Tag: family

Easy Christmas Decorations

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Holy cats. This Christmas has been screaming towards us like a Mack truck. I feel like we’ve been scrambling from the get go to catch up / get ahead of this holiday. When we were putting up decorations, I realized one of my favorite things is one of the simplest. It’s  a trifle dish full or ornaments surrounded by a fresh, live wreath. And this past weekend, I found a banner that cascades out of the middle that really is the icing on the cake – er, trifle. And really, it’s so something that Kristin Thomson at www.oneprettyplace.com could whip up lickety split.

Ali Hearts Coffee

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I love making mini Christmas trees. They are so fun to dream up,  to create and so fun to give as gifts. Peter’s mom and dad are both UofA grads as well so their tree is a UofA theme with all four of our graduation pictures as ornaments. My mom has one with an ornament for each of the kid’s family’s. I have aspirations to make one for Bay with a picture from each Christmas, but I haven’t found the right inspiration yet. But I did find inspiration with some coffee…

My sister, Ali, has always been a lover of Starbucks. She even worked there for a short stint in high school. I knew she had been collecting the mini ornaments they sell at the holidays so I asked her to bring all that she had and compiled them all into a tree.

I usually pick up a box of three, mini, prelit trees from Michaels in the after Christmas sale. So I had the perfect little 14 inch tree for the project. I tied on the ornaments, glued on some bells, tied on pretty ribbon and found the perfect espresso cup as the topper. I also found a mini tree skirt at Target – perfect!

Lettuce Eat

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Remember this post about the lettuce table that PW built for me? Well it’s back and better than ever! Bay and I planted seeds about 5 weeks ago and they are growing like weeds. I think we are some fertilizer and a week away from eating like rabbits for every meal. The best part is that Bay is totally persuaded to eat because she grew it!

 

 

Cookies Gone Wrong

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Yesterday afternoon, Bay and I put on some Christmas music, lit a cinnamon candle and fired up the oven to make some Christmas cookies.  B was thrilled to play in the left over dough, flour and sprinkles while the cookies cooked. It was a lovely afternoon.

That is until two cookies escaped the baking sheet and dropped into the oven where they broke into a million pieces. Crap. I decided to just close the door and let it cool before I attempted to clean them up. Until the kitchen began to fill with smoke.

“Why not let it self clean??” I thought. So I put on the self clean setting and returned to icing the trees. Until I noticed that it appeared we had a yule log in our kitchen…yup the cookies had ignited in the oven. I quickly turned off the oven and stepped back trying to decide what to do next – get the extinguisher? Call 911? As I contemplated, the fire quickly went out. Bay casually looked over from her sprinkling duties and said “Mommy, there’s a fire in the oven”. Yes, yes there is kiddo.

Despite our house smelling like a camp fire, all is well. The oven cooled and is no worse for the wear (I think). I cleaned out the chunks of cookie and it is now happily self-cleaning (I think). The windows are open, the fans are going and there are holiday scented candles burning so hopefully by this afternoon there will be no evidence of our almost fiasco.

When my cousin Will arrived last night to watch UofA and eat us out of house and home (I was prepared with 3 lbs of tacos) I told him what had happened. He responded “what’s with you guys and fire??” – referring to the grill fire of 2009. It’s nice to have family who cares about you.

On the bright side, the cookies were delicious! Chef Mini Wand does it again!

The Chef hard at work.

Check out that post nap hair.

Much like shoes, you just can’t have too many sprinkles.

Give a Little – Or a Lot

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When Baylor was a baby, I sat crying while watching  a story on the news about families in need. They described a mom asking for help when she did not have enough formula left to feed her starving 3 month old.

I couldn’t help but think about Baylor. When she needed a bottle in the middle of the night, I was annoyed having to get out of my warm bed and make a bottle. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head – what if I didn’t have formula? And what if I didn’t have the money to buy more? What if my sweet little girl was hungry and I knew there was nothing I could give her to fill her belly. It crushed me.

This is one of the reasons I love The Crisis Nursery. It is an amazing organization that provides relief to families that are stuck in the middle – families that have more income that what qualifies them for aid, but too little to really survive. And to families who are victims of violence.  They provide food, a warm bed, toys, counseling and other aid for parents, kids and families.

It’s important all year to give to amazing organizations like this – but it’s especially important around the holidays so that these special kiddos get the Christmas they deserve. When you look at their wish list, they need baby wipes before they need toys. Socks and underwear. Shoes and soap. That’s where the donations go first so they need extra to be able to give toys and gifts to the kids as well.

If you have some extra – or even if you don’t – consider giving to a great charity this season to make someone’s Christmas brighter. Monetary donations or of items are great ways to help – I think it’s never too young to start. Bay and I did a clean out of her toys and we talked about how we were going to give them to kids who really needed them. At first, she was hesitant to let go. But after a few minutes she was lovingly kissing a few toys good-bye and placing them in a bag saying “you’re going to someone who really needs you!”.

We are all so fortunate to have what we have so lets spread it around.

Here are some of my favorites:

The Crisis Nursery: http://www.crisisnurseryphx.org/index.htm

Circle the City: http://circlethecity.org/

Pets on Wheels: http://www.petsonwheelsscottsdale.org

Tree Hunting

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Peter finally convinced me this year to go up North and cut down a Christmas tree. I have always been opposed because his plans involved me sitting in the back seat with a squirmy, crying  kiddo while getting motion sick for 5 hours while he sipped hot chocolate, sang along to Christmas songs and drove his oh-so-precious truck.

He agreed to move the location to a much more reasonable destination and went the first day permits were available to ensure that we got the right area. The plan was that we would drive up just north of Payson, get our tree, eat a picnic brunch and head back while the munchkin napped. When I told our friends Beth and Grant of our plans, the wanted to join. So now we would have a party for our Griswold style tree hunting. We were certain it would be a disaster, but hopefully a hilarious disaster.

Sadly, Mother Nature had other plans. She decided to dump 2 feet of snow on the usually dry area the day before our trip. After looking at the web cams and the road conditions, we decided it wasn’t safe to risk an accident or getting stuck. So we opted for church, breakfast and tree hunting at a lot with our friends.

PW and I each can’t remember the last time we had a real tree. We have an awesome, pre-lit version that is so easy we just always go with that. But the live version is pretty great – we bought from a local nursery and the thing might as well have been cut down by us it’s so fresh! Here are the highlights:

Getting her in place.

Uncle Grant ATTACK!!!

Aunt Beth 🙂

Straightening it out…again. It only fell over twice.

Ta da!! I was trying to get tricky with my camera to get lots of light, but it didn’t quite pan out…

Who is that teenie, tiny lady?!

Old School

From the time I was little, I remember Mame had this on her dresser.

I’ve actually done a good job of making a photo ornament for each year. I love looking at all of them!

BFFs

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Baylor’s new things are favorites and bests. As in her favorite song, animal and meal and bests friends.

She is constantly asking me if the song we’re listening is my favorite, or if my shoes are my favorite pair, or if my car is my favorite car. And in turn, she tells me when she’s wearing her favorite outfit, hair bows and Bear the dog.

After a weekend spent with her step cousins, soon to be cousin and second cousins (yes, we are the actual Big Fat Greek wedding family – just English decent), Baylor is into picking her best friends. On Thursday, it was her cousin Madi. Then her cousin Zoe. On Saturday, it was her cousin Abby. And on Sunday, it was me.

While getting ready for bed, B looked at me and sincerely said “Mommy, you mine best friend”. My heart melted. I reciprocated and told her she was my best friend and she responded with “No mommy, you mine best friend”. There was no need to argue. It was better to just snuggle up with my BFF.

Giving Thanks

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Holy moly. It’s been a crazy week! Thanksgiving was one of the best yet  – after 5 years of hosting, I think we have feeding 20+ down to a science. We’ve gotten to see and spend time with old friends and lots of extended family. Baylor is officially BFFs with her second cousin, Abby. And is solidly convinced that her (step) cousins are the best.

Mother Nature threatened, once again, to rain on our parade. I literally stepped out onto our patio with my hands on my hips just daring her to keep sprinkling all over my beautifully set table. Thankfully, I have a very convincing “mom stare” and she backed off before my linens were soaked. In fact, the sun came out by the time all of our family and friends arrived with side dishes in hand. PW’s turkeys were the best he’s ever made and the entire evening was…relaxed. The everyone ate and then sat and enjoyed the beautiful Arizona weather, candle light and kid’s laughter.

{Mother Nature threatening to ruin my table!}

{Chef Wand}

{Chef Wand’s Turkeys}

{Titi and cousin Zoe}

{The hungry crowd}

{How many kids can you fit on a toddlers climber?}

{this many!}

{How do you make tree climbing more interesting? Do it in a tree not really meant for climbing and add fire!}

{A sweet note from cousin Madi about being thankful}

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too! I am very thankful for you reading, commenting and liking my humble blog 🙂

Say Cheese

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I have been on the hunt for a photographer that fit into our budget to take family pictures for us. I love pictures and I like when I get to be in them, which doesn’t often happen when I’m the one taking all the pictures! Plus, I love the candid shots and retouching of professional work.

Awhile ago I “liked” a friend from high school’s photography page – 2 Comforts Photography. I thought she did mostly wedding work but recently saw some family pics pop up. So I reached out to Meredith for a quote and it turned out that not only were her rates increadibly reasonable, they were having a special AND had openings! Jackpot!

So we met a few weekends ago at Civic Center Park and spent an hour snapping pics. I have to say that Bay was quite cooperative. She did start to loose it towards the end of the hour, but Meredith and her husband Travis were able to catch some great shots during that phase. Needless to say, I am thrilled with pictures and I can’t wait to get them up on the wall!

Here are a few of my favorites:

 

This is the epitome of our relationship – we just follow her lead!

Act surprised when you get our Christmas card, ok?

I love this one

This was when we started entering the uncooperative phase. Thankfully she looks cute when she’s being defiant.

Thank you again Meredith and Travis for the gorgeous family treasures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commitment (breaking) Phob

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I was supposed to run the 5k portion of the Women’s Half Marathon this past Sunday. Read “supposed to”. I contracted Baylor’s croup sometime Thursday and by Saturday night, I was feeling miserable. Coughing, sore throat and just a general feeling of crap. I was set that I had to run on Sunday morning and would just battle through it. I had made a commitment to run and damn it, I’m tough.

Around 10pm Saturday and after a major coughing fit, PW sweetly looked at me and said “please don’t get mad. But I really think you should skip the run tomorrow”. And damn it if he’s not right that I would have gotten mad if he hadn’t said it. At first I refused. But after I thought about another week of feeling crummy, I decided he was right. I had to skip it. I sadly texted Stephanie (who finished 13 out of like 2000 runners!!!) that I was out for the run and for our breakfast plans after.

I woke up Sunday around 7:15 and felt…human. I didn’t feel horrible. PW and Bay ventured out to Bosa Doughnuts  and we sat on the couch, watched CBS Sunday morning, ate fresh doughnuts and bacon, drank coffee and turned on the fireplace for the first time this season. I’m not sure if it was the uninterrupted family time, the doughnuts or the sleep that made me feel so much better.

It got me thinking that I get too uptight about keeping commitments. Yes, it’s important to follow through. To go to the events that you’ve RSVP’d for, to complete the race, to finish the project. But sometimes it equally if not more important to cancel and stay in. To say no to the world and yes to snuggling your family on the couch.