New Year

When I think about this past year, I think about our new baby Beckett, the boys growing up, and all the fun and craziness in our house. We spent the day at my brother's house today. Ethan and Finn played with their cousin in a snow fort they built. We ate lots of food and played games in the afternoon. Tonight we plan on being at home with the boys and enjoying ringing in the new year.

I have way too many people to thank for bringing us meals the past 2 weeks. Our church has a "new baby" ministry that brings meals to your house for 2 weeks after your baby is born. We've been so blessed to be able to concentrate on Beckett and making him part of our family. We haven't had to think about meals or what to cook. Every night since we got home from the hospital, someone has brought us a home cooked meal and usually lots of goodies too. I'll admit that it will be kinda hard going back to cooking after our last meal is delivered Sat, but for now, we're enjoying the blessing.

Beckett has been wonderful! He is such a calm baby and he eats like crazy. He will be 2 weeks old tomorrow! I've spent the last several days just thankful that Mark has been able to be home after Beckett came home. He goes back to work next week and I'm going to miss him.

Joy of the Holidays

My Life

Home for Christmas

Every morning this week I wake up thanking God that I'm able to be at home for Christmas. I was so convinced that I'd be in the hospital over the holiday. I went into labor around 12:45 a.m. Friday morning and had him at 5:03 a.m. (more about that later). They discharged me Monday morning around 11:00. The home nurse came yesterday morning to check out me and baby. She said everything looked good.

Ever since Monday afternoon, we've had people in and out bringing us meals. Our friends the Lights even brought us 2 cooked roasts to freeze and eat over the holiday. Our church family is just amazing and I'm constantly humbled by everyones generosity and love. Thank you to Sheila Tandy who made us the most amazing apple cake I've ever tasted! It was gone in 2 hours! Another thank you to Laura Coppinger for multiple meals she dropped off yesterday! More thank yous to those who brought me flowers at the hospital. We had a snow storm with freezing rain starting Tues and it didn't anybody from coming over and sharing their love and food:) Also a thanks to Valerie for planning all the meals from church!

Alright, more thank-yous later! I hope everyone enjoys their Christmas Eve!

Pictures

These are a little out of order, but here are some pics from the hospital!

Beckett Percy!

So most of you know I had Beckett last Friday! He came early and I was shocked. Pretty perfect timing actually, we'll all be home for Christmas! He weighed 7 lbs 13 ounces. This picture is from our camera phone, real pictures to come later after I download them. He is just perfect and amazingly beautiful.

Next Week

My friend said to me yesterday, "Are you excited for next week?" And it honestly took me a second to figure out what she meant....I guess being busy with two little boys, work, and the Christmas season has made the end of this pregnancy fly by. I'm due next week!! NEXT WEEK!

I do feel like now that the gifts are all bought and wrapped, finals are over with, grades are almost done for work, the Christmas cards will be mailed Sat, the decorations are all up, the baby supplies are being bought currently (that is what I asked my mom for Christmas), the house is somewhat/sort of clean, and the baby name is picked...that means I'm more ready then I was a couple weeks ago. Well, ready as anyone can be for a new baby. The second the baby is born life will again become chaotic and messy:)

Busy Time of Year

Ethan loved decorating the tree over the weekend, he wore a pair of his Christmas pjs all day!

Mark and Ethan in their "matching" coats that Mark's mom bought them for Christmas. They went to 'Cocoa and Carols' (a campus Christmas show the music dept puts on) together on Sunday.

Getting Ready

It has been nothing but Christmas around here this weekend. The music has been playing and we finally set up our tree and decorations. Tis the Season!

How Finn eats popcorn

Finn loves popcorn!

All bundled up

It snowed a lot here....it is still snowing! It was a bad day to run out of milk and have a movie we needed to return, but a perfect day for playing in the snow with little boys!

Christmastime

It was just beautiful outside yesterday. Today it is snowing 6 inches and very, very chilly! (A different kind of beautiful weather)

We went to "Breakfast with Santa" on Saturday. Ethan and his cousin really liked it and it was nice to just sit and enjoy the beginning of the holidays.

This is the Santa they wanted a picture with (not the Santa dressed up below:)

We looked at Christmas Trees after that. Christmastime is getting so close!

Enjoying the Weather

Signs

Yesterday morning was the first real sign(s) of the baby coming. My doctor advised me to take more breaks and relax with my feet up more.....for those who know me, this is really hard for me to do and I get super bored sitting for hours.

Some people would love to deliver early, I would not! I really want the semester to be over first, so I hoping the early signs were just because I was on my feet Tuesday from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. I learned my lesson and am now relaxing more at night (as my doctor advised). I'm still hoping for a Christmas baby....But, I know that I'm not in control, God is! So, I'm doing what I need to do for now and am praying that I'll be able to handle whatever happens in the coming weeks.

Re-post: Making Gifts by Hand

I'm going to re-post a couple of my Christmas gifts ideas from last year. I'm not making gifts this year due to having a baby!!! But, I loved doing these last year:

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Over the coming week, I'll highlight the gifts I'm hand-making for Christmas.

I making about 1/2 my Christmas gifts to various family. Counting my parents, our kids, my sibling and his family, my mom's family, dad's family, and some of my husband's side; we usually have about 15-20 gifts we exchange. It is really nice getting all those presents given to us. But it is a little expensive to give that many every year for our growing family; hence, the handmade approach:)

Of course, I'll still be shopping the stores and looking for other gifts but this helps balance the shopping budget and I really enjoy it!

The first is a scarf I made two years ago and cost me about $1.75 to make per scarf. Everyone who got one loved them. I am blessed to have a new sewing machine that my mom bought me last summer, so that helps. These are so easy and take little time. (note: I'm not a professional sewer, so my directions aren't great but you'll get the hang of it:)

• First, find the fabric you want. I looked through a J-crew catalog at their scarves and what color/kind of fabric was "in style" that season. Then, I found this fabric that looked almost exactly like the catalog ones. This fabric was on the clearance rack at walmart when I did this 2 years ago.
  


• Then measure you're fabric to desired length. Double the width so that you can use what I call the "inside our method". Cut your fabric the length of your scarf and double the width.



• Then, you're simply going to sew along the edge of the scarf all of the side put on end.



• Then, turn inside out and hand-sew the closure.

I made about 4 of these and gave them out and then made one for myself because I liked it so much. This year, I'm going to get a fabric with thicker stripes, maybe blue/chocolate brown or green/white, we'll see what the fabric store has. I'm making a couple of these again this year. Last time I made them, it took me about 1 1/2 hours to make 4. I also keep Christmas bags and re-use nice paper that hasn't been wrinkled. Last time, I made 4 of them, re-used gift bags from previous years; making the total around $7 and I kept hearing how much people loved them. (I have to say, the trick is finding the perfect fabric...so happy hunting)


The next gift is something I'm making for our kid's room. So it is more of a holiday craft then a gift....or maybe it's a gift to myself. They are from the "Martha Stewart Holiday Handmade Magazine" that comes out every year. I'm not a huge Martha Stewart person but her editors sure do come up with good handmade gift ideas every year! They are animals made of wool sweaters.

• Find some old wool sweaters in the back of your closet or at thrift store. Who doesn't have a few woolen sweaters that, though no longer worn, are too dear to part with? Gather these, or buy sweaters from a thrift shop, and use them to create cozy felt gifts.




• When wool is washed and dried, it is transformed: The fibers pull together to produce the soft, thick fabric we call felt. To begin, machine-wash a woolen garment in hot water, and toss it in a dryer set to a high temperature. (You may need to wash and dry it more than once. If you can snip the fabric with scissors and it doesn't fray, it's felted.)




• Then it's a matter of cutting out shapes and stitching pieces together. If you want patterns for these animals, look online at the martha stewart living website.
  
  
  
  
  
  

These are the wool sweaters I found in the back of my closet that won't be worn again. I can't wait to see them as little animals on my kid's toy shelves:)

Some people choose not to give gifts to "save money". I say with a little thought and some time, you can give a gift that costs $1.75 or less, that the person will usually love. So if you're pinched this holiday season or just cheap:), think it over and look for ways to give something special instead of not giving at all.