mya to the Remembrance Day ceremony and while I want her to have an appreciation for what the veterans did for us, I think she's still a bit too young to sit through the whole thing.

8. Whenever I wear make up I feel pretty. And then I have to wash it off every night. I'd wear it everyday if there was someone to take my picture everyday! Haha

9. I bought my first pair of skinny jeans for Family Photo Day. Talk about uncomfortable! I only bought them so they would fit inside a pair of tall boots. They will likely not make it out of my closet ever again. Good thing I bought them at Superstore and not The Gap.

10. Now that I think about it, those old people were onto something. Decorate now while the weather is cooperating and it isn't snowing and then just turn the lights on when it's closer to Christmas. Oh yes! Adam!

Happy Halloween! (Wordless Wednesday)