Merry Christmas!

Huston and Arden had a great Christmas and we all had fun celebrating Christ's birth with our families. One of my favorite parts of this holiday season was hearing Huston sing the songs he learned in preschool around the house. He sang "Children Go Where I Send Thee" almost constantly the past few weeks (along with Rudolph, Silent Night, Away in a Manger, and a few others), and it was so cute. Of course, when it came time for his little Christmas program, he clammed up and refused to sing a word. He just covered his eyes and made weird faces the whole time. Typical Huston.

Huston got a tricycle on Christmas morning, which intrigued him for awhile (and he even got on it and rode it a little bit), but then he insisted we keep it out in the garage. I brought it back in the house against his wishes and he hasn't played with it much since then. He is so funny about gifts and toys. He did better about opening his presents this year, but at my parents' house I had to bribe him with a cookie to open his last three gifts. He just doesn't care that much about presents. His obsession for at least the last two months has been eyeglasses, and he did get some of those for Christmas. He has quite a collection and just likes to wear them and play with them. Every time his Mimi comes over he collects all of her reading glasses from her purse and won't let them out of his sweaty little hands until it's time for her to leave.

Arden loved opening her gifts this year! She got a darling zebra raincoat from her Mimi and Grandpa, and some dolls and a baby stroller, among other things. She is such a girlie girl and loves to wear accessories of all kinds. Every time she sees a necklace it has to go around her neck, and she loves to walk around the house with daddy's belt wrapped around her waist twice and buckled, or with a hat on her head. Such a contrast to Huston, who, within the span of just a few hours on Christmas Eve, refused to wear the button down shirt I wanted him to wear to church, his jacket, and then the pajamas I bought him that matched Arden's. I gave in to him on all three because he can put up quite the protest when it comes to clothes. At least I have Arden to pretty up!

We took the kids to the Christmas Eve service at our church and I loved having them with us in the sanctuary as we sang Christmas carols. Christmas day was spent at my parents' house and the kids had fun running around and playing with their cousins, eating too many sweets, and opening a mountain of gifts. Fun times all around!

Away in a Manger

I was cleaning the house when I got home from school this week, and I really wanted to take this ENORMOUS box out to the trash in the garage, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet. My plans changed, however, when Huston woke up from his nap and almost immediately wrapped Bear Bear up in Blankie (swaddled him, if you will) and put him in the box and said, "Look, Mommy! Bear Bear's sleeping in a manger, just like Baby Jesus!" The rest of the afternoon and this week, he has continued to pretend that the box is a manger, and will say things like, "Do you want to come see Bear Bear sleeping in a manger?" and "Bear Bear's just a tiny baby." Yesterday Bear Bear was crying, and Huston sang him "Away in a Manger" to get him back to sleep.

So if you come to my house and trip over this giant box when you walk in the door, please forgive me. Now, at least, you'll know why it's there.

ardenthanks

Shutterfly is doing another great promotion for bloggers. Click here to learn more. I love using Shutterfly for all of my invitations and thank you cards. Here's the thank you card I made for Arden's first birthday:

Hello There Thank You 3x5 folded card

Create custom thank you cards at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Arden's Thank You

Okay, even though I haven't even posted about Arden's birthday part yet, not to mention Halloween or Thanksgiving or anything else that's been happening lately, I have to post this link to a thank you card I made for Arden's birthday. Shutterfly is doing another great promotion for bloggers where you can receive a $25 gift certificate for posting a link to your card project. So here it is!

Shutterfly Cards!

We interrupt this program...

for a friendly little promotion! I read on my friend Ashlee's blog (thanks Ashlee!) about how Shutterfly is giving bloggers 50 free Christmas cards. Go here to find out more! It's an awesome deal if you're a blogger, and was too good for me to pass up, considering how much I love Shutterfly! I have made countless photo books through their site, including one a year each for Huston and Arden to keep track of all of their milestones. Since Arden's birthday is coming up next week, I need to start working on her one-year book soon! I've also made tons of gifts through their site, including wall calendars with pictures of the kids for the grandparents and great-grandparents and personalized stationary cards for friends and family.

They have a great selection of Christmas cards - I always spend hours pouring over all the choices and almost as much time trying to pick out the perfect pictures to send to our family and friends. I almost always choose a design that allows me to use more than one picture, because I can never narrow it down to just one!

Here's a sweet one that let's you use lots of pictures. You gotta love a card that let's you include a monogram, too!

Here's another one that I like that let's you highlight your kiddos:

I also like these for something funky and fun or these for something more traditional and classic or these for something a little vintage-y.

Go here to check out Shutterfly's selection of Christmas and holiday cards:

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards

Go here to check out their wall calendars:

http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars

and go here to check out some cool options for canvas art:

http://www.shutterfly.com/home-decor/canvas-wall-art

So Big!

Arden is a little over 11 months now. That big first birthday is coming up fast (and Mommy is not ready for it - emotionally or actually). Here's a quick update on her sweet personality.

Arden is walking around like an adorable little toddler now. She had a slower transition to walking than Huston did, taking her first steps on August 26th, then having a big walking breakthrough on grandparent's day (September 12th), then continuing to do a mix of walking and crawling until about three weeks ago when she decided that she preferred walking and would purposefully get back up into a walking position anytime she fell down, instead of continuing her journey by crawling, which is what she did before. So now she is toddling all over the place, and I just can't get enough of her little tiny self step, step, stepping all over the house.

She loves stuffed animals right now, especially Huston's giant dog that Mimi got him from Ikea. It is enormous compared to her, but she gets so happy when she sees it and will carry it all over the house and talk to it and lie down on it. She snuggles and squeals with almost any stuffed animal you hand her, but that's her favorite by far.

She is soooo much more verbal than Huston was at this stage, jabbering to herself all the time, pointing at things and making sounds, and saying things that sound like "Hi," when she waves. She still loves dogs (and most animals) and makes the most adorable "woofing" sound. She raises her hands over her head when you ask, "How big is Arden?" and she LOVES reading books. Just in the past two weeks or so this has become an obsession with her. Her favorite is Pat the Bunny, and she does everything the book says. She pats the bunny, feels daddy's scratchy face, smells the flowers, looks in the mirror - it is so cute!

She loves pointing to things and making little noises to indicate her wants. She likes all kinds of drinks and always wants to taste what you have in your glass. She thinks whatever Huston is playing with must be cool, and always tries to play with his toys. She is determined and can really show her temper when she doesn't get her way, but is overall pretty laid back and calm. She likes playing with car keys, splashing in the bathtub, running around outside, swinging at the park, and just exploring the world.

She's my little sweetie pie.

Potties and other Huston things

I have no time for cleverly composed posts these days, so this will just be a brain dump of Huston-related things. Enjoy!

We discovered black mold under our kitchen sink this weekend. It seems to have been due to a leak in our sink, so we headed to Lowe's after church on Sunday to buy a new sink. Huston was delighted that he got to play with the "potties" at Lowe's, which is one of his favorite things to do at this playground of a store. They have six potties in a row and he just walks around pretending to flush them and saying, "Huston just made pee pee in the potty." Then he'll walk around to the sink that's on display and pretend to wash his hands.

Huston has also been lately obsessed with a flashing strobe light down our street that someone has out as a part of their Halloween decorations. He can't stop talking about it, and makes his hand open and close and says, "Huston has a flashing light. For it was daytime you just turn your flashing light off for it won't waste electricity. Your flashing light is red." He was talking like this on our way home from Clarke's parents's house Sunday night. Clarke asked, "Did you buy your flashing light at Lowe's?" (because Huston had previously said that) and Huston said seamlessly, "Oh no. You just bought it at Tops." (get it? Lows? Tops? He created his own store with the opposite name.)

I thought that was pretty creative. Then yesterday he was walking around the house with a clothespin stuck to his shirt (because it looked cool), and I said "I like your clothespin." He replied, "Oh, it's an open pin." (get it? close? open?) I don't know where he's coming up with all these opposites, but I like it.

I also love how he says the following things:

starter up: meaning to start up, as in, "I have to starter up the car."

the earlier: meaning anything in the past, from earlier the same day to a few days ago to a year ago, as in, "The earlier you went to Mimi's house."

picked: meaning picked up, as in, "I just picked Bear Bear," or "Cranky picked Thomas," (from a favorite Thomas episode where Cranky the Crane picks Thomas up off the tracks).

drop down: meaning dropped off, as in, "Grandma just dropped me down at preschool."