my christmas home:)

Welcome to our Christmas home! This is the first year we have our own house to decorate, so this has been a special time:) So I hope you enjoy yourself!

Come on in..

As you can see, our house is tiny, so we keep it simple. The landscaping is a work in progress...this house used to belong to my great-grandmother, and when we moved in the yard was a jungle! I'm excited to have a fresh yard for spring! But for now, I love our simple little lights:)

My made-from-scratch wreath...I cut up a large pick from a craft store, stuck it all in a grapevine wreath, and added a ribbon. I hate screen doors too...they make wreaths hard to use. But I like mine:)

On to the main event...the tree!

All in greens, reds, and whites/creams, with a few silvers & grays thrown in too. I also this grapevine ribbon stuff wrapped in there, along with some pinecones, and some kind of dried seed pod things on sticks. Whatever works right? :) My tree skirt is a chenille throw I keep out all year. I didn't really follow a theme....I used to have a very themed tree but went a different route this year. Its a good mix of vintage, whimsical, natural, and traditional. So whatever you want to call that! I just know I love it:)

Close up of the top...the same ribbon as my front wreath, red berry stick, plain sticks, and some glittery holly branches..

Here are some of my favorite ornaments...a Bethany Lowe ice skater.

Felt! My son loves this one especially...and unfortunately!

The ice skater's girlfriend...or at least that's what I like to think:)

Now..on to the mantle. Because our house is so tiny, our tree and fireplace are in very close proximity for no other reason than there is no other possible place to put everything. So no big fat Nester-style garland for me...I tried it, and it looked too cluttered. But I still tried to Christmas-up the mantle..

Grapevine trees and pinecones were just the thing for me..

Our fireplace is closed up, so I have a birdcage in there that holds more stuff...grapevine balls and some fabric pinecones. Do you sense an obsession??

I had a Southern Living party when we first moved in and got all of the Christmas stuff you see for free:) I LOVE my stocking..

Here are a few other areas in the living room...on top of the dvd cabinet.

I splurged on that Santa...but I love him:)

An end table...

I love my little snowmen too..even though my hubby thinks they're creepy. They were cheapo at TJ Maxx...probably my favorite place on earth!

(Oh and as an aside...sorry if these pictures are too dark. I got a new camera, one of the really fancy and nice ones, as an early Christmas gift, and I'm still learning how to use it. So I apologize if any of these look weird..)

Over in the corner...my favorite Christmas decoration of all! I got this nativity (another SL product) as a wedding shower gift. I love putting it out each year:)

In other areas of our house, I kept it simple too. In the kitchen, there are a few little groupings I did.

On the counter..

On my "funky" table..

other side..

On the stove..

And last, on my desk..

I love Jim Shore pieces...I got this Santa last year.

And this Santa this year!

Still, my favorite things to see in my house stay out all year long:)

I hope you enjoyed our home! Merry Christmas from our family to yours:)

tot school - christmas fun

Noah is 15 months old.

We had a great week of tot school! Noah had lots of fun enjoying crafts and activities themed for Christmas, and I also incorporated a new color box appropriate for the season.

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Color Theme: RED

I changed Noah's color box to RED this week. He had lots of fun exploring the different items I found to put in there. Here is a shot inside the box, although a few things were being played with..

I'm so happy that Noah enjoys this, and I plan to keep doing it indefinitely. Even when I get through all of the main colors, I'm going to go back and start over again. Right now I just like to expose him to the idea of different colors, and then when we redo them over and over I hope he'll be able to do more identifying.

Using red is also great for the Christmas season! I plan to continue with red next week, then switch to green for the week of Christmas and the final week of the year.

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Seasonal Theme: Christmas FUN:)

Though Noah did a few tot school activities that weren't Christmas themed this week (MegaBlok building/pretend play, pompoms into different containers, etc), I didn't take any pictures of those. Our main focus was on Christmas activities!

I used similar holiday erasers during Halloween for Noah to practice fine motor, one-to-one, and sorting, so I found some Christmas themed ones to use for this time of year.

He loves putting them in and out of an ice cube tray. I tried to have him use various utensils to transfer them, but he preferred his fingers. He also preferred NOT to sort or do one-to-one...whatever makes him happy, though, right? :)

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I also printed out several items from Carisa's Christmas Tot Pack. Noah did fairly well matching the trees...

Remember, last week he shocked me in correctly matching all of the Brown Bear Tot Pack heads & tails...but I think the trees were a bit too advanced for him. The patterns are much more subtle. He still got several right without any help though:)

I bought out a few other of the tot pack pieces, but he wasn't too interested...which is okay, because we still have two weeks to use them! Only I really need a laminator so Noah quits destroying the pieces....maybe I'll hit an after Christmas sale:)

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Noah did several Christmas crafts this week too. First, we made a paper plate wreath. I've seen this several places (I forget where first..sorry!), and I thought Noah would really enjoy it.

First, he finger painted (about 1/4 of the plate) green...no pictures as this required supervision and assistance:) Then, he glued red and white pompoms and torn yellow paper to it. He did great with the pompoms, but had trouble with the paper...he didn't like the glue on his fingers.

Last, we glued a "bow" to the top. This is now proudly displayed on Noah's Granny's refrigerator per her request for some Christmas art:)

Noah also helped make a hand & foot print reindeer. He helped me glue the wiggle eyes on and made his fingerprint for the nose..

And please excuse the fact that the reindeer is black with green antlers...my construction paper pack has no brown paper at all?!?!

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As usual, Noah enjoyed his books this week! I introduced a new style of book though...i-spy books (Christmas themed, of course!). Noah LOVED these! And he did really well in identifying some of the objects in this one..

Noah's Granny also gave him a big Christmas i-spy book. He mostly looked at the pictures in this one..

Some of Noah's other favorites from the week included:

Rudolph's Bag of Toys by Mary Man-Kong (again)

Christmas in the Manger by Nola Buck (again)

Star of Wonder by Dan Crisp

and the i-spy books: ISpy Little Christmas by Jean Marzollo

(the other book is at his Granny's house, so I'll share the title later..I forget it right now!)

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The last fun thing we did for the Christmas season was have a Christmas themed meal. I love the Muffin Tin Monday theme ideas, but I don't have any mini muffin trays for Noah to use. I did find some cute trays at Target, though, so I did a themed lunch one day.

From top right to bottom: Christmas tree cheese; Rudolph noses (cherry tomatoes); Christmas stars (marshmellow stars...for desert!); tree sandwiches (grilled cheese & avocado); and a Santa Smoothie (I used greek yogurt, whole milk, a banana, the rest of the avocado, blueberries, and a pear)

Noah loved it all but the tomatoes:) I tried to sneak those in, but he just wouldn't have it! Otherwise, though, he cleaned his plate & his cup!

In the same regard, Noah has suddenly become SUPER independent at mealtime. He refuses to eat unless he can feed himself...including using a spoon. He has become much more proficient in the last week, and only requires minimal help from me. He has also learned how to take bites out of larger pieces...like sandwiches and such. So I guess you could consider this as Life School activities....its just hard to believe how BIG Noah is becoming, and how much he changes everyday:)

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That's all we've got for this week! See what others are up to at Tot School...hosted by Carisa at1+1+1=1!

tot school - let christmas begin:)

Noah is 14 months old.

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I am beyond happy to again report that this smiling face is back to normal:)

After a really tough nine days of a virus turned serious double ear infections, I'm still pretty shocked to say that we had a great week of Tot School! It just all happened towards the end of the week...

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Theme: Brown Bear Brown Bear

We finished up with our color brown this week. Noah didn't do much with the color box, but I did have several Brown Bear Brown Bear activities set up for him to do.

First, Noah did a dot painting page found here using his tadoodles markers....he did a few of the dots on his own, but needed help to do most of them. Still, I think he liked this one!

After he did the dots, I tried to continue the activity using fruit loops over the dots. Again, he did a few, but wasn't too interested. Oh well..maybe next time:)

I printed off some of the pieces to the Brown Bear Tot Pack found here (thanks Carisa!!), but had basically decided to store them away for later. He wasn't too interested in the size sequencing pieces besides trying to crumple them up, and totally ignored the color pages (I knew the other components would be too advanced too, so I didn't use them yet).

But, when I pulled out the heads & tails activity...Noah SHOCKED the pants off of me! I was in awe that he matched every single one correctly, the first time, without any help at all! Now, he doesn't actually fit the pieces together, and I only offer two sets of animals at a time for him to match up, but I was amazed that he could tell me what went with what at his age. So way to go Noah:)

I'm so excited that Noah is beginning to reach the age that I can use tot books/packs with him. I plan on using these kinds of resources a lot with him in the future!

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Theme: Christmas

Hooray for Christmas time:) I've been so excited to pull out all of the Christmas books and activities I've had saved back for Noah. We kept it fairly simple this week since he was still on the mend, but he really enjoyed what we've done so far!

First, we made a handprint angel. It was a battle to get a good hand traced, but I finally got it and put it back for future projects! Noah had lots of fun playing with the paper scraps while I cut, glued, and finished up the final product:)

I did this in conjunction with a daily reading we're doing out of a Countdown to Christmasbook. Much of the book is too advanced, but I like that it had scriptures to read everyday and a nice Christian message overall. And I'm not doing something big to go along with each day...I just like to expose Noah to the true meaning of Christmas as much as possible:)

Speaking of, Noah had fun this week playing with my good nativity set....an activity done with CLOSE supervision!

Noah also had lots of fun reading this week as usual. I'll be adding all of the Christmas books we read to our Shelfari over time, but here are some of his favorites from this week:

Rudolph's Bag of Toys by Mary Man-Kong

Christmas in the Manger by Nola Buck

Biscuit's Snowy Day by Alyssa Satin Capucilli

One last fun Christmas activity we did this past weekend was attend a Christmas concert! If you've been reading here for a while, you know that my husband and mother LOVE the gospel group Ernie Haase & Signature Sound. This most recent concert made the fifth one we've been to.

We got SUPER lucky too...they held a Christmas concert in our town this time around! We were very amazed...we live in a pretty small town, but they held it in one of the biggest churches in the area. It was a small show, but it was one of the best we've seen!

Jimmy and Noah had lots of fun in their matching toboggans:)

And overall it was just a fun, family activity to do to celebrate the Christmas season!

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That's all we've got for this week! See what others are up to at Tot School...hosted by Carisa at1+1+1=1!

thank you alexander fleming...

Noah says "I *heart* penicillin!!"....well, actually Noah *hearts* amoxicillin, but its basically the same thing..

After 9 days of guesswork about why Noah was still feeling cruddy, still had no appetite, and STILL had a fever (off and on), he was finally diagnosed with a serious double ear infection. ugh! Its a long story about why it took so long to get an actual diagnosis on him, and in our pediatrician's defense, things actually did start out as viral....but let's just say I will never waste my time in an ER where you have to ASK to have your child's ears even looked at during a physician's assessment unless Noah has a detached limb!

But I do have to say, I LOVE our pediatrician's office...they really are wonderful! And Noah is feeling much better now...back to his silly, funny little ways:) Just in time for lots of Christmas fun!

**and just in case you didn't know, alexander fleming discovered penicillin, hence my title:)