this little light of mine

Our house was built in 1994 and between then and when we bought it, it saw several major updates. The kitchen and master bath were beautifully updated and everything else is up-to-date enough for us. All this means that we haven't had to do any big reno projects on the house. One little thing that was a pretty big eyesore was the chandelier in the foyer. With it's brass and glass elements, it definitely dated the house. We knew we would eventually change it, but the logistics of getting up the 18 feet to do so took some planning. We found a new fixture we liked and borrowed 15 feet of scaffolding, and made the switch-a-roo. After spending several hours watching my dad sitting on two 2x4's 15 feet in the air, I can definitely see why the former owners never got around to updating this.

 

our not-so-little landon

18 months

weight: 25 pounds, 14 ounces (48%)

height: 34 1/4 inches (91%)

He grew close to 3 inches in 3 months!!

 

 

 

It's hard to tell from this picture but I wanted to document how beat up his little face is. He's got a black eye from who knows what and tons of other bumps and scratches all over him.

AKA: He's all BOY!

picassos

I keep telling myself that this could have been so much worse. Luckily Mimi gave us washable markers for Christmas.

not enough hours in the day

So much time has past since my last post, yet I don't feel like there's a lot of new news to report. We survived our white Christmas and luckily were only without power for less than 1 day (unlike my parents who were in the dark for 5 days!). The last week of December was spent watching the snow melt and trying to find ways to entertain ourselves since our cable and internet decided to go out for a week. Now here were are, January 21...the kids are back in school and life is back to busy. Hopefully I will do a better job updating our blog. I am looking forward to all the excitement 2013 has coming our way!

12 inches of snow!

 

I spent a few days watching my cousins 4 month old little boy, Owen.

I thought I might be setting myself up for some baby fever but after spending a few hours bottle feeding, wiping up spit up and carrying around a baby, there wasn't the slightest fever developing.

 

This is the look you get when you ask Landon to show you his teeth.

 

Presley loves to swing and always has. Landon on the other hand still has the scariest face if you push him even the slightest bit. He is happy to just hang though.

 

This is what happens when you trip and fall into the rocks face down. It was up her nose and I didn't believe her until she blew it out. And yes, I did make her stand there until I could take a picture of it!

our busy, barfy, sneezy, white christmas

Christmas 2012 will definitely be one that we remember. We started our 4-day celebration by welcoming the stomach bug into our home. Landon got hit hard and almost took his first trip to the ER. Thank goodness an on call nurse from our pediatric clinic advised us on how to get him back up and running. I suffered a mild, one night bug and luckily Pres & Jon were spared. Just after ridding our home of the unwelcome stomach bug, we opened the door to some kind of sinus mess that hit everyone. Runny noses, sore throats and nasty coughs spared no victims. After dealing with back-to-back illnesses, I wanted nothing more than a relaxing, lazy Christmas Day. We got up on Christmas morning and stayed in jammies for Santa's presents, stockings and our gifts for each other. After cleaning up and getting dressed, it was time to head over to Jon's parents. My parents were hosting lunch at their house so it was time to go over there around noon. I already felt like we had been running hard that morning so I was excited about getting over to my parents house and chilling for the rest of the day. Things were looking good for just that when it started sleeting. We were told to be prepared for some inclement weather but to be honest, I totally blew it off because really, when does it ever snow when it's actually predicted to snow? We decided to pack up around 3:00 and head home in case the roads started getting bad therefore cutting our visit, and my relaxing, way short. After getting home without any problems, I was still convinced that nothing was going to happen. Well, some thing DID happen. Actually, 12 inches of something happened. I couldn't believe it! Snow upon snow upon snow blanketed us. It was a white Christmas. They closed Jon's office so we were looking forward to a fun snow day to make up for our slightly sad last few days...but then I remembered we were celebrating Christmas 2012 where nothing goes as planned. Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight...at 9:15 when our power went out!

 Cookies for Santa.

 Saying bye bye to Tree Stump.

 Santa ate his cookies!

Presley: "Can I eat the rest?"

 Cooking in the kitchen.

 Landon the Tool Man Wyatt

 On the bouncy horse.

 Off the bouncy horse.

 Landon's jumbo dog!

 Getting a little icy.

 The next morning.

Merry Christmas 2012!



picture post

We have had so much going on these past few weeks. I can't seem to find the time to sit down in front of the computer and blog but I wanted to get some recent pictures posted.

 Tree Stump watching the sunrise.

 @ church the morning we lit the Advent candle.

 Landon the Elf

 Presley's Christmas wish list...too bad some of these missed Santa's submission deadline and I have to wonder what's wrong with our current Christmas tree.

 As hard as I tried, neither one of the kids took to pacifiers. We have a few in Presley's baby doll box and Landon loves to use them when he's feeling sick.

 Our sweet Landon...right before he stood up and puked all over the carpet.

Looks like someone got the stomach bug for Christmas!

They both love to take off their shirts after dinner when we are playing upstairs.

 Here's our shirtless kids mesmerized by The Grinch on TV.



ho, ho, NO

We have always taken the kids to church on Sunday morning but recently found a Sunday evening program that Presley was old enough to participate in. We started going just in time for her to start practicing for the Children's Christmas Program. The kids learned 3 songs and the director was even kind enough to include Landon and a few other littles. The director seemed a little worried about the kids performing but everyone knows they could have burned the stage down and we all would have applauded loudly. I told Presley that she had to sing loud enough for Santa to hear her and she did her best to be heard over her much more vocal friend Blake. It was really sweet to be sitting in the gym of the church I grew up in watching my children perform. I was having a little trouble getting into the holiday spirit but this little ditty definitely put the jolly right in my holly!

This is the first year Presley has wanted anything to do with Santa...Landon, maybe next year.