Category Archives: Family

Merry Christmas! : 2012

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Today marks the day when all the craziness of the holidays ends! Hopefully…

I hope everyone who celebrates any of the December holidays had a great month! I can’t wait to get back to my normal, everyday schedule. I have so much to share.

(oh and to explain a bit about why CT has TWO of the same pez in the above photo… I apparently have been really absent minded lately and bought two of the same thing. I didn’t realize it until Christmas eve, while wrapping. So I wrapped them together, and we told her she got twin pez dispensers. SHE WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT IT!.)

CT’s 3rd Birthday!!

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This past weekend was CT’s 3rd Birthday! Finally. I feel like I’ve been planning and making for this party for way too long. This is really the first year she’s aware of everything going on around her, so I wanted to make the day awesome!.

We invited a bunch of our friends and family, and ended up having ten kids show up total!! Only one couldn’t make it, not bad right? Especially for a winter birthday party, where you assume someone (or everyone) would be sick.

The theme for the party was CUPCAKES! Decorating cupcakes to be exact…

My original plan was to let the kids ice the cupcakes themselves and then decorate them with any of the numerous toppings we had. As the party grew closer I realized a lot of the kids that would be attending were younger than CT, so the icing part might just be a huge mess. So we iced the cupcake beforehand, that way all they had to worry about were the toppings.

I have been collecting sprinkles and cupcake liners for awhile, with no real purpose, until this party! I was able to provide 25 different types of toppings. There were colored sugars, candies in the shape of mickey and the aliens from Toy Story, dinosaur and snowflake sprinkles, long sprinkles, metallic sprinkles, two different types of cereal and more. I made sure to have every color of the rainbow, so each kid could use their favorite.

I also made a small batch of cotton candy buttercream in pink and blue, and small squeeze bottles with them. That way the older kids could draw on their cupcakes if they wanted.

It was really fun watching the kids all sit down nicely, put their chef hats on (I’ll talk about those in another post) and then go crazy decorating. A few of the younger ones couldn’t wait to decorate and just ate the cupcakes right away, but I made a bunch so they decorated their second one.

A lot of the adults were convinced our dining room would be a disaster afterwards. They were so wrong, most of the mess stayed on the table (which I covered in kraft paper) and hardly anything hit the ground. We had a very careful bunch of kids!! Seriously parents, your kids are all so nice!!

After all the decorating everyone was encouraged to eat from the buffet (that our families helped cook), let their little ones burn off some of the sugar they ingested, and then settle down before CT started opening gifts.

There are loads of great photos of her opening her gifts, she really makes the best faces!! I just figured 13 photos was already too many for one post, even if it IS a birthday post! Oh and while I’m kinda on the topic about photos, how awesome are these? My little sister Ashley took them for me, that way I didn’t miss anything. She also edited them before sending them over, super awesome of her! Thanks Ash!

The party went way better than I expected, and I’m beyond grateful for everyone who came. Thank you to you all, you really made CT’s birthday extra special!! Also thank you to all of our family members who helped out, I really couldn’t have made it through this day without you guys. It was all a lot of fun, and I wouldn’t change a thing. CT loved it all and keeps talking about it. We did all catch a cold, but it was totally worth it!

I still have a two more posts coming up about the decorating, goody bags and sweets, so keep an eye out!

 

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Thanksgiving: 2012

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So this past week, we had TWO Thanksgivings! One on Thursday at my uncles house for my side of the family, and then one this past Saturday at our house for my husbands side of the family. I didn’t take any pictures Thursday, I was too busy catching up with my sister and grandmother. I miss seeing them.

Like I said, Saturday was at our house and I had this huge plan to have a beautiful set table. Well, I forgot about a tablecloth, and it started to get a bit hectic before setting the table so everything was kinda just thrown together. Oh and to add to it, I had my camera set on a high ISO and my camera battery died after taking the above photos! Grrrr. So I was unable to get all the pictures I wanted. (I did also get the Instagram photo below before my phone died too!! haha!) I was told all the food tasted great, (I was only able to eat the foods that were gluten free) and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, so I’m guessing that means we did everything right as hosts!

I’m very thankful I was able to spend time with all our families, and I’m also very thankful for a reason to clean the house! It’s so clean I’m afraid to do anything to make it a mess again. CT on the other hand has no problem making messes.

The rest of this week I plan on sewing, sewing and sewing some more. I have huge plans for handmade Christmas gifts this year and I’m only halfway through finishing the first one. I also need to start putting together everything for CT’s third birthday in two week. It’s her first themed party, and were planning on a bunch of kids coming. So I need to make it all super fun!!

Oh and a friendly reminder, our Cyber Monday sale is still going on! 25% off everything in the shop, and all orders over $50 will receive a free accessory set!! It all ends tonight at midnight EST.

 

Holiday Decorating Early.

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Last week we decided we wanted to get a new Christmas tree. We have been using the same tree since our first apartment together 9 years ago. It was bought on clearance after the holidays, and was pretty much the only one we could find. It was a little short, and a little sparse, but it always looked super cute when we put all of our ornaments on it. You can see a photo of it from last year (CT is really cute and tiny in the photos too!!). The reason we decided to upgrade was because we felt it would be nice to have a bigger tree, since we have such large ceilings. Plus we found the perfect tree for us by accident and needed an excuse to buy it. Ha.

The new tree is 7.5 foot, instead of 6 foot. It has those plastic feeling branches on the outside and tinsel on the inside instead of tinsel all over. Oh and the best part… The lights are LED’s and can switch from colored lights to white lights!! That last part is what sold me and made me spend my hard earned cash on a new tree! I’m a sucker for new technology.

We apparently waited to long to buy it, and ended up with the floor model. Which bring me to why we set it up so early. Since we bought the floor model, it didn’t come with a box. So our options were to have a huge tree in pieces in the middle of the library, or set it up! We set it up, and of course I couldn’t have a naked tree standing around. So we decorated it too! CT’s decorating skills have improved greatly since last year. She put ornaments on the bottom half of the tree, and I did the top half for the most part. JC had to put the star on, I’m just too short.

I’m happy the main tree is up, along with a few other decorations. It’s been slowly lifting my spirits. Everything is so shiny and bright. I still have my white tree to put up, but I’ going to wait until after CT’s birthday in mid December. That way I have more space in our dining room for the party! Which I really need to start preparing for…

Has anyone else already set up their tree, or decorated for the holidays? Or am I the only crazy one?

 

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My Extended Weekend: Very Little Sleep and a Movie

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This past week has been pretty stressful. My husband was on call in addition to his regular work schedule. So we weren’t really able to go out, and there was the possibility he would have to go in at any minute. He luckily wasn’t called in at all during the week, but he was called in non stop the entire weekend. Middle of the night, early in the morning, seriously non stop. We were all on edge, and lacking sleep. I already wasn’t feeling like myself lately, so this just added to it…

One good thing that came out of it all was since he worked so much during the weekend, he was able to take off yesterday. We used the day to actually do some fun stuff! We went out to eat, did a teeny bit of thrifting (I found a Disneyland cookie jar and CT found loads of books), some “window shopping” and we saw a movie!! Everything was nice, but that movie was great!!

We don’t really have a way of going to the movies often, timing is just never right. If we want to go, it has to be a kids movie that all three of us want to see. It pretty much has to be cartoon and can’t be scary. We learned our lesson about scary when we saw Brave, I still haven’t seen the second half (though I did buy the dvd this past week, so I’ll know what happens soon) Anyway, we decided to check out Wreck it Ralph.

CT has been asking to go see this movie for months now! It’s been hard explaining that movies come out at different times, sometimes in theaters, sometimes on DVD. She’s starting to catch on. We didn’t tell her we were seeing Wreck it Ralph until we bought the tickets, just in case. She was excited once we got in. We all were, ha. Truthfully we’ve all been looking forward to seeing this movie, and I’m so glad we did.

It was seriously one of the best Disney movies I’ve seen in a long time. The characters were all done so well, and the story kept your attention the entire time. They were able to make you feel something for the bad guy, the main character Ralph. You wanted him to be the hero! CT loved Venelope the best, of course. She was adorable!! I won’t get into the full story line here, because I really feel that anyone reading this should see this movie! It has a nice retro feel, it has loads of video game references from different decades, it has a little love story and a hero’s quest! Perfect! I loved it so much I MAY try and convince the family to go see it again. Maybe when it’s at the $2 theatre.

Now it’s Tuesday and my week is about to get crazy. We are headed to my uncles for thanksgiving on Thursday, and I said I’d make a pie and some macarons. Then we are hosting our own Thanksgiving for my husband’s side of the family on Saturday, which involves a lot of cleaning, prepping, baby proofing and baking too. I’m also hoping to get some antique shopping in on Friday during a huge sale at one of our favorite shops. It will be my only plan for Black Friday. Hopefully.

I hope everyone else is having a calmer week than me, and a great time with family!!

(the above two photos were courtesy of disney.com)

 

My Weekend: Pumpkins and Candy

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We were a little late getting around to doing pumpkins this year. We were all still getting over being sick from vacation. Saturday was our towns day for Trick or Treating, so we knew we had to get them done. No more procrastinating. The pumpkins were from our trip to the pumpkin patch last weekend. Originally we were going to cut three of the large ones and let CT paint her little one. But the light pink one that I picked out (and forgot to take a picture of) was just too pretty to cut into. So we ended up only cutting two of them, and CT still painted her, as you can see above! She loved the painting part, but hated the getting paint on her part. Ha!

Here is her finished pumpkin…

… and these were the ones we cut. Mine is on the left and JC’s is on the right! (above photo, their switched in the bottom photo)

CT couldn’t make up her mind about what she wanted to be, everyday was something new. Towards the end of last week I asked if she would like to be Alice again, and she freaked out and said YES! So that what she was. This time I had her hair down, with a little black ribbon as a headband. I also put her in tights since it’s a bit cooler here than Florida. She was really eager to get ready and loved that everywhere knew who she was!! (If you’re interested in the pattern to make your own Alice dress, check out my post about it)

I was originally going to go trick or treating as a mounted deer head mask thingy I found. But last minute decided to dress as a hip Mad Hatter. It was actually my husbands idea by the way. I already had the hat from a Disneyland trip years ago, plus most of my clothes are brightly colored. Also, lucky for me, I forgot to straighten and do all that fancy stuff to my hair, so it was a huge curly mess. Perfect. Next year I’ll wear my deer head, and maybe JC can be a plush hunter or something.

We live in a new construction neighborhood, and were early moving in. So last year there were hardly any house. This year there were loads (apparently it was a good year for the builders). Loads of houses meant loads of candy! CT’s bucket got heavy halfway through, and we had to help her carry it all. Last year I was able to explain to tell CT that candy was only for looking at, so I didn’t have a super hyper kid running around. This year she caught on and ATTACKED her bucket the second we got back to the house. I don’t think she went to bed until about midnight Saturday. It was worth it, she had so much fun and can’t wait for next year!!

On a side note… we took advantage of the fact that she was wide awake Saturday night, and took an impromptu trip to the grocery store to get a bunch of dry goods in preparation for Hurricane Sandy! It wasn’t crazy at all. Yep, I’m going to talk about that… we live in Maryland and are in the path of the storm. Were expected to get loads of rain, winds over 80mph (we get bad wind to start with here) and possibly some snow. The power will most likely be out by late tonight. Our power is finicky as it is. I have one more blog post scheduled for tomorrow, but after that if you don’t see anything here it’s because we don’t have power! I hope all my east coast friends out there are doing ok, and are safe in their homes!! I’m also hoping it’s not as bad as expected, because really, were not prepared for this!! We moved to the mountains expecting just to worry about rain and blizzards. Instead in the past two years we’ve had two tornados, an earthquake, a tropical storm and now a hurricane. What is going on?!?

Anyway, again, be safe everyone!! and Happy Halloween, just in case I can’t say it on Wednesday.

 

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