5QF

1. How long does your Christmas tree stay up? Well, it’s New Year’s Eve.. and it’s still up! Actually, I plan on packing up all of our Christmas things up this weekend!

2. Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve? Yep, I am making this for dinner.. renting a few movies from Redbox & staying home with my little family! Grammie & Grampie are coming over for dinner & a movie too! :)

3. Do you have any New Year’s resolutions? Why yes, I do! I would like to try to eat healthier, as I have eaten a bunch of junk over the past few months, and it has made me feel quite crappy.. as well as gain quite a bit of weight! I would also like to continue to get organized. I have been cleaning out & getting rid of a bunch of stuff this past month, and it has felt wonderful.. especially since it was all just taking up extra space!

4. How did you spend New Year’s Eve when you were younger? I had to think a long time about this one. when I was a teenager, I have NO idea what I did. I am guessing that it wasn’t that exciting, since I don’t remember! When I was younger, I used to stay up & watch the ball drop on TV, or fall asleep attempting to!

5. What was the best way you‘ve ever spent New Year’s Eve? Well, we usually go out for New Year’s with a bunch of friends.. but we are staying home this year & I am going to say that tonight is going to be my favorite New Year’s Eve.. being with my family, staying home sounds perfect to me!

Hope that everyone has a great night, can’t wait to see what 2011 brings! :)

handmade holiday

I follow a bunch of wonderful blogs, and have gotten a TON of inspiration from blogland about homemade Christmas gifts.. 

I knew that I wanted to make Aidan something from the heart from Mommy this year for Christmas & here's what I came up with! 

Aidan loves to color, so I made a family coloring book for him & tried my hand at making my own crayons too! (which was super easy!!!) 

I used a silicone baking mold to make the crayons, 

they popped right out & turned out so cute!

I used Photoshop to make the coloring pages, 

his book is full of our family & a bunch of pictures of Aidan too! :)

Aidan's second gift is a snowman kit! 

I had fun picking out all of the snowman materials & painting the box to hold everything in, I made sure to get enough for TWO snowmen.. don't want just one to get lonely! :)

I got my ideas from several different bloggers & am so happy that I made the time to put some heart into a couple of Aidan's presents! 

I hope to keep doing this for several more years.. well, until my son is staring at me, rolling his eyes in digust.. saying "geez Mom!!!" :)

o Christmas tree!

Every year, I love to decorate our Christmas tree.. I love our ornaments and the significance of each of them, I also love that we now have cute homemade ones from our son, they make me smile every time I look at them! 

Inspired by Lindsay (again!) here is a look at some of my favorite ornaments, some new ones this year and some old ones too! 

After the tree is up, we give Aidan a wrapped ornament, that represents something that he is really "into" that year, and he is super excited to hang the first ornament on the tree.. this year it was Iron Man! :)

Grammie also gets in on this tradition & gets Aidan a new ornament too.. she chose a tractor this year!

My absolute favorite ornament is this glass one of the Three Wise Men. 

It was on our family tree when I was little & my mom gave it to me when I first moved into my new home, it's still my favorite!

I also love my Strawberry Shortcake ball from 1981 too :)

My recent favorite are these little snowmen, I just think they're cute!

I also love this star, that Aidan painted at a pottery shop on our first family vacation up north in Glen Arbor last summer :)

One thing I love about having a toddler now, is that he loves to make crafts with Mommy!

I definitely took advantage of that this year, as we made a few ornaments together:

I told Aidan how to make this reindeer & he did the rest! 

He got a bit excited with the glue.. but he was so proud of his Rudolph!

 I tried to make this snowman handprint ornament last year with Aidan, and it was a mess.. he had a lot more hand control this year, 

and didn't mind the paint on his hands either! (that definitely helps!)

I have seen a bunch of variations of this one online, and they are all adorable! 

We went with a tinsel filled ball & I painted on the finishing touches when Aidan's handprint dried.. I LOVE how it turned out!

I hope you all have as much fun looking at your beautiful, memory-filled trees as I do! :)

Tot School- Letters N, O and P!

Oh goodness, I am such a Tot-School drop-out!!! :(

We have been finished with these letters for awhile now, and took a lengthy break before them.. I am hoping to get back on track after the holidays, because right now, our schedule is CRAZY! 

Numbers on his letter N..

Pasting N words on his Letter N worksheet..

Noodle counting!

Play-doh faces.. making silly noses!

Letter O octopus!

Octo-dogs for lunch.. Aidan LOVED these!

(& making it talk...!)

We learned about putting things in order (sequencing) & had fun with these Blue's Clues cards.

I had both boys that I babysit over the beginning of December, so we had fun with an ornament craft!

We didn't have any ornaments on the tree yet, so it was fun to watch the boys decorate it together! :)

Paint on letter P..

We did a TON of puzzles, and Aidan has mastered all of them!

This is Aidan's current favorite puzzle:

Making pizza! 

(please excuse the hair, we just came in from playing in the snow outside!)

Being such a big helper.. and sneaking bites of cheese!

Not bad for his first pizza! :)

Christmas past..

Inspired by Lindsay, I decided to take a look back at our little guy!

2007- 2 months old!!

2008

2009

2010- out little stinker! :)

5 Question Friday!

I can hardly believe that I am posting this on the correct day.. isn't it amazing??? :)

Here we go!

1. Do you regift? And if so.. do you have a re-gifting horror story? Nope, never have re-gifted.. so, no bad stories from me! 

2. Do you know what you are getting for Christmas this year? Nope, I have no clue! Tony usually asks for a list from me, but he waits until the last minute to go shopping!

3. Who brings the most gifts in your family, you or Santa? I would have to say Santa. Usually, we limit the amount spent on eachother & Santa goes a bit overboard sometimes!

4. What store do you love to buy jeans from? Kohl's. I have absolutely NO time to go to the mall to browse around for jeans, and Kohl's has the Levi's that I love, and I can get in & out of there without crying! .. because jean shopping is just SO much fun!.. yeah right!

5. Christmas meal: Big, All Out Meal, or Snacks & Apps? Well, it depends.. at my Dad's we always have a big sit-down meal. At my Mom's, we have a more casual dinner, usually something simple & lots of snacky foods. At Tony's sister's get-together, we have a big meal, that also has snacks.. and I feel like a big fat pig after I leave there, but I LOVE the food!!! :)

early Christmas

My nephews were in town last week, so we had an early Christmas get-together at my Dad's last weekend! 

After dinner, the kids were DYING to open their presents,

here's Sammy & Jackson waiting patiently...!

Love this picture of Aidan's gift pileup on Daddy!

.. and, GO!

These boys didn't waste any time unwrapping!

After everything was opened, the most popular gift of the night was definitely the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots!

I had to play too! 

(Jackson totally beat me..!)

Another favorite was Jackson's Storm Trooper helmet.. which was a little bit large for Aidan! :)

It was so nice to spend time with my family, I LOVE this time of year!

Chicago!

It's been awhile, but the first weekend of December I went to Chicago with my good friend Amanda. We go along with a bus shopping trip, but we choose not to shop & instead go to some of the museums around town!

This year we went to the Museum of Science & Industry, which has changed so much since I was there last when I was a kid..

Here's some random photos, as I took WAY too many pictures that day :)

The big attraction there right now is the Jim Henson exhibit, this was a huge gingerbread house of the museum with some of his Muppets..

I loved going to this, as I basically grew up with Sesame Street, etc.. it was awesome to see the real puppets!

 These guys were my favorite.. it's Gobo & Cantus from Fraggle Rock! :)

HAD to take pictures of the big tractor for Aidan.. he would have loved this farm exhibit!

Especially the combine, which showed the inner workings of the equipment.. SO wish that Aidan was there with me!

In honor of Aidan, Amanda & I jumped in the drivers seat & had a simulated combine ride harvesting corn.. so cool! :)

We had a little bit too much fun playing with our shadows here.. :)

HUGE toy train exhibit!

Life cycle exhibit & the cute little chicks! 

I have NO idea what this thing is called, but we liked it!

They also had a TON of Christmas decorations, a beautiful HUGE tree, and a small tree representing every country in the world, decorated according to their customs.. but I won't bore you with the pictures! 

747 Exhibit, taking a break! 

We had such a great time! 

I especially loved having the day to spend with my friend, and having some time to myself! :)