Christmas Traditions

As my first daughter has gotten older, I have decided to instill some traditions around Christmas that will be fun for years to come. Here are some that we have started!

Oh yeah, you know you like my Christmas card display technique :)

 Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls. AKA- the best thing ever invented. With a LOT of butter. They are amazing! Olivia got to stay up late one night to help me do it.

Salt dough ornaments. I wrote the date on the best 5 or so, and figure we will make some each year. It was really easy, and super fun!

This Christmas was amazing! I will try to make a few posts about it, then we'll move on to my New Year's resolutions, once of which is to blog at least 3 times a week! And maybe spend some effort on trying to get some new followers. We shall see!

Merry Christmas- Some adorableness here!

If you love the girls' outfits, check out my BFFs shop here! She does awesome work, and for a great price! Tie knot dresses, ruffle pants, aprons, and whatever else you could think of really!

Wordless Wednesday- Merry Christmas!!

There's no denying it now...

We have a real live walker. 6 months earlier than Olivia walked... We are in trouble! That said, I can't wait til this summer! They will both be able to do so much fun stuff!!!

Express Happy House Challenge Plus Week 3

The Happy House Challenge is going well! I am actually sticking to it! Now that I realize I have 11 adults and 6 kids coming for Thanksgiving, I am glad I joined in :)

This week was bathrooms.... I have three full baths in my house. One is the master, the other is the kids', and the other is the guest bath. Two of those are used a ton. So this was not that much fun! I only took pictures of the master, as it was sort of silly to do the others. They mostly just got cleaned in general. So it seems, the master bath was in dire need of a good organizing! 

Dramatic results to follow :)

Kid junk everywhere. And just way too much clutter on the counters

Wordless Wednesday

Growing up so fast!

How is my baby already grasping language!? And telling me no!? Like I don't hear that enough from the 3 year old :)

Annnnd, she speaks!

And funny as it is, that was big sister's first word too :) I am trying to upload that video, but it isn't working :(

In other news, Ava has her FOURTH ear infection, and this one's a doozy. We are getting a referral to an ENT, to discuss tubes. I am not thrilled about that, but I am definitely thrilled with the idea that she could stop getting them so often.

Happy 9 months Ava!

Express Happy House Challenge Plus Week 2

I am linking up again with My Happy House for the challenge! It has really been good to have some direction to getting things super clean and orderly. So the challenge this week was the dining area. This was a little easier than last week, but of course I still didn't get it all done :( Oh well! It is still better!

Let's all keep in mind that I work at home, painting for my ETSY shop. So this table is my work space. So no matter what, this area will always have some clutter. I have no idea where else to set up, so until that happens, here it will be. 

Before- this picture makes me really want to change my light fixture. It's so bleh. I didn't put it there, but I never gave it much thought until now...

I added this to my challenge. It is a little cabinet under my island, and it is filled with crap, as you can see.

After

After

After

The daily challenges were to pick up one room of the house each night, and sweep the floors. Well, I feel like I got to opt out of those because I already did it. I sweep every day and mop almost every day. These dark bamboo floors, 2 dogs, crawling baby, 3 year old, enough said. And as far as picking up a room each night, I straighten the living area/kitchen every night before bed already. I can't stand waking up to toys, dishes, etc. So I vote 7/7 for me on completing that!

This week, it's bathrooms...... 3 full baths for me..... this will be fun :(~ But it needs to be done!

Happy Home Challenge

This week, I joined up with Mrs.CFH2 at My Happy House and her Express Happy House Challenge. I know this seems dorky to some of you. And maybe it is. But this dorkiness, it's kind of my job. My main job is this:

 But the rest of it, is this:

Super old picture. The bushes in front are SOOOO huge now. In kind of a bad way. Next project....

It is hard to keep it looking nice, especially with the two little ones, but it is important! It makes me feel useful and happy to keep things clean, and attempt to cook nice meals (sometimes). So that said, here are my before and after pictures! I have to say, I didn't get to all of the things on the list, but I feel like I made a good dent :)

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

I had a helper :)

I chose to tackle only the worst cabinets. I did wipe them all down though, and clean out the fridge, as well as do the window stuff. There are other cabinets that need help, but hey, I had a sick baby for a week in the middle of this! And a 3 year old, being herself....

Oh How Pinteresting

I got sucked in. It was inevitable. But I swear I may be a better mom because of it. It's Pinterest. It's amazing. My favorite things to "do" on there. Arrange the girls' Christmas lists. Arrange mine.... Look for crafty toddler ideas. New recipes. Crafty/home stuff. Fun Christmas ideas. That is my main thing so far. Oh, and Ava's birthday party planning. Cause you know, she's 8 months old, and the party is like, practically tomorrow.

So here are some things I have done. I have done more, but not taken pictures of it all.

 

Buffalo Chicken slow cooker thing. It was good, but spicy! I need to reduce tha amount of wing sauce next time, for sure!

 Some idea to keep the toddler busy for a while. It worked pretty well!

 "Arm" fall trees. Super cute!

 Stinking adorable idea <3 Taking a picture of your girls in your wedding dress. Perhaps replicating it with their own wedding! Like this one, of me and Olivia. Pretty sure we will have that same picture taken at her wedding. In 45 years.....

So time sucker though it is, I love it!

Wordless Wednesday- Pumpkin Patch~

An Awesome Tradition

I have a handmade cross-stich quilt for each girl. My husband's family has apparently been doing this for quite some time now, and I LOVE the tradition! Members of the family, mom and dad's side, cross stitch a square, then it is sewn into a quilt. Here are the girls'!

This is just part of it, hers is double what is showing here.

Big Sis is just fake sleeping :) "Look Mommy, picture me asleep!"

In all seriousness, what an amazing memory! We now have Matt's from when he was a baby!! I have done a square for one other baby in the family so far also, and though it took me 876 years to complete it, I was happy to do it :)

How Lucky Are We?!

A

Redneck Playpen

 A friend of ours, Mindy, has horses in a nearby town. It has never worked out that we have been able to go out there, until the other day. I threw caution to the wind, and decided to forgo Ava's morning nap ( I NEVER do this!), so that we could go out and let Olivia ride. I just knew she would love it. On the way there, I finally told her where we were going, and she was so excited!

And yes, it was worth it! All of the kids had a blast, and I even got on one of the horses for a few minutes, thus reliving my childhood fantasy of becoming some amazing horse rider-person. Yep, that's what they call it.

Brushing Wendy

Olivia' ride!

She was in heaven

Double riding with Lillie

Well, there's Ava- in case you couldn't tell...

Anyways, can't wait to go out there again!!

Life These Days With Two Kids

Seriously, it's like this, all.day.long. I love it. But it's exhausting. O is always trying to carry A somewhere. A loves it about 30% of the time, screams the rest of the time. I am always yelling no to O to prevent her from yanking the baby's arm out of socket. She seriously seems to not have a clue that this could actually be painful to her sister. On that note:

We are clashing a lot lately, the 3 year old and I. She is testing her limits so bad, and we are both such emotional people, it is not always pretty. I never thought I would be that mom. The one that yells at her kid. But I have done it a few times lately. And every time I open my mouth, I know good and well that it doesn't work. But I am SOOOOO frustrated at the sheer disobedience. She is the kid that I tell no once, nicely, in my really sweet mommy voice, then she will look at me with this "hahahaha" look in her eyes and do it again. On purpose. Again, and again. Time out is my method of choice, but she isn't seeming to get it lately. Afterwards, I will ask her why she went to time out, and she will (crying) say "because I don't like time out! I don't want to go to time out, and you say go to time out Olivia." Um, no, it's because you yanked a toy out of your sister's hand for the 4574th time today, thus making her cry, and then laughing at her, and I couldn't take it anymore.

She has never been a tantrum kid, until the last few days. All the sudden, she is the kicking, screaming, being hauled out of a store by me kid. I cannot even fathom that she would do this if she Daddy was with us. She has never acted like this while he was around. Something is different about being with me. What is it? Sister is 8 months old. This behavior from big sis is new. I am sure it is related to little sis, but I can't imagine it would have come on this fast. What has changed? Someone help!

Does anyone have any good toddler discipline ideas? I have no clue what to do with her right now.

Yay Pinterest project #1!!

Ok, I had to do it. I saw the idea for Ava's first birthday party, and pinned it, but I needed to do it sooner! It seriously took like, 30 minutes. Well, all total. There were lots of breaks in action to keep babies from eating hair dryer cords, crawling up stairs, and so forth.

So here's how it went down. Crayons, glue gun, super helpful toddler.

I LOVE it!! And O is so proud of herself for "helping"!