Pancakes for a Pillow

Benjamin has started getting into a phase of not wanting to go down for naps. It means he goes to bed a little earlier which I don't mind too much. But the problem is that he can be kind of a grouch until he does go to bed.

On December 20th we had one of those napless days. We all sat down for dinner which was breakfast...pancakes. Benjamin ate one and then started on a second one when he started to doze off to sleep.

It was pretty funny to watch him fall asleep almost in his pancakes.

I held him while finishing my food and Jared got things ready to put Benjamin to bed.

Martinelli's

I was downstairs on the 19th of December when I heard a noise upstairs like a crash and then a cry. I ran upstairs quickly to see what had happened to Benjamin. He comes walking around the corner holding onto a Martinelli's bottle.

I laughed as he tried to drink from the bottle. I grabbed my camera and followed him around as he played with the bottle.

Brownies for Breakfast...Almost

For a White Elephant gift exchange at work I got a box of brownies, cold cereal and a few other items for baking. My sweet tooth has been raging (along with my spicy tooth...which I didn't know I had one) so I made the brownies pretty quickly. We ate almost all of them the day I made them. There were some hard parts left that we couldn't easily get out of the tray.

The next morning (12/16) Benjamin after breakfast pushed a chair over to the counter and started attacking the brownies. He was able to get out quite a bit and eat to his hearts content. I didn't get upset at all. It was after breakfast after all and he was so dang cute.

Instead I ran for my camera to take pictures of it to remember and catch the moment.

Hanging Lights as a Family

I find it a little funny that I am taking the Christmas decorations down and I am going to post about putting the lights up.

I tried to put the lights up myself this year. We've never hung lights before and we have tons of lights for it. We didn't have a staple gun so I tried to be resourceful to hang the lights. I used thumbtacks. Jared came home and was impressed with my efforts but laughed and said that won't work. I should have just waited for Jared to come home but part of me thinks if I hadn't tried we never would have done it.

Jared got the right materials to hang the lights and went to town. Benjamin and I kept him company out in the cold.

Benjamin had fun walking around climbing the stairs and the ladder. It was chilly though.

I love having the lights up. It's so pretty.

Benjamin Catch-Up

I just had to share these pictures of Benjamin!

Here is Benjamin feeding himself yogurt (11/20/2011). He loves yogurt. And he loves to feed himself! It's great but it makes for a big mess each time. I let him feed himself standing up this time. It got a little slippery.

So we had Jared's sisters over for breakfast (11/23/2011) and their kids last week. It was a fun time. Somehow a back room door got left open and Benjamin disappeared. Jared found him and told me I had to see it. Benjamin and climbed up into his old bassinet and was happily playing with bottle parts.

Here is Benjamin after his 2nd hair cut but his 1st home done hair cut (11/23/2011). We stripped him down, strapped him into his high chair and played Phineas and Ferb for him. He did really good and it turned out okay. I have a hard time with cutting his hair short. I don't like it too short.

Handmade Ornaments

Jared's family does an ornament exchange every year. Last year I signed up to participate but then ran out of time to get anything put together. So this year I decided I better hurry up and get it done. I finished it at the beginning of November.

I had been wanting to make a certain ornament for a very long time. I had seashells and angel stickers. I put the stickers in the shells and then covered them front and back with modge podge so they would have a nice shine. Afterwards I took them outside and sprayed them with silver glitter. After they were good and dry I glued on some string. I enjoyed making them and had fun!

I think they turned out really cute! I made way more than I needed for the exchange so I could use them as gifts as well.

After all that work though on our way to Jared's Aunt Pam's house I realized I had left them at home. I was so disappointed. Luckily we had a party just a few days later and I was able to hand out some of them. The rest I will have to get at Christmas.

Two Trees

I started setting up for Christmas extra early this year. We never put it all away in the attic last year so I didn't have to rely on Jared to get the job done. I must say as much as Jared doesn't enjoy everything around decorating for Christmas he sure does help me out a ton. I felt so loved with all the help he gave me.

With Benjamin being 18 months this year at Christmas time I was really worried that I would have to have an unbalanced tree with only ornaments at the top. I couldn't handle that. It just bugged me. Jared said to me that we would just have to be diligent and teach Benjamin to not touch the ornaments.

So far so good...every once in awhile Benjamin touches something but we quickly tell him no. For the most part he leaves it alone which makes me very happy.

I love my Christmas tree! I am very particular about how it is set-up. I am not really sure how I got to this point but I only like glass, silver and gold (with a little bit of red here and there) on my tree. I've been stocking up every year with more ornaments after Christmas is over because really I can wait and pay way less to have ornaments. I just love the classy feel I get from my tree.

After setting most everything up I decided I wasn't going to set-up my smaller tree downstairs because it seemed like so much work. Jared said give it time. Jared's family does a ornament exchange every year at Thanksgiving. I came home with like 13 or 14 ornaments and I couldn't pass them up. So I broke out the little tree and all of my other ornaments. This is my fun kid like tree.

I know spoiled right? Two trees! I bought the little one when I got my first apartment. I had to have a tree. We bought the bigger tree when we moved into our house because lets face it the little tree is not big enough for a house.

I love how I can have Christmas all around the house.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you enjoy this time of year!