Our Christmas 2010

We spent the entire Christmas weekend enjoying a cozy fire...

Eating yummy food....

Wearing our PJ's...

Checking out what Santa left...

Playing with toys...

Reading new books...

Watching the snow fall...

Playing in the snow...

Building a snowman...

And more playing in the snow...

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Songs

So if you know my child, you know he LOVES music. I sing to him and he claps after every song, it is so sweet. He loves all of the intro songs to the PBS shows, Thomas, Super Why, Curious George, Word World, Dinosaur train, Cat in the Hat, and I am sure there are more! But he also loves any song that mentions a doggie, BINGO is becoming a favorite very fast. But the current MOST FAVORITE is Old McDonald. He lives and breaths the E-I-E-I-O part. I have a toddler tune CD for the car and he dances and claps to each song, but after every song he says "E-I-E-I-O?" wanting me the play his favorite.


Old McDonald from Kimberly Phillips on Vimeo.

Christmas Decorations

Our tree is fake and very "old school", its one that you put together branch by branch. I had a smaller pre-lit tree last year, I kind of missed putting the lights on. Next year I want a real tree! 

One of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season is pick out my wrapping paper! I used to work in retail and gift wrapping was my favorite task of all! Still is :)

As far as ornaments go, I have a couple of matching sets to use as fillers, however I am very sentimental with ornaments, so most of mine are gifts, family heirlooms, or souvenirs from our travels. Here are a few of my favorites.

Chase and Charlie:

 Cory loves Auburn football so we have a few of these :)

Probably my most favorite ornaments when I was little and still to this day are the ones my Grandmother hand-made. My mom let me have a few when I moved out because I loved them so much, and one day I hope to inherit them all! 

A friend from work gave me this wooden, hand-made ornament for helping her out while she was on vacation. Its from Canada and it has really made me want more wooden ornaments, I love them!

 Of course Carson's 1st ornament is on my favorites list. We will have a tradition of giving him an ornament every year. 

This is Carson's little night light his Nana (my mom) gave him. It is so cute, and very fitting since he loves doggies!

Our stockings don't match either, I like how they represent our personalities. Mine is the green velvet one, Carson's is the dog and Cory's is the Auburn one. I really need to get some stocking hangers!

I put a tiny tree and some figurines on our DVD shelf, but then realized that the Nativity Scene must go up high this year, so I moved them to the kitchen table.

We got a free Santa photo at the Picture People Studio when we did our photo session there, it turned out so well! We have it displayed in the center of all of the Christmas Cards we receive.

I added a touch of garland with lights to the fireplace. 

And the most important part....the Nativity Scene. I can't wait until Carson is old enough and I can tell him the story of baby Jesus!

I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas Season! We certainly are!

Wordless Wednesday: Chase

Our House...

I mentioned a while back that we were hoping to put our house on the market. My husband wanted it on the market by December 1st which I was not a fan of. I wanted to enjoy the Holidays without strangers coming in and out of my home. Then we lost Charlie and that pretty much settled it, that we were staying put for a while.

I had always had my reservations, mostly because I am lazy, and I didn't want to start over with fixing up a another house. Side note: my husband refuses to buy a new house, he likes fixer-uppers. I also am just not ready to leave my home. I am comfortable and happy where we are. And I really don't want to uproot my life to add a 4th bedroom for the family who visits maybe 4 times per year, if that. My mom who comes pretty often is happy to sleep on the couch whenever we have another baby occupying the guest room.

So with that said, we are ready to make some more improvements to our home, I LOVE doing this. We are going to replace all of the carpet in the bedrooms, and replace the flooring in the kitchen and living room as well. I am a little old school, I kind of want carpet in the living room, it just feels warmer and more comfy to me that way. And I love the way a freshly vacuumed floor looks! Then possibly tile in the kitchen. I think hard wood is beautiful, but since our cabinets are brown, we have to match the color and it won't be easy. So stay tuned for home updates in the New Year!

I hope to take pics of my Christmas Decor and post them soon!


And...I hate "pictureless" posts, so here ya go:

Wordless Wednesday

Carson Lately

I had planned on waiting to do an 18 month post as far as Carson's development etc... goes, but he is really growing, learning and doing some cute things, so I wanted to document them so I won't forget. My plan is to print all of this out one day and put it in his actual baby book.

So at around 16 months old...here is what Carson is up to:

• A couple of weeks ago he started learning to use a spoon and fork, it is so cute watching him concentrate trying to put the food on the utensil. He still needs a little help with that, but he will have the hang of it very soon!
• Whenever either of us are in the shower, he loves to pull back the curtain and say BOO! He also likes to sneak up behind the dog and scare him.
• He loves to walk up to an item that he knows is off limits and look at us and in question form say "No, no?"...he also loves to walk around and tell us "no, no" at things he isn't suppose to touch.
• His vocabulary has expanded so much in the past month that I can't keep track of all the words now. He is getting really good at repeating new words we say to him. 
• He knows where his eyes, ears, belly, nose, and hair are, and likes to show us and point ours out too.
• His favorite song now is Old McDonald, he sings the E-I-E-I-O part all the time. He seems to love parts of music with high-pitch fiddles or saxophones...he gets so excited!
• He LOVES to Meem-mup (which means clean-up). When he plays he wants to constantly put stuff in containers/baskets and sing his clean-up song.
• When we say "1" he says "2" and sometimes "3"
• Still is obsessed with books, he is constantly bringing us a book to read to him, I love this..it is the sweetest thing of all!
• He also is obsessed with measuring spoons and cups, he pretends to stir. I always let him take a toy of his choice on the ride to day care, this morning it was a red mixing bowl and a spoon. He is so quirky!

Wordless Wednesday: Crazy hair

Thanksgiving in AL

We headed out Wednesday afternoon to my parents house and stayed 2 nights, Carson had such a good time with his cousins Andrew and Alivia, they are now all at an age where they really enjoy playing together. Then we went to Cory's parents for 2 nights and Carson got to play with the 6 cousins on that side. I love the ages of all the cousins now, it is so cute watching them play together. I can already tell that Carson is going to be the instigator and probably get all the kids in trouble, I am pretty sure he takes after his Daddy. His cousin Tucker followed him into the bathroom where Carson proceeded to show him how funny it is to play in the toilet! Ick....thank goodness for extra clothes! 

This is my side of the family.

This one will definitely be framed :)

Then we headed home on Sunday and let Carson play outside for a while after the long drive, where we finally got some use out of his winter coat, hat and mittens. He looked so cute!

Cory and I ended the night by building a fire and putting up our Christmas Tree. 

Miscellany Monday

1. We had a great week/weekend celebrating Thanksgiving with our families in AL. It really helped to be around people we love, and to be busy.

2. We put our Christmas tree up last night and it looks wonderful. Carson was very into helping us, I can't wait to see him on Christmas morning.

3. We got a dose of the terrible 2's on Saturday with Carson, for some reason he was in a terrible mood from about 4pm until bedtime, we still don't really know why, we were puzzled b/c he had 2 great naps that day. We thought maybe he was getting sick, teething, exhausted, or just had been away from home too long and had enough of family gathering busy-ness....who knows, he was a perfect angel on Sunday, he slept more than 1/2 of the way home and barely fussed when he was awake. I am leaning toward exhaustion and being away from home too long, b/c he slept in his crib from 7:30PM until 6AM and didn't move an inch or make a peep.

4. We still miss Charlie terribly and I'm sure we will for some time, she wasn't just a dog, she was a family member. It was good for us to leave our house for a few days, b/c the house is full of reminders that she is gone...her medicine, food bowl, leash, and the hospital sent us a card with her paw print on it..that was so sweet and heartbreaking at the same time. We even have a Christmas ornament with her picture on it.

I hope to post my pictures from AL later today.

Wordless Wednesday

Charlie

We lost our sweet Charlie last night. The hospital called at 3AM and said she was no longer breathing on her own and asked us what we wanted to do. We decided to let her go and finally have some peace. I hate that she was in pain the last 2 weeks of her life. Cory and I just laid there crying and talking about the good memories we had with her. She was the sweetest dog in the world, I was always telling Cory that growing up all I wanted was a dog that would sit in my lap and cuddle all the time...she was perfect. She brought so much joy to our home and we love her so much. She loved chasing squirrels and birds, so we are going to bury her in the back yard next to the woods.

Goodbye baby girl, we love you and you will always be special to us.

Update - Prayers Needed

My poor little dog, Charlie has gotten worse. She has been in pain for a week now, squealing every time she moves her neck, then this morning at 5AM she started having seizures. We are so sad to see our sweet Charlie in so much pain. She is at the vet now, they were able to stop the seizures and manage her pain, and are going to do some blood work to see what is causing the seizures. If they can't figure it out, they are sending her to a neurologist. Please pray that she gets better soon.

Update: The blood work at her regular vet didn't show a cause for seizures. Charlie is now at the special hospital for pets and they have given her more meds to help with the seizures and swelling of her brain but she is still seizing. They think it may be meningitis or a spinal cord injury. We are going to meet with the Dr. this afternoon to discuss her options, but its not looking good.

This one was when I was pregnant with Carson, she loved resting on my baby bump. 

Miscellany Monday

1. Carson had his 15 month check up last week, he weighs a whopping 22 lbs! I am glad he is gaining! I can't remember his height, but I remember what is important...he grew! Then he had his shots with the flu shot added in, we go back in a month for another round of flu shots.

2. We taught Carson to stay away from things that are hot in order to protect him, and he puts his hand up and says "hot-hot"....now EVERYTHING he sees is "hot-hot" ....this is definitely his favorite phrase right now. He has also found the joy of coloring, my mom had a good idea..she taped the paper to his high chair tray and let him go to town...he loved it!

3. I bought Carson a winter coat for daycare for $6 at Kid to Kid...love that place. I am also going to get him a nice peacoat, but I wanted to send him to daycare with something that I didn't mind getting dirty.

4. Cory is on a hunting trip with my Dad in Nebraska, he killed an 8 point Whitetail yesterday and is SO proud. I am pretty sure he wants to decorate our living room with this deer :(

Look at my sexy outdoors-man!!!!!! :)

5. Mom has been visiting since Cory is out of town, and as usual we did some shopping. I helped her pick out some of Carson's Christmas gifts and he is getting some cute stuff (mostly stuff from Kohl's..I love that place)! I also bought my Christmas cards at Steinmart for $20; they are so pretty!

6. My poor doggie, Charlie is injured. She started squealing of pain when she would jump off of the couch and bed, and kept arching her back, and having weird asthma attacks and shivering on Saturday, so I let her rest Saturday night, then she seemed to be fine on Sunday but then she started up again with the squealing Sunday night, so I took her to an emergency vet clinic. They said she has hurt her upper back/neck...could be a herniated disk or something. So they gave her some meds and ordered her to rest. I hope she gets better soon, she is so pitiful.

7. I have a dear friend going through a very rough time right now who could use your prayers.

8. We have family pictures on Saturday, I hope to get some good ones! I am finally using a Picture People gift card that Carson got for his birthday.

9. I had an awesome time with Jessica and Janie and their beautiful girls on Saturday. We had a little playdate for the kids filled with yummy treats and great company, can't wait to do it again ladies, thank you for coming!

10. I watched a few episodes of the MTV show "Teen Mom" yesterday...and wow...just wow. I feel so bad for some of those babies....especially Amber's daughter, Leah.