Day 13: Christmas picture outtakes

I promise I will share our Truth in the Tinsel crafts again soon, I just need to take pictures. Until then, here was Elf's spot today!

I forgot to mention a little bit of EC's cuteness from Grandma's visit today. EC discovered the difference between chili you eat and chili meaning you are cold. She apparently made this observation and proceeded to tell Grandma all about it. The English language is such a mess you guys! Try teaching a child to read sometime, or even just sounding out words.

I tried to shoot a few pictures with the girls tonight =) Here are the outtakes!

This was the best one, but it was so blurry. I turned up the sharpness half way and this was what I got.

This is getting old.

I'm done!!!

All by myself...

Really mom?

I think we are done here aka I'm about to stand up.

Some how she crammed herself into the cradle.

These are not the pictures I used for our Christmas card. Yep, finally ordered cards today. I was just going to send a few handwritten cards to our closest friends and family with the intentions of sending a New Year's card with pictures from AB's one year session. But I told Bo and he was all against skipping the Christmas photo cards. So expect your Christmas card to be in your mailbox when you get home from your Christmas vacation/hopefully before the new year =)

Next on the list, AB's first birthday invites. No clue what to do, but I'll figure it out!

Day 12 Snowflakes from the North Pole

Today we found Soovie on the shelp Grammy and Poppa brought us last month. We followed a trail of glitter up the stairs and to her bedroom after our breakfast this morning. Soovie had moved EC's letters to the shelves and brought her some snowflakes from the North Pole!

She was just a bit excited!

And she had to "read" his note.

Find a tutorial for similar snowflakes here. Of course, they won't be from the North Pole, but they will still be cool ;o)

And if Soovie brings snowflakes again another year, I think a mini version of these would be better. EC really wanted to play with the snowflakes, but that would have been a glittery mess! I told her we could decorate her room with them and the pink Christmas lights Grandma brought her today! Yes, Grandma came over this morning to spend time with us on her day off! EC woke up looking for daddy and calling his name. Monday mornings are always hard when daddy leaves for work before we get up, but today her pain was eased because Grandma was on her way =) We made chicken noodle soup for lunch. I worked all morning to open and close a party before my deadline and was successful. Grandma brought all sorts of goodies and made chili! Grandma and the girls played like crazy. I got to shop all by myself for a whole hour! EC went to see Ms. Sadie at dance class. And we ended with dinner at Mellow Mushroom with Grandma and daddy! All in all, a fantastic Monday!!

Day 11: Cheerio Fight!

No crafting again today. However, I did get creative with our elf, Soovie, today!

You may not be able to tell, but Soovie had a cheerio fight with Dora and friends. Of course, Swiper joined forces with elf! I snapped a few pictures before the girls demolished everything =)

Soovie left this for EC because yesterday she asked him if she could have the rest of his lollipop when he was finished =)

Of course, AB helped herself!

And she doesn't quite understand that she isn't supposed to touch Soovie, so he moved to a shelf soon after this picture. EC was quite upset with her.

I forgot to mention yesterday why elf is now Soovie. On Thursday when Mary was here, EC told us that his name was Suzy. So Mary said something like - her name is Suzy. EC corrected her, "No, he is a boy". Then yesterday she couldn't quite remember how to pronounce Suzy and instead said Soovie. So I'm just reinforcing her incorrect pronunciation =) All this makes me think about that song about A Boy Named Sue =)

Tonight we were introduced to the world of Chuck E Cheese. It was our friend Hannah's 4th birthday! She and her family just moved to town and joined our journey group this fall. The children had the best time, but luckily EC hated Chuck E Cheese himself. Whenever he came near the birthday table, EC ran to sit in our laps. The poor birthday girl was even in tears at the thought of being in a picture with him - even though she begged to have her party there. So no, I do not see a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese in our near future for many reasons. But I was so glad the children had such a great time!! Oh, and AB was totally cute "dancing" on the "stage" - until a big kid from another party knocked her over. She was much more cautious after that! Seeing her dance like that is one of the greatest joys in life =)

Another great joy is hearing EC sing. She just breaks out in song randomly throughout the day. Today's song was "Me and My Family". I heard the words and didn't recognize it, so I figured it was Barney. We don't watch Barney at our house, but she sneaks it in over at Aunt Debbie's house. I can't stand the show, but I must say they have some pretty cute songs every now and then. I know that my writing skills are not the best, but I do know that the song should say My Family and Me - so that REALLY bothers me. She is just so cute when she sings it! I can't tell her to stop =) Especially when she sings, "Me and my sister we're quite a pair, we love to snuggle our teddy bears!"

Day...A little 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 =)

Y'all, I'm really behind now!

Here is Elf from day 7 having a picnic with bunny at our prized princess table and chairs ($2 from yardsale!).

Here is Elf telling stories with Dora and friends on day 8.

Day 9 he took a little nap with baby Maggie in the cradle. Her bed was "just right"! Glad she didn't mind sharing!

The today (10) we found him up here and eating a lollipop!

You can't tell form the picture, but he is at the tip top of our shelving system in the family room. He is also eating EC's favorite kind of lollipop. She asked him if she could "have the rest when he is finished" =)

So on to our tinsel crafts. Thursday we didn't have any thing planned outside the house, so we used the day to get caught up on our crafts.

We have Mary from day 6. When Gabriel told her she was going to have Jesus. Here she is in her teeny bopper glory. (Yes, I did the little bead hairbow, not EC. She is good, but not that good yet! But she did tell me Mary needed a bow on her head =) And it was easy enough to add a drop of hot glue then stick it in the beads!)

Goodbye tiny waist! Here we have the pregnant Mary and Elizabeth enjoying some quality time together before the babies arrived (day 7 or maybe 8?).

Day 8 (or maybe 7) is Mary's praise song to God.

And our sun mosaic for day 9. Our friend Mary was here to help with this one! Thanks again Mary!!

Admiring her beautiful ornaments on Thursday

We didn't get to day 10's craft because we were just too busy. That's okay, because the girls had a great time running errands, shopping, and decorating Pipo's tree with daddy and Pipo. Mommy was busy at a Thirty-One party. This Christmas paycheck will be so perfectly timed!

Other pictures from Thursday

This was the first time AB climbed on the couch by herself! So proud!!

She is my little shortie! By this age, EC was pretty much out of the little infant carseat. We looked at AB in the same carseat last night and she has like 4 inches to grow! Also, she is still in size 3/4 shoe. EC was at least a 5 by this point. Finally a petite little one to cuddle and she is a snuggle bug =)

My little fam this morning = my heart!

EC's masterpiece from tonight =)

One other thing for this post. Here is a picture of my mantel in progress. I say in progress because I just don't like how it looks. I am not good at decorating - AT ALL. That is why places like pottery barn are good for me - they just put it all together. Unfortunately it costs an arm and a leg to get pottery barn or better to decorate my home. So I'm just going to have to get better at this! Notice Julie, I did finish my wreaths!! So glad we had our craft day! Reserve a day in March to have a girl's craft Saturday or maybe a whole weekend =) All are invited!

The white balls on top of the glass candlesticks are from this tutorial I pinned from Kelly via Pinterest. I moved our cross from our entryway and pulled the candlesticks out of the closet. I want to add glitter to the white balls, maybe remove one of the wreaths and put it on the front door, also add some greenery, and these glitter tp roll snowflakes that I'm working on. Suggestions? Are there any rules I should know when decorating? Help!

Day 5/6: Catching up

So y'all knew I was going to get behind on my blogging right? =)

I'm sad to say that I did not even move elf on day 5. EC noticed, but she said he really liked sledding and that is why he went back to the stocking. She is so cute. I rushed around like crazy yesterday getting ready to "take the afternoon off" to do Christmas crafts with Julie. I finally made it out of here around lunch. We made wreaths (mine is almost finished), I made a single felt ornament (I'm a little slow even without the children there!), chalkpaint reusable gift tags, and face scrub (it is awesome for dry hands too!) And the best part was getting to catch up with Julie! =) I'll try to take some pictures of our projects tomorrow and add them to this post.

The girls were thrilled to spend the afternoon with daddy. AB saw Bo come through the door at lunch time and she walked as fast as she could to him with arms stretched up high. She knew it was a special day to have daddy home so early! Then EC convinced him to take them to Jump 4 Joeys. Everyone was worn out by the time I go home!

Today we did day 5 craft, the angel Gabriel.

This craft was little harder for EC. She folds, but not evenly and the paper was nearly impossible to shove into the jingle bell. But she did enjoy threading the jingle bells onto pipe cleaners. We bent the pipe cleaners with jingle bells into circles and AB even enjoyed carrying them around the house.

Speaking of AB, last night was rough at our house. After my afternoon with Julie, I went to Patti's Pampered Chef party. When I finally got home, I felt EXHAUSTED. Then my throat started hurting. I was up and down all night between my sore throat and the girls. AB is getting 3 teeth and may have a sore throat too, but I can see the white behind that last layer of her gum. It just looks painful. She and sass(pacifier) are bffs right now. Bo was so sweet this morning. He got up and went to Kroger to get all the ingredients for chicken noodle soup. It may have helped that I told him I was dying =) But the pain had spread to my ears by 4:30 this morning and I was up gargling salt water again. So we have been taking it easy today - relatively at least. Sometimes I slightly miss those days that I could send EC to school while I stayed home and nursed myself back to health. She is a very busy and talkative girl, which is a fun combination except for those days when mommy cannot talk very much =)

Anyway, since last night was so rough, everyone ended up in our bed and elf showed up on EC's empty bed this morning.

EC brought him a few toys so he would have something to do today.

So hopefully tomorrow we will be all well and able to catch up on craft 6&7. Maybe...

And if you have time for some Christmas crafting, you should hop over and check out my friend Kelly's tips for fancy Christmas garland. She is also hosting a fabulous giveaway for vinyl lettering from Belvedere Designs, so you should stop by and enter for a chance to win!! And if you do win, you can totally split the reward with me since I am the one who told you about it ;o) Can you tell I really want to win?

Day 4: Tomorrow

Another busy day at the Lane house! We did not have the jingle bell for today's Truth in the Tinsel craft, so EC said, "We will have to go to the store tomorrow." But we did find elf sledding today!

He is such a daredevil - like AB ;o)

And our funny/gross story from today... After church we went to lunch at Zaxby's with some of our journey group. EC was so excited to eat lunch with her friend Riley. We somehow found a booth big enough for our families to sit together and we all stopped to bless our food. EC said she wanted to say the blessing, so we were all waiting and finally looked up to see why she wasn't talking. She was reaching over to hold Riley's hand, because we hold hands when we pray. She grabed Riley's hand, then apparently had an itch on her nose. So she rubbed her nose all over the back of Riley's hand. GROSS!!! Poor Riley. She was such a sweetheart and didn't really complain. She wiped the back of her hand and just moved on. Riley even held EC's hand for the prayer once I got finish trying to explain to EC that it was rude. We were all just cracking up because it was so innocent! EC couldn't understand what the big deal was about rubbing her nose. It itched, she scratched. Oh the joy of children. The gross innocence of it all!

Day 3: Busy Saturday

Whew! I'm exhausted, so this will be short. I have been going nonstop today! We spent the morning doing things around the house while I prepped for tonight's 31 party. Then we rushed to eat lunch, ran through Target for red curling ribbon (and scored a pair of $5 jeans for EC), and to Jump Its for Riley's 5th birthday party. EC had so much fun at Jump Its. She said, "I had a lot of fun at that party mommy!" Riley was so cute and sweet. EC loved running around with Riley and Hannah - and I'm pretty sure the dads had fun too ;o)!

Next the girls stayed home with daddy while I rushed to Vicki's 31 party. Mommy had a lot of fun at that party! Not only did I get to catch up with some awesome ladies that I have not seen in a few months, but it was also my first $1000+ party. We played games that I have not done before and they were a big hit! I sold a 5th Ave bag for the first time and one customer had to have two order forms because she ordered so much. Plus, there were only 5 people at the party. I feel very blessed and it couldn't have been better timing. The journey group Bo and I joined this fall is going to "sponsor" a family or two this Christmas aka provide some financial or gift assistance to some people we know personally who could use some help right now. I had been wondering where we were going to find the money in our budget to help out... I think I know where it is coming from now!

Any way, while I was gone, daddy did the day 3 craft with the girls. Everyone, meet Zachariah

You can see the resemblance right? I think daddy did pretty well for the craft he got stuck with =) And I'm very impressed with his ribbon curling skills =) but we may have to try something different next year. Maybe we can remake him with the extra glass ornaments we got from Michaels this week. Or, someone posted their edible version on facebook - shredded carrots for the hair, raisins for eyes, carrot slice for the nose and banana for the mouth. There is so much you can do with these crafts!

And we caught Fisbee (elf's name today), chatting with the angels this morning! Maybe he was trying to get her to put in a good word for him with the real "big guy" or maybe he was trying to get her number. Who knows! Either way, they were cozy up there =)