Under the Tree & Dreaming...

This little sweetheart had been playing on her new playmat and finally got so sleepy, she just rolled over on her side & fell right asleep...almost under the Christmas tree! I had to steal a few pictures! (4 months old)

The Kids' Trees

Two years ago, I picked up a couple "extra" 6 foot pre-lit Christmas trees on clearance with the idea that one would be our Razorback tree in the office and the other would be Mason's. Well, we decorated the Razorback tree last year, but not Mason's.

Mason wanted his tree up in his bedroom this year, so we decorated it with kiddie ornaments, mostly from my childhood and a few that I'd bought him over the years.




This year the Razorback office is now Madelyn's nursery! We just put up our tabletop silver tinsel tree in her room since she was too little to appreciate it anyway and Mommy was tired!

Decking the Halls 2010

I've finally gotten this blog caught up to December! And so we begin with decorating our house for Christmas...

Safe, I know.




We had an extra stocking this year! (I'm so glad we got an extra matching stocking & hook back when we got these a few years ago!) The letters were new this year.

Our Nativity
On top of the entertainment center is where the nutcrackers live...
A little scene I put together--it was my fave little thing this year!

Girls Holiday Get-Together

For the second year in a row, three of my close friends & I got together before Christmas to exchange gifts, eat lots of yummy food, and talk each other's ears off! Amanda, Amber, Heather, and I have been friends for many years since we all used to work together. It was so fun to hang out with these girls at Amber's house! We don't get to spend as much time together as we used to, so we had a lot of catching up to do. We each brought a gift and drew names and we all got some cute stuff! I drew Amanda's gift and got several sets of cute jewelry!
These pictures are kind of funny because I took them with my camera's auto-timer. It took a few tries to get us all in the shot!
P.S. Isn't Amber's tree gorgeous!?! It's all silver & red with a Santa theme.

Our Home at Christmastime

I jokingly started calling the Santa head in the bell jar the "Cryogenic Santa Head" heehee











Button trees I made a few years ago


Our little Razorback-themed tree in our office (just got it this year~needs more ornaments, etc.)

Decking the Halls with Santa's Little Helper

Mason was really into the Christmas decorations when we got them all down from the attic. He was immediately drawn to the nutcrackers and played with them for quite a while. Then he decided to "help" me decorate the tree.




He really liked the "cluster" method:


I think he had about 10 ornaments hooked onto this larger bird ornament at one point
The finished product!

Tree Monkey

My Mom took these pictures about a month ago and I love how they turned out! And since Mason has M.I.A. from the blog pictures for a while (thanks to all the Vegas posts) I thought we all needed a big dose of cuteness!

I took him for his 3 year check-up the other day & he is off the charts again for height and weight. (No surprises there-he's always either in the 90th percentile or off the chart) He weighs 38 lbs and is 41 inches tall! What a big boy. He even got to pick a toy out of the Dr's Treasure Chest since he was potty trained. And no shots this time, so needless to say, he left there a happy kid.

He starts Preschool next week and is so excited! Of course you'll get to here all about that new adventure~wish us luck!

Spring Cleaning, Decor & More!

It's hard to tell that it's Springtime today because it's SNOWING here! Here's what it looked like at 9:oo this morning:
It looks weird having snow on top of green grass!

At least the snow has not eliminated the urge to dust away the winter blahs with some Spring Cleaning! I've gotten some much needed cleaning done today and we've made some progress around the house over the last few weeks. Here's what we've been up to:

The day we returned from Tulsa was nice & warm & Mason got his very first ice cream from the ice cream truck! It's been driving around our neighborhood for a few weeks now (already!) and we finally caved. Of course Mason picked out a huge Spongebob with bubblegum eyeballs. He loved it but wasn't able to finish the whole thing. I tried to get a good picture of him holding up the ice cream, since it was a "first," but of course he wouldn't hold it up right and finally just made this silly face. I have no idea where he came up with this face, but that's the face he always makes when being silly.

A few weeks ago, after getting the new shelf in our office to match the new desk from my parents, I started rearranging all sorts of things & I ended up moving Mason's books from his bedroom into the office bookcase. They are so much easier to get at & I like having his books with ours. It also freed up a lot of space in his room for toys to be reorganized.

This is our Bradford pear tree (what's left of it after the ice storm-It's not too bad though) Early this week we had a tree service come out & top & trim a different large tree in our backyard (one that's right next to this pear tree) and it looks much better. Now we aren't scared of it falling on our fence, storage building or into the precious neighbor's pool. (that's a whole other story! LOL)

I even made (slice & bake) sugar cookies last weekend! In spring colors of course.

Now you won't believe this one. Drumroll please.....
I cleaned out The Junk Drawer! Don't act like you don't have one.
Ours was beyond unruly and embarrassing. I was sick of digging around through batteries, twist ties, tools, broken pieces off toys, etc. So I bought a huge drawer organizer at Walmart, sat down with the drawer and went to town. Here are the beautiful results:

Last weekend I also put away the St Patrick's Day decorations (what few I have) and brought out the Easter/Spring stuff. I was inspired by my friend Sherri and her post about decorating, the blog Southern Hospitality & one of my fave blogs to check out, Bless Our Nest.
I usually keep most of the decorations in the living room area, but Spring pastels don't exactly lend themselves to the RED in my living room, so I mostly decorated the kitchen this time.

The kitchen table centerpiece~I pulled a watering can vase from my baker's rack, a little fern/snail plaque, threw my coaster set on there just because they matched the SLAH tray, and finished it off with 2 little ceramic bunnies that I've had since I was little. (Well, one was mine & one was my sister's. They're now both mine!) Bwah ha ha :)

In the corner~Lots of SLAH (Southern Living at Home)stuff.

It looked a little plain, so I added this ivy & purple flower...

Another corner~a hydrangea arrangement I made years ago (with the tips chewed off from my cat. At the time I was so mad, but now that she's gone, I like it. Weird, I know.) And a little Dept 56 bunny pot.

More SLAH, a (fake) chocolate bunny and the green votive candle is a new one from Yankee~Vanilla Lime (YUM)

Onto the Living Room~ A huge egg candle (There's a blue one just like it on the opposite table)

Bunnies on the the mantle with another flower arrangement (I did not make this one)

A plaque I love with tulip candle holders (have them in green & orange too)

I made this ceramic egg in Kindergarten...

That's it for this extra-long post! Next Spring Project: Getting ready for a Huge Yard Sale! (wish me luck on that one!)
Happy Spring!