Listing: Day 30

30 Days Of Lists
Today is the last day of the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

This time next year I will...

• Have an almost 1 yr old boy, an almost 6 yr old girl, and a 15 yr old step-daughter.
• Have a new car (hopefully!)
• Be married for 9 yrs
• Be back to my pre-pregnancy weight
• Have my windows paid off - only debt being our mortgage & the new car

And that is the end of 30 Days Of Lists! Now I just have to decide if I want to do something else with my lists of just leave them on my blog.

Listing: Day 28 & Day 29

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Day 28: Memories made this year...

• Going on a family vacation to Colorado
• Being pregnant
• Meeting our newest nephew
• Having Claire switch schools and handle the transition really well

Day 29: Things I'm letting go of...

• WORRYING so much about the kids, I think with 3 kids the amount of worrying will kill me
• Obsessively checking facebook/email/pinterest/twitter/feedly on my phone
• My current method for Project Life - I need to revisit it in a way that will work better for me
• Stuff, lots and lots of stuff will hopefully be leaving our house in 2014

December Daily - December 25

Anaya was already back at her mom's house and since all we had this morning were Claire's gifts from Santa, I let Justin sleep in until 10am. Claire was super excited to get the My Little Pony Hot Air Balloon and another LaLaLoopsy (Haley Galaxy & her alien). I was happy that the makers of My Little Ponys don't use nearly as much crap to attach the toy to the box compared to the LaLaLoopsys I was opening yesterday.

We went to my mom's house today for brunch and opening stockings. We tried to leave Claire there so that Justin and I could go home and clean up a little bit and get presents put away without Claire's "help" but she was quite insistent that she needed to go with us. Although that did lead to the eventual chasing of Claire with the vacuum cleaner. She's not scared of it, she just thinks it is fun to shriek and run away and hide from it.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Can't get enough of...

• Peppermint Bark Bells
• Sleeping
• Carbohydrates that I'm not supposed to be eating - they are ALL I want
• Yoga Pants

December Daily - December 24

We opened our presents at home on Christmas Eve morning. Everyone was excited by their gifts. Claire loved getting so many more LaLaLoopsys, although she did pretty much want to go play the computer once we were done with presents. Anaya got her new cell phone & two cases for it. Justin got a new sleeping bag and two cds that he had been wanting. And I got new computer speakers (mine were seriously 10+ yrs old and crackled) and some yoga pants that I never want to take off.

After opening presents we had some breakfast - homemade cream cheese & strawberry cream cheese coffee cakes - they were so delicious and some bacon. Then the kids played with their new stuff and old stuff, I worked on activating Anaya's cell phone and we all just hung around for a while. Eventually, it was time to head over to my mom's house to do Christmas over there!

My parents had been working on a puzzle when we got there...so I kind of took over because I have a small addiction to puzzles which is why I rarely do them because I'm stuck until it is done. Once my brother & his family arrived, we started passing out presents and opening them. Lots of awesomeness. Claire had a melt-down post present opening because (1) she wanted MORE presents and (2) we were making her pick up one toy before getting another out. So we all pretty much vacated my parents house to go home and get the kids back to happy and put away a some presents. Then we went back to my parents house so Anaya could open her stocking (before returning to her mom's house) and we ate dinner (soup!).

And that was our Christmas Eve. Lots of present opening. A few meltdowns from the younger children. It didn't help that my nephew (about 14 months) wasn't feeling good either.



30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Things I heard today...

• Open presents NOW?!?! (Claire)
• Go to Ga's NOW?!?! (Claire)
• No Claire, not yet (Justin, Anaya & I)
• This is so cool (Anaya)

Listing: Day 27

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Ways to unwind...

• Read a book
• Bake something
• Take a nice warm shower
• Go for a walk
• Do something mindless but productive (so I feel accomplished!)

Listing: Day 26

Well, December Daily is over, but 30 Days of Lists continues until December 30. I'm working on getting pages completed for my December Daily album...so far I have a cover, and intro page and Nov 30 done. And I have basically NO motivation to work on it. I'm also attempted to catch up on Project Life, I'm back on the first week of November. and again with the NO motivation. I have gone through and picked out my pictures and figured out my layouts, now it is just a matter of resizing them, uploading them and ordering them.

I'm not sure if it is the being pregnant that is making me lose my motivation...or if it is the fact that I got sick over Christmas...or if it is just that time of the year. Hopefully I'll find my motivation again soon and can get these projects wrapped up before the little boy gets here!

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

I am thankful for...

• My family
• All the awesome new stuff that we got
• That Christmas is over (it was fun, but I was ready to be done and relax)

December Daily - December 23

Tonight is Christmas Eve Eve. Since we have Anaya for Christmas Eve this year instead of Christmas Day, we start our celebration on Christmas Eve Eve. Everyone gets Pajamas. Well, usually. This year, Justin & I didn't want pajamas, so the kids each got to open their pajamas...and then because Claire is spoiled we let them each open one more.


Claire got two sets of footie pajamas (she picked the pair with reindeer feet to wear to bed) and then a snow globe from Anaya. Anaya got her pajamas, and I was going to let her open the present from Claire...but I couldn't find it. So instead she opened one of her gifts that my parents brought back on Friday from our extended family - a scrapbooking kit from my Aunt Lynn.

On years when we have Anaya for Christmas Day, the pajamas happen on Christmas Eve. But since we have her for Christmas Eve, that means we're opening all of our family presents on Christmas Eve morning (tomorrow!).

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Who I consider 'family'...

• Justin, Anaya, Claire, baby boy
• My parents & brother & sister-in-law and nephew
• Justin's parents & brother & sister-in-law and nephew
• My extended family of grandma's, aunts & uncles, cousins & their kids (at least to some degree since I haven't actually MET all of my cousins' kids)

December Daily - December 22

It SNOWED! Not a lot, but 2-3 inches I think. Enough that the driveway had to be shoveled and Claire had fun running around in the snow. The plows were out late last night and again this morning, so by lunchtime we were fine to go to my mom's for lunch.


I did make the questionable decision of shoveling our driveway while 35 weeks pregnant. That is probably not recommended, but I think shoveling was easier than it would've been to bend down and play in the snow with Claire! Claire loved making snow balls. She made one snow angel on the driveway before I shoveled too much of the snow. She didn't really want to play in the grass, she mostly just wanted to play on the driveway and I kept taking all her snow away.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Things that can wait until tomorrow...

• Washing the rest of the baby's stuff
• Calling the doctor's office about getting TDaP boosters
• Cleaning out the fridge
• Hanging stockings
• Taking out the trash & recycling
• Going to the grocery store
• Finishing wrapping presents (although it will HAVE to be done tomorrow!)

December Daily - December 21

Today's plan was to go to Union Station to see KC Southern's Holiday Express Train (aka Rudy). But after all the throwing up yesterday and some more this morning, we had to skip it. We tried to go to it last year, but the line was too long. This year I actually got reservations! And we still didn't go.

Instead Claire wanted to help me wrap some presents, the only problem was most of the presents I still needed to wrap were for her! I convinced her that she should help by putting on bows & picking out ribbon for the presents I had already wrapped. I'm not a huge fan of ribbons & bows so I usually don't put them on. Claire is an expert ribbon and bow picker outer. Then she carried each present down the stairs and put it under the tree! We did wrap a couple of presents for her cousin, and one for the baby, and one for Anaya.


Otherwise we've mostly spent the day sitting around inside. Claire still isn't well - although she acts completely fine...and then she throws up. The weather got fairly crappy just after noon with some freezing rain which was followed by snow starting around 8pm. We all stayed in our pajamas all day. And, today at least, she only threw up once, so hopefully she is on the mend and the rest of us won't be coming down with whatever it was just in time for Christmas!

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Positive things from this week...

• Winter break started!
• Had our 34 week OB appointment, baby boy is still doing fine - heartbeat of 153bpm.
• Washed my sheets & comforter - LOVE clean sheets
• My vacation from work started - no work for NINE WHOLE DAYS (including the weekends)!

December Daily - December 20

Today was Claire first day of Winter Break! My mom & dad had made arrangements to drive 2.5 hours to see our extended family, but my doctor doesn't want me going 2.5 hours away from my hospital (he really doesn't want me more than an hour from my hospital). The plan was for my parents to come get Claire and take her with them. But then my dad wasn't feeling great so my mom was driving in by herself and she wasn't sure if she was still okay to take Claire. We were fine with it, but she wanted to make sure first. Then Claire apparently threw up about half way through the trip there. And again right after lunch. When she's not throwing up she is acting fine. So, we'll see. Obviously if we'd known she would've just stayed home, but she was fine last night and she was fine this morning with Justin.

Normally I am the picture taker at all events. And I like it that way because then I have the pictures! But since I wasn't going, I had to ask my parents to make sure they took pictures. I think it will be kind of interesting having a different perspective of what is going on. My pictures normally focus mostly on Claire (and Anaya if she is there), with some of my nephew. I haven't actually seen any pictures yet...there may only be one or two, who knows. The rest of my family isn't quite as picture taking crazy as I am!

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

With a day to myself, I would...

• Work on December Daily 2013 - I only have two actual pages done, TWO!
• Wash baby clothing & sheets & everything else
• Clean my desk?
• Get sucked into looking at pictures of Claire as a baby and accomplish nothing...

So I did actually have a majority of this evening to myself. Or at least mostly to myself, my husband is around but he's doing his own thing. So here's what I actually did with 6 hours of kid free time:

• Went to the grocery store
• Put gas in my car
• Went to Target
• Finished washing & drying my sheets and putting them back on my bed
• Cleaning up my very messy desk & empty my overflowing trash can

December Daily - December 19

Today was Claire's Winter Party at school. I don't go to her school very often since I work. Justin usually does the drop off, we're experimenting with a bus bringing her home. We don't have a lot of interaction with her teachers except for at special events. I usually try to volunteer to do something, but since I'm so very pregnant, I didn't want to sign up for something that I might have been unable to follow through on.


The theme of this party - since it couldn't be Christmas - was Snowmen! Specifically the book, Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner. The teacher read them the book. They did two snowmen crafts, one that involved glittery puffy paint and one that involved foam stickers. One of the other mom's brought in snowmen cupcakes.

My plan was to leave after snack and let Claire ride the bus home as usual, but she asked me to stay for "just a little bit". Which meant I ended up staying until the end of the school day and having her be a car rider today. Although we did stop and talk to her bus driver and they told each other a couple of knock-knock jokes which are currently Claire's favorite things ever.

We also drove out and saw the Christmas Lights at the Farm again. My mom wanted to see them, so Claire & I picked her up and then we watched the entire light show. Claire loves it so much. Since my mom was there, I got out and walked around with my camera to get a few different pictures since I didn't get very many good ones last time.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Projects I finished this year...

• My Pregnancy Album from 2008/2009
• My Colorado Family Vacation album
• Project Life 2012

December Daily - December 18

My mom got this recipe from the mom of my best friend when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. We lived in Topeka at the time, and I had two best friends. Our house was in the middle of the street, Crystal's house was at one end and Abby's house was at the other end. Crystal's mom and my mom became pretty good friends and at some point, her mom gave my mom a recipe for "Crunchy Air". This stuff is not as well known as it's popcorn counterparts, but possibly even more delicious because there is no kernel. The corn is puffed so if you coat the puffed corn in enough caramel, it tastes like you're eating caramel covered air. So addictive.


Crunchy Air (aka Caramel Puff Corn)

Ingredients
10oz of butter corn puffs*
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Put the butter, brown sugar and corn syrup in a medium/large sauce pan and bring to boil. Allow to boil for two minutes, stirring regularly.

While that is boiling pour corn puffs into a large roasting pan.

After the caramel sauce has boiled for 2 minutes, remove from heat and add the baking soda. Stir until it get foamy.

Pour the caramel sauce over the puffed corn and stir to coat the puffed corn.

Bake at 250 degrees for 45 minutes, stirring it around every 15 minutes. When finished, dump onto wax paper and spread out to cool. Break apart clumps of puffed corn once it is cooled. Store in an air tight container.

*Butter Corn Puffs are NOT the cereal. This is found in the chip/popcorn aisle. The three brands that I know of are Art & Marys, Jays/O-KE-DOKE, and Chesters. The different brands are sold in different sized bags. I usually can find Art & Marys or Jays in an 8 oz bag, so I buy two bags and use about 1 & 1/3 bags to 1 & 1/2 bags depending on how much caramel coverage I want. If you want more caramel coverage, just use one 8 oz bag.

(the pictures are actually from when I made it a couple of weeks ago, but I am planning to make more tomorrow night)

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

On my shopping list...

• Stocking stuffers
• One more Christmas present for Justin
• Groceries for next week
• TDaP vaccines for Justin & I

December Daily - December 17

Tonight I started wrapping presents - finally. I didn't get as many wrapped as I would've liked, but I did get started.


I'm a little weird about wrapping presents. I LOVE wrapping presents, but I refuse to use boxes. I've wrapped cast iron skillets, rolls of duct tape, clothing, and more all without boxes (not necessarily this year, but at sometime). The more obnoxious the shape of the gift, the more fun it is to wrap. Because it can't just be wrapped, it has to look nice too!

It kind of looks like UPS/FedEx/USPS just threw a bunch of boxes in my closet. Luckily I can't wear most of the clothing that I can't get to anyways since it won't fit right now. Otherwise I would've had to deal with this sooner!

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

I wish I had done more _____ this year.

• exercising
• to make new friends
• organizing / cleaning
• blogging

December Daily - December 16

Tonight Claire & I drove out to look at the most awesome Christmas light display EVER.


Okay, so I'm possibly a bit biased since at one point in my life programming things like this was my job. But there were a lot of other people there enjoying the display, so I'm not THAT biased. I'm not sure exactly how long the "show" was, but we sat there for at least 20 minutes and I don't think it had looped yet. All of the images are synced up to music. Sometimes it is just patterns & lights, other times it is actually images that go with the words. I kind of love Christmas lights. Sorry if that makes me a bit insane. I'm tempted to run Claire & I out there again some night...it was that cool looking.

Also, taking pictures of LED lights is difficult.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Favorite things to eat this time of year...

• Crunchy Air
• Cinnamon Rolls
• Soup - my mom always makes one Christmas Eve
• Sugar Cookies (or any type of cookie)
• Chocolate Babka - made it for the first time this year and it may become a tradition
• Anything that involves mint or crushed candy canes

December Daily - December 15

I have a hard time when I have two big activities on the same day, both of which I think so should go in my December Daily album because they are both so CHRISTMAS-y and traditions.

This morning, we went to visit my in-laws for Christmas. Since we only have Anaya every other weekend, it was either this weekend or the weekend after Christmas and sometimes our weekend schedule gets a little off during holiday breaks from school. And I didn't want to wait until two weeks after that because that would be getting awfully close to the little boy's due date!


Claire was most excited about the LaLaLoopsy Mermaid from Justin's parents and another LaLaLoopsy doll (Mint E. Stripes) from Justin's brother (and family). Anaya was super excited to get a CrazLoom from Justin's brother. She used one of her friend's looms and loved it. She's been making the bracelets without a loom, but has really been wanting to get a loom. This was the first Christmas for our nephew, Riley. He was mostly just into the wrapping paper and trying to eat it.

After we got home, I started cleaning up my kitchen/diningroom, making butter frosting and setting things up to have a couple of Anaya's friends & Claire decorate cookies. We ended up with just one of Anaya's friends, Anaya, Claire, my mom and & I decorating cookies. I still have about 2 dozen un-decorated cookies and bags of frosting in all three colors. The kids all made a mess, but we had a good time...and very little frosting got on the floor!


Since these are both from today, I'll probably just do a couple of pages for the 15th. I haven't actually started on my December Daily album at all. I can't decide how I want to do it. On one hand, I really like my 2012 Blurb book, but I also like my other albums that are actual paper scrapbooks. And I like seeing what other people are doing for their albums. Plus I know I'm getting a Silhouette for Christmas, so if I do an actual album I can try out cutting things out to have see-through elements. But, regardless of how I do it, because I have kept up with posting these stories, I will know what goes on each page and the stories that go along with the pictures!

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

I like to avoid...

• Cleaning my house
• Arguing with people
• Leaving my house when it is cold/snowy/icy
• Worrying about the future - particularly the "what ifs"

December Daily - December 14

Today we got just a little bit of snow. They kept changing the forecast. At first, it was going to be icy on Friday (so I ended up working a half-day from home) but then it didn't do anything until much later Friday. At one point they said we'd get 2"-4", with the heaviest stuff starting around 6pm Friday night. But sometime around 7pm, they changed it to just a dusting to 1" for our area. I like to refer to these as the "Snow Storm that Wasn't". It's hard to tell, but there is actually of dusting of snow on the deck in the picture.


However, the roads & sidewalks were a bit icy today, so I stayed home and baked. A lot. I made two batches of sugar cookies for the kids to decorate tomorrow afternoon. And I made the most ridiculous bread ever, Chocolate Babka. I should've let it rise longer, but I was ready to be done making it. It's VERY delicious, it just probably should've risen longer, particularly after the loaves were formed.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Stocking up on...

• Butter/Cream Cheese/Chocolate Chips
• Freezer Meals
• Wrapping Paper & Scotch Tape
• Diapers/Wipes

Some of these things are because of the holidays, some are in preparation of having a baby in January.

December Daily - December 13

One of our Christmas time traditions is to paint ornaments. When we started this Anaya loved it, Justin didn't and I was indifferent to it. I mean, it was my idea, but I'm not really into painting so I didn't care all that much about actually doing it. Now, Justin still doesn't like it, Anaya is 14 and more or less over it, Claire doesn't care much about painting, but I make us keep doing it because it's a tradition! It's what we DO! According to Justin & Anaya, I told them last year that we weren't doing it again, but I don't remember that and it's so fun to pull out the past year's ornaments that we painted.


Therefore, while dinner was in the oven, we sat down and painted our ornaments. Justin's isn't quite done yet, he needed his paint to dry before he could finish it. Claire painted the orange Reindeer (all by herself, all we did was put paint on her paper plate). Anaya did the red owl. Mine is the snowman (or woman?). And Justin's ornament is the monkey.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

I get excited when....

• Things go the way I plan
• A song comes on the radio that I like
• I cross things off my to-do list
• I get mail that isn't bills

December Daily - December 12

I was planning to work on wrapping presents tonight and include that as my December Daily...but I didn't wrap presents. I even bought new wrapping paper at Target last night...I just wasn't in the mood. So instead, I'll follow Ali Edward's prompt and write about 12 Blessings on the 12th of December, but mine is more 12 Things That Make Me Happy on the 12th of December.

1. We have a healthy baby boy with just over a month to keep growing before he will be here!
2. It is December 12 and I am ALMOST done Christmas shopping (seriously, TWO presents left to buy!).
3. Claire was finally feeling better and went back to school today!
4. Working from home (occasionally).
5. Living so close to family.
6. Having all the children in the right rooms, even if their stuff is still making it's way there.
7. 0.5 Journaling Pens (Project Life or Copix), I use them for everything, even addressing Christmas cards and writing to-do lists.
8. New coordinating wrapping paper for Christmas presents this year.
9. Being able to pull a homemade meal out of the freezer.
10. I finished addressing all of my Christmas cards, now I just need stamps!
11. It is supposed to snow this weekend, not a lot, just a little.
12. This recipe for Chocolate Babka (which I've never had) that I'm thinking about making this weekend.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Places I went this year...

• Colorado
• my OB's office (a lot)
• work
• the Zoo
• Bass Pro Shop's Winter Wonderland

December Daily - December 11

Tonight, I finally started addressing my Christmas cards. I know, I'm old school with my little address book instead of having it all on my phone/computer/google.


This will probably take me the rest of the week...and part of the weekend. Just because I get tired of writing...and I have to find addresses for a few people. Plus I still need to buy stamps which means my Christmas cards won't go out in the mail until at least Monday! Last year I think I got a picture of me dropping the envelopes in the mail box, we'll see if I attempt that again.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

Without _____, I would probably ______

• coffee / be sleepier
• my family / be lonely
• my cell phone / be bored

December Daily - December 10

Claire ended up coming home sick from school today. It is probably just a cold, but we're not really sure. The problem is that when Claire is sick...everyone is miserable. She is not really the type of child that wants to curl up on the couch and snuggle, I've heard of such children, but when Claire is sick, she wants to keep going and bouncing and doing things but only things that she WANTS to do. She absolutely MUST have her way. Which makes for a trying few days. Let's hope she gets over this...whatever it is...quickly.


So, even though Claire protested, we did watch Despicable Me 2 tonight. Such a fun movie...although possibly not terribly appropriate for a 4 yr old. I know, it's rated PG, but there are some jokes that I wouldn't want her repeating! But it was funny and we enjoyed it and Claire only complained about watching it for about 30 minutes.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

I was a friend this year by...

• Listening
• Baking things for people (dinner rolls for Thanksgiving, cookies for my nephew's party, treats for people at work & some of Justin's friends)

This was hard for me...maybe I wasn't a good friend this year? Maybe it is the fact that I don't really have many friends, I have family members...and co-workers...and acquaintances...but not a whole lot of friends.

December Daily - December 9

Tonight, Claire & I decorated a gingerbread house.


I kind of followed this tutorial How to Build a Gingerbread House in 5 Simple Steps, she did one step per day and made it a 5 day process. I did Days 1, 2 and 3 on Sunday and Days 4 & 5 on Monday evening - I didn't really this to be a 5 day process. We already had all the ingredients (Day 1), Claire did get to help me make the gingerbread (Day 2), but I didn't end up cutting out the pieces and baking them until after she went to bed on Sunday evening (Day 3).

Our only mishap was that I had planned to get the Gingerbread house built on Sunday night so that it would be all ready to go when I got home from work on Monday. I didn't get the house built, but I had told Claire that we would decorate it when I got home from work. Then we still had to make the royal icing and build it which resulted in lots of requests of decorate it NOW? I did have an entire extra disc of gingerbread so after building it, to give the icing time to harden, we cut out gingerbread men and Christmas trees. Then after we decorated the house, we decorated the cookies too.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with it until whenever we decide to eat it!

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

My favorite outfits/accessories...

• Yoga pants & Justin's Old Navy Fleece
• Skinny jeans, long sweaters & fake uggs
• Sweater cardigans

Right now, I pretty much live in my yoga pants. I usually refuse to wear them out of the house (well, OUT places, I might wear them to run across the street to check the mail), but at 7.5 months pregnant, yoga pants are acceptable everywhere but work and church. I seriously cannot wait until I can wear actual jeans, not maternity jeans.

December Daily - December 8

Tonight was Claire's Christmas Pageant at Church.


She was quite insistent that her boots matched her dress and were the shoes she was going to wear. I decided it wasn't worth the fight. She did sing along with the songs...and did the motions. But I got very few pictures because 1) there was a slightly taller boy in front of her and (2) she spent most of the pageant looking backwards at the large screens showing them performing.

Before the performance started, I was trying to get a picture of her in her new Christmas dress. Requests for her to look at the camera, resulted in her looking away. Results for her to hold still, resulted in her hopping up and down. Telling her that I didn't care if she pretended to sleep, but could she just do it while looking at mommy, did not results in anything worth while either. Let's just say, she was being uncooperative. And the lighting in the lobby was terrible.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

On my movie watching list...

• Hunger Games: Catching Fire
• Ender's Game
• Divergent
• Despicable Me 2

I rarely see movies in the theaters, unless I'm taking one or both of the kids to it. Since most of these are in theaters now or coming soon, I won't actually see them for at least 6 months when they come out on DVD.

December Daily - December 7

This morning, Claire, my mom & I went to the Preschooler's Angel Breakfast.


All the little kids got halos as we came in (and a bag of activities to keep them entertained for the boring portions). After a few opening songs they had all the kids go in the diningroom to get ready and then they led them out to the stage. They sang a couple of songs and then had them stand up there while the pastor prayed for the breakfast. We ate, did some more activities, and then they had the children's pastor go up, invited ALL of the kids up to sit and listen to the children's pastor read a story.

Claire did awesome. She sat when she was supposed to sit. She kind of sang, although not very much, she did do most of the hand motions. She stayed where she was supposed to be and just did a really good job of following the directions. She is sometimes so crazy for us, that I forget she's usually pretty good for everyone else. I was just really impressed with her today.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

What I am going to Remember about Today...

• Claire doing such a good job at the Angel Breakfast
• Getting the baby's crib set up
• Why I don't go to Target on the weekends during December
• Claire saying the baby's giraffe stuffed animal is "a little bit" her's

December Daily - December 6

Tonight, Claire & I made salt dough ornaments for our tree. We still need to paint them, but I didn't realize they take two hours to bake when I decided to start making them at 8pm! I also think we rolled some of them out too thin and they may be too fragile. And they seem really dry around the edges. We'll see...luckily the ingredients are cheap which means we can always make another batch and try again! While they were baking I found some different directions and their dough looks a lot softer than ours was...ours was kind of gritty.


Claire was insistence that we had to make a cat ornament using one of our Halloween cookie cutters. Silly child. We also made a couple of snow flakes, a hand print, a Christmas tree and two circles. Claire liked helping mix and roll the dough, she didn't care that much about making the hand print (but that was what I really wanted her to do) and she LOVED using the cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Although she wanted a triangle and an oval, and I don't have cookie cutters in those shapes.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

On My Reading List...

• Allegiant by Veronica Roth
• Takedown Twenty by Janet Evanovich
• The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks (it's been by my bed for over a month)
• Gone by James Patterson (i started it a while ago and then stopped reading it)
• 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker
• Two Guys Detective Agency by Stephanie Bond

December Daily - December 5

Tonight I got out our Fisher-Price Nativity set. Claire opened that box and exclaimed, "My Baby Jesus!".


She got it all out of the box that we store it in, then she set it up. I re-arranged it the "right" way...then she came back and played with it some more. She likes to put all of the different animals on top of the manager as the Angel. She also likes to put all the different people inside the wise mens' tents.

Since this is more or less sitting in our hallway, after she was done playing we put all the pieces in that bench except the manager & the two backgrounds since those two really fit inside the bench.

Also, this has nothing to do with the Fisher-Price Nativity set, but I love the graphics on the side of the Hallmark boxes. I think the one that says "Hang a Memory" might be about 3x4 which will be perfect to put in my Project Life album!


30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

{Holiday} Traditions...

• Seeing Santa
• Painting Wooden Christmas Ornaments
• Looking at Christmas Lights
• Buying Hallmark Ornaments
• New PJs on our "Christmas Eve"
• Opening presents at my parents' on Christmas Eve
• Making homemade Cinnamon Rolls to have Christmas morning

I say our "Christmas Eve" because it just depends on which day we have Anaya. If we have her on Christmas Day, then we get our Pajamas on actual Christmas Eve. If we have her on Christmas Eve, then we get our Pajamas on the night before Christmas Eve and we open our presents on Christmas Eve morning.

December Daily - December 4

I have nothing for today. I had an OB appointment. Baby Boy's heartbeat was a good 145 bpm. Everything looked good, and nothing we talked about was terribly interesting to anyone but me.

Actually, today's December Daily page will probably be about our Christmas books. Claire dumped the all out tonight and I got a couple of pictures of her sitting in the middle of a pile of books. Then, before bed, I read her three of them. And I can always add in another picture of us reading or of the basket of books from another night if I really want something else.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

I am happy to report...

• less than two months until baby boy is here
• I'm back on the low-carb eating plan after three weeks of sweets
• our insurance hardly changed for the new year - THANK GOODNESS!

December Daily - December 3

Today's fun and exciting December activity was to go look at Christmas Lights. I normally save this for a Friday, but this Friday it is suppose to be 25 degrees (and possibly wet). Next Friday is when Anaya is here and she didn't really want to go look at lights with us. And then there was only one Friday left, and I didn't want to put it off that long. So pretty much right after I got home from work, Claire & I got in the car and went to Paulie' Penguin Playground.


I like going to Paulie's when it is still kind of light outside. They have some obnoxiously large number of inflatables (most of them featuring penguins) and you are welcome to get out and traipse around their front yard looking at all the inflatables. It seems like a few were missing compared to previous years.

I was planning to go to a few other of the displays in our area, but after walking around the penguins and the fact that I hadn't actually planned out a route, we ended up just driving through a few sub-divisions where we could see lights because Claire really wanted to see some Christmas Lights. Maybe at some point we'll get out again just to drive and look at Christmas lights - with an actual plan of where to go. I could see Paulie's being its own day in my December album.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge. Each day they post a list topic and then we make a list. Here is today's list:

This is the only time of the year I/we...

• listen to Christmas music
• make Crunchy Air - kind of like caramel popcorn, but it's not popped corn it's PUFFED corn.
• watch Christmas movies - they get put away with the rest of the Christmas decorations
• make a huge batch of cinnamon rolls

December Daily - December 2

We had carpet installed today! Whee!


We got all three of the kids room re-carpeted today. The carpet that was in the new baby's room (Claire's old room) and Claire's new room (Anaya's old room) had been in the house when we bought it...it really needed to be replaced. The same carpet is still in the master bedroom, but we just have too much furniture (and stuff) to want to replace the carpet up there. Anaya's new room is in the basement, so it just had concrete.

I was a little worried about the color. It isn't exactly what I had planned on when I thought about it in my head. But we wanted the faster install and they only had one color of each variety for the fast install. It's a little darker, but I think it will be fine. And it Claire's room it gets a hint of pink because of her walls which is kind of interesting.


Now I can FINALLY start working on the baby's room...kind of. We have the dresser in there, but it is still full of Claire's clothing since it is her old dresser and she doesn't have a new dresser yet. The crib is at my mom's house...and I think I'm getting our glider back from my brother.

30 Days Of Lists
Around our home...

• too many toys!
• cats (three of them)
• lots of stuff where it doesn't belong (because we're in the process of moving the kids rooms)
• computers - we possibly have more computers than people...
• new carpet!

I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge.

December Daily - December 1

This morning we got up and decorated our Christmas tree. I turned on Christmas music and the girls did a lot of the decorating. I did have to put the star on top of the tree, but the hardest part of that is actually trying to get the cord down through the branches in such a way that is reaches an outlet.


Claire was so excited to decorate the tree this morning. We set it up last night, but we only put our new Hallmark ornaments on it, we did not get out our box of other ornaments. I had Claire wake up Anaya while I found some Christmas music to listen to on the radio. I was planning to have breakfast first, but Claire could not wait that long to start decorating the tree. She kept wanting to hang multiple ornaments on the same branch so Anaya & I were having to watch where she was putting them to make sure she didn't overload a branch. We forgot to hang up the Disney character lights until after we hung up the ornaments, so they are mostly on the back side of the tree since I wasn't going to try to wrap them around the branches that already had ornaments. Anaya kept telling Claire which ornaments were whose, but Claire was quite insistent that one of the Tinkerbell ornaments (that was Anaya's) is actually her's.

I think that will be my "story" in my album for today. We had a rather busy day. Before we even decorated the tree, while it was just Claire & I up, we started the Christmas Countdown Calendar, but I'll probably save that for some random day when we don't have much else going on. After decorating the tree & eating pancakes, we all got ready and drove out to Justin's parents' house for Thanksgiving. After spending some time with them, we drove home (it's just over an hour) where we got to start packing up all of Claire and Anaya's stuff because we're getting new carpet installed tomorrow. Then Justin had to take Anaya home to her mom and my family came over to help move the furniture out of the girls' rooms - we currently have a bed in our livingroom and a bed in our diningroom and all kinds of crap piled EVERYWHERE. We also had to rip out the carpet in those bedrooms because we opted not to pay the additional money to have the carpet installers remove & haul-away the old carpet. Since Claire's bed is taken apart and is in our diningroom, she's sleeping in my room which means I had to get her to sleep before I could run to the grocery store to get snacks for school because this is her week to bring in snack. AAAHHHHHH! But now it is almost bedtime. I just have to find my credit card so that I can make a Cyber Monday purchase when the sale starts at 11pm (midnight EST). And our Elf On The Shelf came back to visit.

30 Days Of Lists
I'm also participating in 30 Days of Lists - December Edition, I'll probably just post my list every day with my December Daily post. The lists will most likely make their way into my Project Life album since my December Daily stories will be going into my December Daily Album. Today was the first day, so here's my list:

Before the End of the Year...

• get everything ready for the baby!
• catch up (and stay caught up) with Project Life 2013
• enjoy this time with Claire before the new baby
• get lots of rest and don't over do it
• make plans for 2014 (budget, Project Life, new car)