the tree farm experience

Hubby went by himself to get our Christmas tree from Costco the weekend of Thanksgiving. Super festive, right? We did it that way last year too. The thought of tromping around a tree farm to find the perfect tree with a kook and babe just wasn't appealing. I'm really looking forward to when they can both hike through the trees with us and help find a tree but this year wasn't the year to start that tradition. Even though we weren't there to find the perfect tree, we still visited a local tree farm for the experience of it all. We visited the petting zoo, took a horse-drawn carriage ride, stepped into the gift shop for 3 minutes, let the kook carry a saw around and walked around looking at the trees. The kook was enamored with the tiny tree. The crazy photo of her is her "TA-DA!" proclamation. All things tiny are her favorite. We were there just long enough to enjoy the amazing California holiday weather and leave when the kook started to throw her attitude around. Yeah. That happens. It was at that moment that hubby and I were thankful that we weren't in the middle of trying to find a tree and that we took the easy Costco way out. Right before leaving we hit up a stranger to take our family photo and it's one of the best ones we've gotten minus the little man looking away. Yay for strangers that know how to use cameras! Because as we all know, if there are no pictures to prove it, it didn't happen.

the little man's FIRST HAIRCUT

Someone got his first haircut and someone gave her first haircut this week. We had a friend do family photos for us on Tuesday and I knew I had to trim the little man's shaggy hair before putting him in front of a camera. I was definitely nervous as it was my first time cutting anyone's hair- besides a very unfortunate extreme bang trimming when I was 6 or so. I set the little man up in a booster chair, got some tiny sharp crafting scissors and just started cutting. The little man was dodging every attempt so I grabbed him a spatula to chew on. I trimmed as much as I could in the 10 minutes he allowed me near his head before he started throwing the spatula on the ground and swiping at my scissors. It is by no means a pro job and I definitely won't be waving him around out in public and declaring my hair cutting brilliance, but the shag is gone and the little man seems pleased. 9 months and 2 weeks old and his hair is finally trimmed. He's a handsome little thing. Maybe someday the kook will have some hair to cut too. I'll probably be able to make a hair baby out of all of the little man's hair trimmings before that happens.

the most WONDERFUL time

Welcome to the smattering of colors, animals, vintage Christmas, and yarn decor that is our living room. Oh how I love to decorate for the holidays! I am all about Anthropologie, handmade, and vintage ornaments and the random special animal ornaments from stores here and there. I dream of someday having a Christmas tree filled entirely with animal ornaments, but that will have to be when I have a mansion with a tree in every room someday because I can't give up my non-animal vintage ornaments. Let's see... I'd have an animal tree in the den, a vintage tinsel tree in the pretty entertaining living room (the parlor? I don't know the formal names for these things), a candy/cake/popcorn tree in the kitchen that I can snack off of all season, and.... yeah, that's all I'd need.

I started my holidays nice and early this year, November 1st. I have a friend who puts up her decorations November 1st every year and this year I decided to join her. Christmas music was a'blaring in our house while all the kids in the land still had Halloween sugar highs. I haven't regretted the early start one bit. I love Christmas and feel like there's never enough of it to enjoy when it takes me a week or so to decorate and I'm rushing around getting presents the whole season. This year I wanted to be done with shopping and decorating early to soak it all in and I am! I have half of one present left to buy and then I am done. I'm usually a week of shopper, so this is a major accomplishment. And I did most of my shopping in sweats in front of the computer. As much as I hate the internet sometimes because it's such a time sucker, I loooove the invention of online shopping. Not having to leave the house and go to 100 different stores with the kiddos in tow? Amazing! The kids threatened to ruin with season with a crazy horrible cold before Thanksgiving. That put a major halt in shopping and celebrating and sanity, but luckily they were well just in time to go to Thanksgiving with hubby's family. After a few days of recovery from the madness of a 3 week crazy cough, I was back in Christmas mode. I still have some Christmas decorations I want to make (check out my holidays Pinterest board to see some of them), but if I don't get to them this year, I'll survive.

How is your Christmas coming along? Any decorating left to do? Are you an early shopper or December 23rd evening shopper?

STOP BITING ME!

My cousin's wife shared this on Facebook today. I normally don't share these things, but oh my gosh... so true right now, except for the shower part. I totally haven't showered today. We're hanging on by a thread in this house. The kook has been sick for 2 weeks now, coughing up a storm at night, keeping me awake in between nursing the boy. (Yeah, he still doesn't sleep through the night.) I'm pumping the kook full of vitamin C and garlic and every immune boosting thing I can think of in hopes that she can kick this soon. I have lost hope of us being able to attend Thanksgiving with hubby's family though. Time to start planning some simple recipes for our quarantined family Thanksgiving. Between taking care of the kook and a teething baby boy, I haven't had much time to hop on here and post anything, but I just wanted to let you know we are alive... and not well.

In other news- the boy has just found out how to use his teeth during nursing sessions and I have just found out that my screaming in pain doesn't phase him. Awesome. I'm really hoping I won't need any sort of reconstructive surgery after he is weaned.

Now you are caught up.

So, tell me, how do I stop this baby from nipping at my parts-of-a-similar-name?

THIS & THAT

-Twinkle lights make me incredibly happy. I've wanted to put some up for quite a while and when I saw these pink ones at the fabric store, I grabbed them (as in purchased them, not grabbed and stuffed them in my purse) and put them up as soon as I got home. I put the kook down for a nap, turned the lights off and grinned like a giddy little girl enjoying twinkle lights for the first time. They make me so happy and it's a wonder I never put any up before this!

-I finally came across the "is it poo or chocolate dilemma?" on a quilt yesterday... I opted to smell it rather than taste it. It was chocolate. PTL. Mama's been having some cravings lately.

-Lots of sleepless nights from taking care of sick littles turn into a morning of sleeping in till 11 with the toddler watching Curious George on the laptop for who knows how long. It's scary how well she can use that thing. I recall waking up at 9, spilling a cup of water all over my lap, changing, throwing a blanket over the spill then sleeping on it 2 more hours. I then forgot about the spill until getting into bed on top of a damp blanket that night. So of course I just threw a fresh blanket on and went back to sleep.... At 2am... After the baby boy was awake till 1:30am. Mom life is kicking my butt this week!

-I managed to make 1 homemade meal this week. This Lazy Sunday Casserole. I used chicken apple sausage, red potatoes, onions, carrots, and Granny Smith apples and omitted the Italian spices. It was pretty tasty. You really can't go wrong with this dish.

-Hubby is addicted to slickdeals.net and I'm not complaining. We've scored a lot of awesome things from his addiction. We currently have 5 $50 off of $100 Home Depot coupons to use by Sunday and have been plotting what to buy for the house. Exciting things like a new front door, peg board for the office/craft room, and rodent/ant/wasp killers.

-I started decorating for Christmas and listening to Christmas music. Judge all you want because I am LOVING it!

-My new favorite show is Hart of Dixie. It's funny, cute, romantic, and is full of great Rachel Bilson style. Such a chick show. If you like romcoms, you'll love it. You can watch the entire 1st season on Netflix streaming and catch the 2nd season on Hulu.

-My mom uniform this week has been sweatpants and whatever shirt I wore to bed the night before. Every day. This is a new low. I feel so horrible for the hubby to see me like this all week but between being covered in kiddo snot, lack of sleep, and my attempt to survive, I just can't seem to change into anything cuter or less comfortable.

-I'm loving these blogs lately: Small Fry -and- Dear Lizzy. These ladies have some serious mom style and crafting mojo. I'm totally not sending laser-jealousy beams from my bloodshot eyes in their direction right now.

-We recently purchased this bed on major sale (it's in the shed waiting for a mattress) and this light quilt is on its way to our house (bought with my birthday $$$). We are FINALLY decorating the bedroom after 3 years in this house, and after many squishy nights with 2 littles in the bed, we are upgrading to a king! The new bed is our Christmas gift to each other. I can't wait! 

-I'm praying these colds end soon and that the weekend grants us some much needed rest and stress relief!!!!!!!!! I'm not usually an advocate of the finger-stuck-on-the-exclamation-point-key sentences, but I am doing some major desperate praying over here!!!


What plans do you have this weekend? Any Christmas decorating plans or are you post-Turkey Christmas celebrators?

LATELY on instagram

(1.) Hubby's chalk portrait of the kook. (2.) The little man loves the wind in his hair. (3.) Shopping with the fam for my birthday. (4.) The duck fountain wasn't running so it became a toddler ride. (5.) I was living with the cracked, mute iPhone 4 for almost a year and finally got the iPhone 5! It's a whole new world. I can actually see what things look like on the screen now. (6.) The kook was scooting around on this giant rubber ducky at World Market while fanning herself with a pen fan and looking through a toy gun like a telescope, all the while making siren noises. I was cracking up. (7.) Our first baby-less date in 2 months! It was very much needed. (8.) The kook is constantly building things. She showed me this house she made and I was seriously impressed. (9.) The little man's squash face. (10.) Kale-Mango-Coconut Water smoothies at Whole Foods. We both loved them. (11.) "Don't worry mom. I'll put some on your face too." (12.) A gorgeous evening chasing cats and kicking a soccer ball. (13.) Little drummer boy. (14.) Building towers everywhere. (15.) Baby dedication at church. We dedicated both of the kiddos to the Lord and had our families there to support us. (16.) Waiting for dada to make dinner breakfast burritos. (17.) She's kind of cute sometimes. (18.) The little man pulled himself to standing this last week. Every time he does it I almost have a heart attack and hubby and I spot him until he's done. He's definitely not stable on his two feet yet. (19.) I did it. I decorated for Christmas. (20.) If she's not building, she's lining things up. This girl has a future in architecture.

TANGLED... not the movie

Kids playing happily in the living room. I duck out for 2 minutes to grab an outfit for the day.

"Mommy! Mommy!!! Come help us! We're stuck in the cord!"

I come out to find that they have grabbed a cord from under the TV console and somehow managed to do this. Then I take photos. You know you do it too.

Don't worry. I freed them after a few shots.

KOOK STYLE: shopping with Nana

 This girl can whip out some cheesy smiles.

 Chuuuuunk!

The best of the photos I took of them together... the little man was flopping all over the place. He's on the move these days. No time for mama to take photos of him.

On the little man: blue chinos [H&M] - striped onesie [American Apparel] - cardi [H&M] - beanie [77kids]

On the kook: sweater leggings [H&M] - floral shirt [H&M] - cardi [Anthropologie] - beanie [made by Auntie H]

Happy Halloween! Nothing spoooky to share here. We're a couple of fuddy-duddies. Yes, I'm aware just using that phrase proves the point.

It was cool socks and beanies weather in the house yesterday morning. I haven't broken out the heater yet, but those days aren't too far away... hopefully. We've had some days in the 80s in the last few weeks and it's totally throwing me off. I'll have a day in comfy fall clothes, burning my fall candles, and then the next day will be 80 and I'll be in shorts and wondering what fun summer holds... yeah, it's messing with my brain. I hope fall weather takes off before fall is over! My boots keep sending me longing stares as I pass them by to wear flats. Poor boots. I miss you too.

We went on a little shopping trip with Nana yesterday to get the kook a children's Bible because we are dedicating the kooks at church on Sunday. The gal was in awe of the Veggie Tales section at the store and all things Christmas related. She had to touch everything and shout "Look, guys! Look!" when she made a new discovery. It took 4 times as long to shop with a toddler leading the way, but it was worth it to hear how "beautiful" everything was and see her make a stack of Bibles up to her waist.

I'm thinking of and praying for all of you affected by Sandy! Stay safe and dry!