Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We enjoyed a wonderful week-and-a-half downstate with both sides of the family for Christmas. Our computer was with us, but I never took the time to blog. My sisters Amanda and Jennifer were also in town (with their families, of course). In that time, we did some shopping, threw a surprise birthday party for my brother Dan, got spoiled with some new gadgets, and even sneaked in a day date. Unfortunately, my camera didn't make the return trip with us so I don't actually have pictures of any of the above at this time.
Today, we are taking it easy and trying to find our groove again. Whatever that means for us. I have plenty to do and Adrian is currently throwing a fit. He slept till 9:30 today, but I don't think he's quite 'caught up' with his sleep yet after such a busy week.
This picture was our Christmas card this year--if you're local, and I don't have your address, it's still coming to you! They finally arrived the day we left so I passed out a lot of them at church on Christmas and sent out what I could. BTW, I emailed Snapfish, telling them how irritated I was with the 3 weeks it took to receive my cards and they refunded my order.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Bah Humbug...but not really

I'm feeling just a teeny bit stressed out today. I wish we could be downstate with our families already. I hate this last-minute procrastination crap that I always seem to be involved with. I still have 2 gifts to make. 1 is sort of close to being finished and the other--felt food for Adrian--might not get done at all. I thought the food would be much more fun to make (I'm just free-handing everything) but I didn't realize how much hand sewing went into making it. I hate hand sewing.
I'm also still waiting for my Christmas cards to arrive. I think I ordered them on November 24th. I'm pretty much furious about that. Remind me not to use Snapfish next year. I could have handed out a good percentage, but now I'll be mailing a lot more than I had originally planned. Aaand, I'll probably be addressing those downstate since they didn't arrive yet again today and I really don't have time to do that before we leave.
To combat my stress, I've been stuffing my face with brownies. Which, in turn, makes me feel sick.
The trouble with procrastinating is that I get stressed thinking about what still needs to be done which causes me to procrastinate even more. And to think I'm more prepared than I was this time last year...
Well, anyhow, there's laundry and packing and sewing and wrapping to be done! (Just not in that order.)

Camping In

I don't think I ever mentioned it on here, but Adrian had been climbing out of his crib 17 times a night so we finally said 'enough.' I'm not exaggerating when I say 17, in fact, one night it may have been closer to 29. It gets old quick, let me tell you. Especially when he's back out of his crib by the time I even climb back in my bed which is about 10 steps around the corner. We have been wanting to get him a twin-sized bed for the past several months, but it hasn't happened yet. About a week ago, (after the night of 29 crib evacuations) I folded up his little crib and set up his little mattress in the corner. And he's been sleeping a million times better ever since. As have I. Apparently standing up and running out of his room isn't quite as alluring as scaling the side of his crib.
 

Then, a few nights ago, I thought I heard him playing in his room after putting him to bed. When he didn't come out I went to investigate. His bed is in the far corner so when I heard breathing coming from the middle of the room I thought he was sneaking around. I flipped on the light to find him in his tent. He had pulled all his bedding, minus the mattress, into the tent and was only awake because I turned the light on. He's been sleeping in there since and he's even made it through a few nights without getting up!

Decking the Halls

Jeff picked up our tree on Saturday evening. (For the locals, there are trees starting at $10 in Ish...) We have never made a big outing of Christmas tree hunting, but then maybe that's because we don't cut down our own. Someday, but for now it's so much easier to buy one, especially when we can get it that cheap. While Jeff was out, Adrian and I rearranged the living room to fit out tree.

Adrian likes to be right in there 'helping.' (He's sitting next to me now telling me, "Mom, Adrian helping Dad?")

I think I still surprise Jeff every once in a while. He was shaking his head when he was putting up the tree and we realized just how short it is...and I didn't even care. My only request was that we don't get a Charlie Brown, other than that, I really don't care. This tree is so short, I could put the tree topper on while standing on the ground. And I'm only 5' folks.

I tried to let Adrian decorate:

It didn't go so well...

He had a little better luck with these swirly turquoise ornaments:

I put the remaining 7 ornaments on along with garland.

Now all we need is a tree skirt, tree topper, and a lot more ornaments. Ah, well, we're halfway there. I did have a few more ornaments but I ended up hanging them in the window. I'll have to post a picture if I ever figure out how to take a decent picture of the window. Tips are welcome.

Other than that...we made it through chickenpox with Adrian this past week. He did pretty well, just crabby for a few days and low fever, but nothing to get me worried.  Yesterday in church he told our friend Kate, "I have chickenpox. I have scabs." I keep trying to tell him he doesn't have chickenpox anymore, just scabs. Lots of scabs.

The Sunday School Program was last night, it's always so cute to see all the kids saying their pieces and singing the songs. It's a little different here than when I was in Sunday school downstate, mostly due to a much, much smaller group. The 5-year-olds each have a piece to say which is so sweet, just something simple like "Jesus loves me," or "Jesus was born on Christmas." And at the end, the entire Sunday school goes to the front to sing a song together. I imagine that won't happen for too many more years since our congregation has grown so much.

Now to finish supper and finish my dish for Ladies' Christmas Party tonight!

jokes on me

I saw repinned this top on Pinterest without noticing where it was from. While I was downstate for Christmas, I bought the same top in salmon. I found it at the Old Navy in the Tanger Outlets which, to my knowledge, doesn't carry maternity clothes. I bought it one size too big thinking of this very pin. Ha! So today, I pulled it out to resize and halfway through I clicked over to Pinterest, to this picture and realized oh, whoops, I guess I could have just bought it in the right size. Although, to be honest, I'm not sure it would have fit over my belly much longer if I had bought it in the right size.

Okay, so that's about all I got done today and yikes, our trip downstate is sneaking right up on me!

this time, last year

Our tree was already up, my belly was pretty flat, and Adrian was still as goofy (and cute) as ever.

And oh man, looking back at these pictures makes me so excited to have another little boy!

As for everything else, we will hopefully be getting our tree very, very soon, my belly is quite round, Jeff is working a lot, Adrian is covered in spots. I picked up everything we need for hot cocoa, including the whipped cream, so we're all ready to decorate. Just as soon as a tree makes its appearance. Pictures to come when stated event occurs. 

Mr. Snowman

Whenever Adrian is bored or crabby I give him a list of ideas to occupy his time. Among that is "go look out the window." For some reason, that one usually works. Here he is sharing the snowy view with his snowman (one of the few decorations that he can't ruin in some way).

a few snapshots from our visit with the families

Adrian and Kendall playing with the Push 'n' Go vehicles in Grandma's kitchen.

Jenny peeling, coring, and slicing apples for a Thanksgiving pie.

Jenna and Mom-in-law, Paula, making pie crust.

Grandpa and Adrian

Adrian and Auntie Jenna. How uncomfortable does he look??

The kiddos with Grandma and her i-pod.

Uncle Brett with his i-pad and Bentley with his i-phone. NBD.

Adrian coloring with Auntie Katie. 

Jeff and Adrian at the Fantasy of Lights Parade.

I not a silly goose! I juss Adrin!

Adrian and I went downstate with 'Manna,' 'Kenno,' and 'Benty' last weekend (as in a week and a half ago) and stayed for Thanksgiving. Jeff came down on Tuesday night after work. It was one of my more relaxing trips visiting the family and now I'm ready to tackle a mile-long list before we head down again for Christmas! I'm sewing today, and cooking a chicken, and doing some organizing while listening to Christmas music. Jeff is working late again tonight (yay for overtime!) and I'm planning to pull out my meager supply of Christmas decorations this evening. Hopefully the tree will follow within the next week! I was just looking at some of my pictures from downstate and these made me smile, he was telling me to take more pictures, messy face and all:

As for right now, I'm off to figure out our Christmas cards so I can get back to my sewing machine!

the holidays are fast approaching

Completely blurry but, I just love this face!

I've been sewing! Woohoo! And playing with fabric paint! I have a few projects that I've had in mind and I'm finally working on them. But very slowly. My back has really been bothering me lately so I can only spend a small amount of time at my sewing machine before it's just too uncomfortable. Hopefully I'll be able to show them in a few weeks (or less). On the other hand, I'm suddenly realizing that Thanksgiving is next week which means I'll be leaving downstate in less than a week. Yikes! How did it get here so fast?? I had hoped to have the majority of my Christmas shopping done by the end of the month but guess how much I have done so far? That's right, nothin. I know what I'd like to get for Adrian and that's as far as I've come.

Happy Monday!

Raspberry Tea

I've been drinking a lot of tea since I quit coffee last spring. (And haven't looked back!) I love green tea and thought it was completely fine to drink during pregnancy but, as it turns out, green tea blocks the absorption of folic acid. It should be avoided before and especially during the first trimester. How ironic that I learned this at the start of my second trimester. Anyways, this is a recent finding and who knows, they may find out in a year or so that it is 'safe' to drink during the 1st trimester. (Ironically, the nurse that told me this gave me the 'okay' to drink coffee in moderation...) Here's a little factoid: did you know that, although green tea contains caffeine, it also contains a protein called thianine which doesn't allow your body to absorb the caffeine?
Anyways, I recently switched to raspberry tea which is very good to drink during pregnancy and while nursing. (It's good for anyone but particularly beneficial for those two groups.) I buy it in loose leaf form from our natural foods store. I have yet to buy a tea ball so in the meantime, I've been making my own tea bags. I first saw this idea on A Beautiful Mess. Hers are much prettier than mine but hey, they work. I was able to get 2 tea bags out of 1 coffee filter since I wasn't concerned about the ridges. The only problem is, coffee filters are much thicker than tea bags so you may need to allow extra steeping time. This isn't a big deal with raspberry tea because I keep the bag in the entire time.
Now go drink some tea and gaze out the window at the falling snow. (Wait, what? It's not snowing in your area? Hm...we have a few inches on the ground already. Happy November!)

I love boys...

Especially these two. And the one we get to meet in March.
I finally looked through Adrian's baby clothes today (up to 9 months anyways) and realized that I need A LOT. I had borrowed a ton of stuff from my sister Emily and my friend Shannon so I didn't buy as much as I should have when Little A was a baby. Oh well, I have the whole winter to thrift shop and then garage sales in the spring when we *hopefully* have another vehicle. As for now, I have enough one-piece pajama outfits for 0-3 months so he won't be naked under his blanket but it would be nice to find some cutesie stuff, ya know?
ETA: Oh wait, I just realized that Amanda has a bunch of my baby clothes, I guess I have more than I thought!

Coffee with the ladies tonight, woohoo! Hm...maybe I'll run to Goodwill before.

What's Yours is Mine

I finally got pictures of the shirt I restyled!
Here's a before, as Jeff's shirt (don't worry, he was getting rid of it, I didn't actually steal it)

Terrible picture in every way, I know, I'm sorry. And it was laundry day, we do actually use sheets on our bed. I snapped this real quick because I was about to start working on it and couldn't be bother to get a better picture. ;)

And now, it looks a little something like this:

Ha! Self-portraits are so awkward. I tried to get a better shot, you know, maybe one with a side view but the camera just wasn't loving me.

Here's what I did, sorry no step-by-step photos (maybe someday):

1. Using another maternity shirt--inside out--as a pattern, I traced the outline with a fabric pencil
2. I sewed over the line, actually slightly outside the lines because I was afraid it would end up being too small, I'm glad I did.
3. I tried on the shirt at this point and when it seemed to fit right, I cut along the seam, leaving around a 1/4 inch seam allowance.
4. I used the same maternity shirt again to trace the sleeves, this ended up being a little trial and error to match the sleeves up just right with the armholes, I'm learning. Once I determined that they were the right size, I cut the sleeves and sewed them on.
5. I should have done this before I sewed the side seams but waited until this point to ruche the sides. I wanted to make sure the shirt was long enough. I wish there were more gathers but I would have had to use elastic for that and well, I didn't.
6. Somewhere along the way I cut off the collar. I think I'll add a tiny little ruffle over the raw edge someday. And maybe I'll cover the lion logo since it's practically in my armpit now.

 

Woohoo! Yet another of Jeff's shirts that is now mine!

My Little Pumpkin

Adrian was a little timid trick-or-treating. It's funny how he was all pumped up at home and then when he actually had to say the words to a stranger they came out just above a whisper. I was wondering how the night would go when, at the first house, there was a cackling shrunken head on the door handle. He got a little scared but he did just fine after that with any laughing and cackling decorations.

He rode around in the stroller but quite honestly, he probably could have ran around the entire time if I had put tennis shoes on him. I wonder if that would have prevented 7 people from calling him a her. Or maybe it was just the polka dot blanket...ha!

As soon as he started getting the tiniest bit cranky, we headed home. He still got way too much candy but I suppose he couldn't eat half of it anyways since we had to take away anything with wheat (btw, licorice is made with wheat, did you know?) and all the jawbreaker-type candy. Jeff was disappointed that Reese's are wheat-free. I did tell him that Adrian wouldn't have a clue if he swiped them all.

Happy Halloween!

We're taking Adrian trick-or-treating for the first time tonight. He is so excited! We've been talking about it for the past week or so and he is always telling me, "say, 'trick-or-treat,' give candy, say, 'thank-you!'" I've been letting him play in his pumpkin costume for the past few days to get him comfortable with wearing it and boy, he's comfortable! Last night, he was wearing it (sweating) and I took it off to change him into his pajamas. As soon as his pajamas were on he wanted it on again and was so upset when I had to take it off for him to go to bed. He wore it until lunchtime today, again sweating, and only took it off because I didn't want it to get dirty while he was eating. I don't think we'll have any trouble with it tonight! He's been asking all morning, "Go trick-or-treating?" His voice gets all high-pitched at the end and he raises his eyebrows. "Go trick-or-treating when Daddy get home?"

I whipped up a trick-or-treat bag for Adrian today. I can't take credit for the idea, I saw this bag on Etsy. I had some green fabric left over from another bag, I used felt and black buttons for the eyes.

Adrian was so impatient for me to finish making it so he could carry it around. I wish I could get a picture of him looking all excited but it was difficult enough to get him to hold the bag in the right direction.

Trick-or-treating pictures tomorrow and that shirt if I remember to get a picture!

Happy Halloween! Be safe!

He always has me laughing...

A minute ago he hopped on his bike and informed me, "I'm riding my bike all the way to the park, buh-bye Mama!"
And a few minutes ago when I ran to grab the phone, "Just a minute Mama!"
Now he's 'Goin' fishin' in the boat." (The Lego container.) "I catch-ed the fish!"
He's been calling me 'hon' or 'honey' lately as well. He always brings my attention to the things I say every day even when I don't realize I say them.

I restyled a shirt today! Go me! I'll post pictures once I take them.

Sister's Trip

Jean, Molly, Gretchen, Kaitlin, me, Larissa, Amanda, Emily Sara, Jennifer, Mom

I'm not done blogging, I've just felt kind of burnt out from blogs in general.

This past weekend was our 1st ever Sister's Trip! We've talked about taking a trip together for the past several years but it never seemed to work out. This year, Sara took action and started planning it. That's what it takes to really get a plan in motion. We can find an excuse every time whether it be money, babies, our husband's schedules, but in the end, if a trip is planned there's a pretty good chance that we'll all make it! We did have two babies with us this year and we will probably have at least one baby for the next umpteen years but that's just the way it goes. Next time, it could be me. I'm not sure how often we'll be doing this but I know my mom has her own Sister's Trip every other year and that always seems to work well.
We rented a condo near Madison, Wisconsin for the weekend and I am so glad we did. It was such a nice place, full kitchen and living room, 4 bedrooms plus plenty of space in the finished basement (where 2 of the bedrooms were) for a couple more beds. All 13 of us fit quite comfortably. We had first considered a hotel but it was so much easier to visit when we had chairs and couches and space available so we never felt cramped. This picture (courtesy of Emily) was taken on the screened-in porch.
On Friday night, we went to Olive Garden and then back to the condo to exchange our handmade Christmas gifts (my mom posted pictures here). The next day, we ate lots (oh wait, that was all weekend, we brought way too much food!) and then headed to Panera Bread before doing some shopping. I am a terrible shopper! After pinching pennies for so long I have forgotten how to spend money. I found a sweater for myself at Plato's Closet. That's it. Of course, it is a little trickier trying to find maternity clothes but I was also on the lookout for some new heels and a pair of boots, I found neither. I think most of the other girls brought home a few bags of clothes, lucky them!
That night we exchanged our white elephant gifts which gave us plenty of laughs, some were serious and some were just ridiculous. Like the super soaker squirt gun my mom got!
It was such a fun weekend with so many laughs, so much food (I guess we do talk about food a lot...) and it definitely wasn't long enough!

DS

It's Down Syndrome Awareness Month. My mom emailed all the kids to share this video so I thought I'd share it on here (sorry if you already saw it on facebook). Christopher, in the video, reminds me so much of my little (almost 16-year-old) brother Danny, especially at the end of his segment when he says 'See? We are more alike than different."

Reading with Dad

Vintage-Style Romper

I've been itching to sew lately, I still haven't done any real projects this fall. I found this pattern at St. Vinnies for 7¢! I think their patterns are usually a whopping 14¢ but the sale for the day was half off everything except yellow tags. I also found a winter jacket for Adrian (still hoping to find a nicer one but for the price listed, I couldn't pass it up as a 'just in case'), a yellow, silk shirt for myself, and another basic toddler pattern for shirts and onesies. I also had a $1 off coupon so my total was, wait for it...$2.17.
This pattern is from 1975, I plan to make the top sunsuit using this vintage sheet a found quite a while ago:

I'm not even sure what I'll do with it once it's done but I was so excited to use the pattern once I brought it home! It might be a baby gift or it might find it's way to Etsy. Hey, do you remember when I talked about opening my very own Etsy shop?? Yeah...I remember that too.

hiking with 2-year-olds

I've been avoiding posting just so I wouldn't type out a big complaint about how lousy I've been feeling. Since it's basically unavoidable, I'll just get it out really quick...I've had a cold for over a week and when I was getting to the point of whentheheckwillthistupidcoldgoaway?! I got another one. The first one was coughing, sore throat, lots and lots of phlegm (your welcome) and this one is more in my head...no, not like I'm making it up, come over here and I'll show you. Kidding, but really, I have a runny nose and my head feels all cloudy and I'm positively exhausted. I have a pot of chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove right now and even though it doesn't sound that tasty at the moment, I can't wait to eat it. There's nothing like hot soup when you feel like crap.
I was obviously feeling quite a bit better on Wednesday--even though I had that other stupid cold at that time--when the twinners were here.
Kaitlin and Gretchen came down on Tuesday night and we made plans to go hiking. Or I made plans to go hiking. Now that I think about it, I don't even know if they were remotely interested.

We went to Sugarloaf which is the easiest hiking trail I know of. Kendall only had flip-flops so we all ended up wearing flip-flops.

It was a perfectly beautiful day and there are lookout points on the top but we didn't end up staying long since all of us were getting hungry for lunch.

This was my first time letting Adrian walk up on his own and he did great! Actually, both kids were pretty awesome.

Gotta love self-timer shots!

Kendall had some mud on her leg so she held her shorts up on the way down.

We finished up and then went to Border Grill for lunch. Yum! I'm so glad my sisters were able to make it down for a visit!