His own tree

The day after Thanksgiving, Weston and I pulled out all of the Christmas decorations and began decking the halls for the Christmas season. We even decorated a mini tree for his own bedroom. There's something about colored lights that make everything so much more magical for children. I am not a fan of colored lights, but wanted to give Weston a colorful tree. I had three tree skirts to pick from, but then I found a colorful crochet quilt I had bought at a yard sale over the summer. It looked perfect under his tree. 

I can already tell that Christmas is going to be so much fun with him this year. He talks about Santa all the time and says that he is asking Santa for a bicycle, motorcycle, and tools. He also reminds me that he cried when we went to see Santa in the beginning of November at a local store. He would not even get near him. I really wanted a pic of him sitting on Santa's lap so we will try again at the mall. I know this is horrible, but even if he cries I just want a picture of it! He also dances around the house singing Jingle Bells. What a cutie!

 

I am enjoying the Christmas season already!! Cannot wait until December 1st! I heard we may have a visitor hanging out with us during the month of December. ;)

Ruler Growth Chart and the "to do" list

This has been on my "To Do" List for months now...

and it is finally finished!

Thanks to the blog Because I Like to Decorate! She had a great DIY tutorial on how to make it. It was a challenge to get Weston to stand still for us to measure how tall he is at 23 months. Lil' stinker. 

Next on my "To Do" List:
- Finish up all of the baby girl bibs that I had started a long time ago! There are quite a few baby girls that are expected to be born in the next few months. So I cute out two of each pattern. :) My darn sewing machine keeps eating up the terry cloth so I will be making them at my mom's house one day when I have some time. ha ha. 

- I would really like to make these reusable snack bags. We only have one and use it all the time. 
- And of course write out my Christmas cards. Weston's birthday photo shoot was a disaster. He wanted nothing to do with it. We at least got the pic we wanted for Christmas cards though!
- I should probably be concentrating on getting things together for Weston's Tractor Birthday Party which is in two weeks. That should be first on the list!

Happy Turkey Day!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Our family enjoyed three feasts, but not all on the same day. On Wednesday night, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Chad's family. I made all the desserts this year- apple pie, pecan bars, and brownies. My mama's apple crumb pie recipe is the best. I tried out this new recipe: Pecan Pie Bars. I am not a fan of pecans, but Chad looooves them! So I sent him three different pecan recipes and he picked this one. It was pretty easy to make and it was very yummy!

Pecan Pie Bars

Thanksgiving Feast #1

Chad went goose hunting on Thanksgiving morning. Weston and I cleaned the house and organized a bit. Then at 3pm we headed for my mom's house for Thanksgiving Feast #2...

Weston was not feeling a family picture at the time. ;)

And then tonight we enjoyed our 3rd turkey dinner with Chad's mother's family!

It was so nice not having to make dinner for 3 nights in a row. :)

Phone Dump:

Upstairs Hallway Remodel- Before

Take a look at our hallway upstairs...

The dreaded laundry closet....

Chad began working on redoing the upstairs hallway last weekend. Our goal is to have new floors (as well as level the floor so we will have no more old house creeky sounds) and to make the laundry closet more practical. We have a very, VERY old house (dated back to 1849). The closet where we have our washing machine and dryer is super duper small. Before we had moved to Virginia, we had a smaller washer and dryer. Well now that we have a family, it was not doing the trick. So I insisted on having normal size machines. The only problem is that EVERY time I do laundry, I have to unhook the middle section of the wall where the doors close and sit it against the wall. Every time. It's a huge pain. I told Chad that this is just not going to happen when baby #2 arrives and that I need a normal door! So that is when he decided that we are going to redo the closet and the floors as well! I started pinning ideas right away!! 
This past weekend, Chad took out all of the old floors and added a subfloor. It is so level and sturdy! :) Cannot wait to see his progress this weekend. :)

Phone Dumps- Photo Book

I loooove my weekly phone dumps! I take so many pictures with my iphone and now that I am obsessed with Instagram, the phone dumps are a great way to showcase fun happenings throughout the week. I finally caught up on digitally scrapbooking all of my own family photos from January 2012-June 2012 and sent it away to get printed in a 12x12 photo book. I had lots of coupons through Shutterfly (if you are pregnant and order from Motherhood Maternity they always give you coupons). So this time around my photo book was printed by Shutterfly. I was so happy to get it in the mail and to look back at photos from the beginning of this year. Weston enjoyed sitting on my lap reading and looking at each page as well. Boy has he grown so much since January!

Here are some photo dumps these past 2 months...

yellow, one of our last walks with Norma, sparkling teeth,
reading the Sun with daddy

Weston picked a flower for mommy, Gaga found a 4 leaf clover for baby girl,
 Model Magic fun, Jumping at Fundamentals, walking on the ABCS!

Getting ready to go Apple Picking, Chuck-e-cheese with Grandma,
new cradle for baby girl

Weston loves his new table, lots and lots of apple pies, pumpkin spice playdough,
playdate with Liam, Smores with Pop Pop and Gaga, Mama is proud of her garden. 

Lil' artist, bib making time, the belly is growing, farm fun with Sam

Train set at Barnes and Nobel allows mommy to relax, Jville fire open house, mama is nesting,
potty time, new tent=so much fun, preparing for the storm

rain rain go away, no electricity, doctor appointment with mommy, storm clean up duty

Online Christmas shopping has begun, 28 weeks pregnant, new rug,
Christmas crafts... glitter everywhere

October

Power is back on in our house and now it's time for me to do some catching up. The month of October quickly came and went. Time flies by! We have been busy enjoying the fall weather and trying to accomplish all of our activities that we had on our Fall 2012 Bucket List. 

Yesterday was Halloween and we had a BLAST! Weston dressed up as a Saint Bernard. He could not wait to go door to door and say "trick-or-treat". He was especially happy to get lots and LOTS of lollipops! I have found that a lollipop treat while shopping keeps him still for a good 5-10 minutes before he starts begging to get out of the cart and run. Christmas shopping this year will be me on the couch online when the stinkpot is sleeping. Taking a toddler shopping is pure torture. I will not even get into our grocery store adventure today (well just a little hint: hundreds of gift cards thrown on the floor, multiple loaves of bread squished, newspapers ripped, and a tantrum on the floor by the cupcakes). Maybe it was all the sugar from last night's adventure?

A few October pics...

So glad that we played in the leaves before the hurricane. Now everything is soggy and brown. 

And we have already been busy working on Christmas presents around here! This kid loves painting!

Let's hope November does not go by as fast! I have lots to do before baby girl arrives!