Happy Birthday Caleb!

Caleb officially turned 27 January 22nd. Don't tell him I told you how old he was hehehe :) On his birthday we had some friends come over for cake, ice cream, and to play Wii. His birthday theme was none other then Transformers. We had transformer decorations and I made and decorated an awesome transformers birthday cake for him. Silly me didn't take a picture of the cake. I was so busy that day, sorry. So I will tell you how I decorated it in great detail. To start out it was Bumble Bee yellow (transformer character). I then put the autobot (good guy's) symbol on the left hand side. The autobot symbol started out dark blue, then faded into white and then to red. The decepticon (bad guy) symbol was on the right hand side and started out dark purple (no girly pastel purple) faded to white then dark blue. It looked awesome if I can say so myself. It took a lot of work. Good thing I like to cake decorate and have been doing so since I was 5. Happy Birthday Caleb!!!!

Where Did You Learn THAT from!!!

This is one of the things you always laugh at but never expect it to happen to you. Yesterday after church, we gave Valerie a baggie of crasins (dried cranberries) to eat on our way home. A few minutes later we hear in a whimpering, sad voice “Mommy, ouch in nose” she then proceeded to cry. Caleb and I both looked at each other in disbelief, thinking did she really just put one of those up her nose?! Caleb pulled over and looked up her nose and sure enough there was a crasin up her nose. Not in the nostril all the way up in the sinus. To get it that far up she must have been trying to get it out, poor thing. When we got home we tried to get it out but it just didn’t want to come out. So instead of doing more damage we called the on call pediatrician and got a referral to the local urgent care. Once we got into the doctor’s office we found out how much strength is in a 20 month child. It took 5 of us using all our strength to get the silly thing out of her nose. It took me holding her legs, Caleb holding her arms and torso, a male nurse holding her head, another nurse holding the light in one hand and Valerie in the other, and the doctor trying to get the silly crasin. On the way home we kept on telling her we don’t put things up our nose, and all day today she has been telling me “Not in nose, no no”. Hopefully she takes that to heart and we don’t have to go through this again :)

Valerie holding the phone waiting for the doctor to call back.

Valerie showing us the crasin in her nose :)

A Holly Jolly Christmas and Go UTES!!!!!!!!!!

Before I get into my Christmas rant I want to say one thing. . .

GO UTES!!!!!! 13-0 !!!!! Sugar Bowl Champions!!!!!!

Now that is done. . . Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! This year, my family came down and spent Christmas with us in our new home. There was lots laughing, good times, and a ton of good food. Christmas Eve I made a standing rib roast dinner with all the trimmings. With the help of my sisters the dinner came out perfect and on time. Boy was it good! Christmas morning was a lot of fun watching everyone open their gifts. We then had our traditional Christmas morning breakfast. The rest of the day we played with our new toys and gadgets. But by far I got the best Christmas gift. My wonderful hubby decided we needed to have a dining table for us to eat on for Christmas dinner. So he bought me the dining room table we were going to buy later this year as an early Christmas gift!!!! Isn’t he wonderful! The day after Christmas we went to the beach. It was warm and sunny enough we were able to go and have fun at the beach. Can you believe it, the beach, in DECEMBER! All in all we had a great Christmas.

The traditional Santa photo with Valerie and her Uncles Phillip and David.

Valerie digging for the candy in her stocking.

Caleb and his favorite gift. The Transformer Optimus Prime 25th Anniversary addition. It also came with the original cartoon movie on DVD and a reissue of the original Transformers comic book.

Valerie pushing her new baby in her stroller.

Here is the only picture I could find of me on Christmas. Isn't that how it always goes. Mom is the one that always is taking the pictures and is never in any.

My sisters Karen, Emily and I at the Pineapple fountain in downtown Charleston.

Us at the beach the day after Christmas

The live conch Auntie Karen found. EEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

Our new dining room table. What you can't see is the diamond inlay pattern on the table top. Isn't is soooo pretty!

Is It Christmas Or Is It Summer ?!

Can you believe it, Christmas is just around the corner! It is hard for me to keep in mind that Christmas is a week away. Especially when it has been in the upper 70’s here. The other night I found myself grocery shopping in a short sleeve shirt, capris, and flip flops. Can you believe it, summer cloths in the middle of December! Well that is beside the point. Ya’ll (yes that is considered a word down here in the south) probably want to see all the festive decorations around and about in our home. This year has been lots of fun decorating. Mainly because I have a house to decorate, and it helps that Valerie is starting to understand the holidays. She gets excited every time she sees Christmas lights on a house or a Christmas tree. She always says “ooooo predy”. This year Caleb and I started a new family tradition for us. We went out and cut our own tree. Well okay not exactly. We did go to a tree farm but it never dawned on us that the elevation and heat here are not conducive to the type of Christmas tree both Caleb and I were used to. They all looked like Charlie Brown trees or over grown juniper bushes :( Luckily for us the tree farm goes up into the mountain in North Carolina and cuts down North Carolina Frasher Firs, and they look and smell like Christmas. What is nice about this is the tree cost just as much or a little bit cheaper then going to one of those parking lot tree shops. Even better is our tree was cut down the Monday after Thanksgiving, and all the parking lot trees are normally cut in the end of October!!! So enough jibber gabber here are the pictures of our festive house. . .

Us at the tree farm

Caleb cutting off the stub so we can put the Christmas tree up. Fallow the pictures. It wasen't hard at first but because the tree was so fresh as Caleb was cutting the sap would stick to the saw.

Here is our grown up Christmas tree (live tree). It is decorated in jewel tones. My mom decided that jewel tones wasn’t fun enough sounding so she has nicknamed it the Mardi Gras tree. Hints the brightly colored Peacock ordainment she sent me.

Here is our kid tree. Since we got a real tree this year we had our old fake tree still. I decided to put it to good use. The inspiration did come from all the Hallmark Cryola crayon ordainments my mother-in-law collected every year for Caleb since he was born. I went out and bought a box of 64 Cryola crayons and hot glued them to hangers. I then used the box they came in for a tree toper. If I can say so myself it turned our really well.

Finally here are some of the decorations around the house. I will have to admit I caught on to my mother-in-law’s love of the Christmas holiday. We were the first in our neighborhood to hang Christmas lights, and the Monday after Thanksgiving I brought out all of my Christmas decorations and decorated the house.

View of the Mardi Gras tree from the Entryway

If you click on the picture it will get bigger and you can see it better :)