Oh the weather outside...

Is a little too warm for this time of year! Not that I'm complaining, it just feels a little weird chopping down your Christmas tree in sunny 65 degree weather. I guess it's better than having to lie down in a big ole' pile of snow and ice! It was kind of a spur of the moment decision to get our tree today, Matt is super sick and we thought it would be better to go today than have to deal with crowds tomorrow. Plus, it's right up the road from our house, so it was really easy to get there and back in between Ari's naps.











It is the absolute most perfect tree I have ever had! It's a Leyland Cypress which means there are no needles to poke the crap out of your (er, my) arms while decorating! It smells so yummy, just like Christmas should smell. We're going to decorate it tomorrow, light a fire in the fireplace, drink hot chocolate and listen to holiday music. It's a new tradition I want to pass down to Ari and Matt and I are both pretty excited about it.

I think Ari's getting bored with his "baby" toys, we are in serious need of some upgrades. I took him to Target with me today and let him pick out something new. He picked the Fisher Price Little People dump truck. It's so cute, the little man driving twists back and forth when you push it. Ari just likes to take the "dirt" out of the back and put in back in over and over. We are going to get him more of them for Christmas, he's just having so much fun with it. The poor child hasn't gotten any new toys in months and now that he's practically walking he is completely uninterested in anything he has.

I'm going to hit the scrap table tonight, I've not been able to complete a layout since before Thanksgiving and I really need to. My December Crop Addict kit will be here next week and I haven't even used the November one yet. Oops. Enjoy your Friday night, I'll be back with more photos tomorrow!

Kisses from Ari

You should pause my music player before you watch. Just scroll down and click on the pause button twice! Then come back up and watch Ari send you some kisses!!

Tissues, NyQuil and Cough Drops... Oh My!

I think I'm finally starting to get over this cold. I'm still stuffy and coughing but it's definately not as bad today as it has been! Unfortunately Matt is sick now though, so it's not all the way out of the house yet. We've both been taking medicine around the clock, drinking tons of fluids and I bought an entire box of clementines to pump up our vitamin C intake! Despite our ickyness we were able to hang the curtains I bought yesterday in our front room. The front room is very multi-purpose for us; it's where Ari plays, I scrap, Matt computes and we all watch TV. Needless to say we spend a LOT of time in here and it's just now starting to feel like home!



After the curtains were up I sat down at my very messy scrap table and made my advent calendar. I found it at Target, it's a kit from Making Memories. It came with the plain red box, pre cut patterened papers, buttons, holly leaves, poinsettias and rub-ons. I love how it turned out, I still have a little bit of sanding and inking to do but other than that it's done, and it only took about an hour!!



I've never had an advent calendar but I love the idea of chocolates every day!! Speaking of chocolates, I bought Matt a box yesterday to thank him for everything he's been doing around here this past week. He jumped right in and took care of Ari, the house and me while I was sick. I literally did nothing for two days and it was fabulous! He was pretty excited about the chocolates, half the box is gone already! Guess it's my turn to take care of him now... maybe I will get some candy too!

We are going to be lazy tonight, much like the rest of our week. It's Thursday which means CSI and ER for me. Matt got a new computer game at Target the other day so I'm sure he'll be glued to the screen for the rest of the night. I have some scrapping to do tomorrow, not to mention cleaning this house. Brian (the brother) gets here Monday and I don't want to have to clean while he's here!!

'Tis the season

Yesterday I dug through the boxes in the garage for my holiday decorations. I've only found half of them, I really hope the other half turn up. Of course, the missing boxes have all the good stuff in them, my favorite ornaments, the tree skirt, stockings and ribbon. Anyway, here's what I've done so far...





Sorry if the photos are blurry, my head is still a little blurry too! Matt is coming down with this cold now too, which sucks because he goes back to work tomorrow! It's a short trip though, his two week vacations starts Saturday at 5pm!!! I can't wait, we have so much work to do around here. I picked up some curtains today for our front room, I wanted to hang them tonight but it's already 10:45 so we will most likely wait until the morning.

I'm going to brew a large cup of tea, eat some chocolate and go to bed! Doesn't get much better than that...

My Voice Is Gone...

This has to be the worst cold I've had in a few years! I had to sleep on the sofa last night because if I tried to lay flat in bed I couldn't breathe. I'm sure Matt was awake until I came downstairs from my sniffling and coughing [sorry about that]. We picked up some more medicine today at Target, hopefully I can double up on the NyQuil and actually get some sleep tonight.

In my fogginess yesterday I completely forgot to post the picture of my Label Tulip kit that came while I was in Louisville, so here you go!



As I said before, if you like what you see (hopefully you can see it, I think I forgot to photoshop it) you should head over lickety split. These babies sell out within minutes and they are offering the chance to preorder their December kit!

I love this photo of Dick and Ari, I had to sneak it in here. My little guy is definately a "Grandpa's Boy" and he's going through withdrawl today! He's been a little on the fussy side for most of the day. That might have something to do with the fact that our flight was delayed 4 hours. He was a trooper though, only cried once and slept the entire flight!



He had his first taste of Starbucks! I'm only kidding, the cup was totally empty. All he wanted was to take my cup while I was drinking so Sharon rinsed hers out and gave it to him. He had a great time chewing it up!



I am really going through scrap withdrawl. I got a really cool advent calendar to alter today, I have tons of ideas for it. I still need to finish my Thanksgiving mini album and Dick took like 400 photos this past week that will go perfect with my LT kit! Oh, and I still have my 2008 calendar to finish too (um, I've only done one month, shh..). Yikes, I better get off here and get moving...

A Blustery Day...

I feel icky. My throat is super sore, I took NyQuil last night and snoozed until 9:30 this morning. Matt's parents were super nice and took care of Ari this morning so I could catch a few more z's. Ari was super nice and slept all night, until 7 this morning. I think he may be feeling a little punk too, he took almost seven hours worth of naps today and was in bed by 7 tonight. Huh, that's a lot of 7's... anyway, Sharon thinks he's teething, Dick thinks he has "baby jet-lag" and I think he's coming down with something. Either way, he's super cranky and sleepy... maybe it's a combination of all three. We go home tomorrow so hopefully we will all be back to normal very soon!

I had tons of great photos to post from Turkey Day but somehow deleted every last one of them (there were 800). I have them on a disk, it's just going to take me FOREVER to get them back on the laptop.

My Label Tulip kit came here yesterday, I asked the lovely ladies there to send it to me here in Louisville so I could make sure it didn't sit on my porch all week. I can't wait to dig it, it's full of goodies!! If you like what you see you should head over there pretty quickly... the kits sell out super fast and they are taking pre-orders for December right now. I've been a member since September and have yet to be disappointed, their stuff is very eclectic and fun!

Sharon and I went to The Summit today, it's a shopping area very close to their house. I needed a few things from J.Crew and Sharon needed some candles for her holiday mantle display. We were in Pier 1 and I found the perfect ornament for Ari for Christmas this year. We plan on getting him an ornament every year then giving him the entire collection when he gets married (in 30 years...). I'm even going to take it a step further and make an album of all of them explaining why I picked that particular ornament. The story behind this years ornament is 1. That it's super cute 2. It has a cute silk keepsake box and 3. It's called "Li Bien" which in Chinese means "inside". The Li Bien ornament showcases the age old skill of inside painting. Each ornament is hand painted through a tiny opening in the mouth blown glass making them unique. I tried to take a picture, my camera wasn't doing a very good job so Dick took some pics and will send them to me via email first thing tomorrow. The ornament is dated with the year so we will always know which Christmas it was for!

I would have loved to have shopped more today, I found so many neat things but my suitcase is overflowing as it is! That, and it started raining while we were out and the shopping center is open-air. Brian and I are hitting the mall hard when he gets to my house next week, I will do some serious damage to the checking account then!

Last but not least, my RAK drawing!!! I pulled a name from Dick's hat earlier today and the lucky winner was Michelle Lloyd (aka. Michelle & Ella)!! Luckily she lives in my town so I don't have to mail anything, you can pick it up at my house this week!! I have lots of goodies, I will post a picture of the super fun prize pack when we get home.

I think I'm gonna go to bed, my throat is still pretty sore. The NyQuil is calling my name, tomorrow is going to be another long day, our flight leaves at 3:30 arriving in Charlotte at 5 and we have to wait for Matt to help us with all the baby travel gear. Then it's straight home for eternity... hehe ;) Well, home for two weeks until we go to Florida to visit my dad!

Whew, Too Many Turkeys...

I am exhausted! This has been one crazy week, I'm glad it's finally starting to wind down. Thanksgiving with Matt's parents was incredible!! So good, in fact, that I ate it twice! We had dinner fairly early with Andy and Landon (Matt's step brother and our nephew) so they could hit the road back to Indianapolis. Matt's other step brother, Adam, his wife Tenley and their son Camden came down later that day for a quick visit. I've never met either of the boys, it was so nice to have two days with Landon, he and Ari played together very well since they are only three months apart. He's a total cutie too, I think I took more photos of him than Ari!







Camden and Ari didn't play so well together, Camden was tired and he's five months older and used to playing with bigger babies. It got a little rough and I had to be a "smother" and hold Ari back. It's fine with me though, and it was nice to finally meet my nephew.

My brother happened to be driving right through on his way up to Ohio so he stopped for some dinner (thus my second meal) and ended up staying the night. He'd been driving for twelve hours and was beat. We got up early this morning and hit the road for Dayton. We had brunch with Kenny (my brothers best friend)and Ashley and their son Benjamin before heading to my grandma's.

That's where the fun began! Her house is her house, not exactly meant for babies so it was hard to keep Ari and her things safe. That combined with the eight or so older kids running around and it was a madhouse! Too loud for what Ari is used to which meant no nap and a very cranky little boy. We had to leave very shortly after eating so he could catch a nap in the car. He had a rough evening but is sound asleep in the pack-n-play. Brian is staying with me tonight, we ordered Donato's [YUM] and have devoured nearly the whole pizza in less than 15 minutes!! We're going to watch some tv and catch up on all the events that have passed since I last saw him, it's going to be just like old times!!