Merry Christmas

From our family to yours - we wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Enjoy celebrating the reason for the season,

Have a wonderful time with family & friends,
Eat, Drink and Be Merry!

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Wish I Knew

There are some things in this journey of parenting that I wish I had known, and been prepared for. Things that I think some people might be better at juggling than others are... things that in combination with a cross-country move... can be very isolating.

I remember when my Dad & Lynne adopted my brother, Josh, (9) and my sister, Gabby, (8) - I had no true concept about. About the time that the kids came along - it became very difficult to get a phone call in to Lynne... and even when you did - it often would be cut short by a couple of little people needing various things. You'd have to catch her during nap time or while the kids were at school... and during that time I was working - so it was next to impossible to make that happen.

I didn't realize that having babies/toddlers can be truly one of the most isolating things there is. It is a season of life, for sure... but it's a long and lonely season at times. You are pretty much in a crazy maze of feedings, diaper changes, bottle washing, napping, bathing, and playing. Life is consumed by these gorgeous little miracles - and it's easy to forget the person you were before they came along.

Add to that moving away from your family and friends... and becoming a stay at home mother - and you've got a recipe for some long days. I desperately miss some of my friends both physical and virtual from the days before the boys came along. The church family we had - that prayed with us through our infertility, adoption and pregnancy... are deeply missed.

The friends that picked me up and carried me when I couldn't bear the burden of my emotions and struggles - once again are deeply missed. Having adult conversation - can be deeply missed when you're in the land of folks that don't speak English yet.

Please don't hear - poor little me... because that isn't what I'm saying at all. I am very blessed to have two amazing boys that I prayed for throughout the first 8 years of my marriage. I am blessed to be at home with them watching each developing skill and personality trait that they have. I am blessed beyond measure to have a husband & partner that is an amazing father.

What I'm saying is that the people that I spent time with before the boys came along are deeply missed - both in the time that we'd spend shopping, laughing, and hanging out - or communicating online... you all have a special place in my heart, and the parenting combined with the distance makes me miss you all that much more.

I have also missed blogging regularly... which has lead to some of my favorite readers to probably move on... but my resolution for the New Year is to blog daily Monday through Friday at the very least. Maybe I should jump off and do another one of those blogging 365 challenges like I did in 2008... I think making it a habit was the most beneficial both to those reading, but also feeding my love of writing.

So, most loved and trusted friends & readers... what would you want to hear more about with a regular posting plan? Topics that I haven't talked about in a while? Things I've never talked about?

O is for Opposites

From the very beginning we knew that our boys were opposites in almost every way... COMPLETE opposites. It has been almost comical.

Where James was loud and fussy as a baby - Tyler was quiet and reserved.

Where Tyler was laid back and relaxed - James was demonstrative and let you know when he didn't like something.

Where James' fussiness was brought on by reflux and milk intolerance - Tyler had issues with a SEVERE gag reflex... and to this day - I swear John and I have been vomited on enough to have 6 children thanks to Tyler.

Where James took a little extra time to master a milestone before truly beginning it (like walking) - Tyler took to it early and stumbled through the early phases of it.

Where Tyler likes to cuddle - James only does it on his terms.

Where James wouldn't allow anyone to rock him to sleep - Tyler did it until he was about 13 months old. Even still, he loves to cuddle - he just won't fall asleep like that anymore.

Where Tyler likes to bring you a book to read - James would rather sit on the floor and flip through it himself.

Where James likes to play outside - Tyler wasn't as big on going outside until recently.

Where Tyler likes to take an actual shower from time to time - James HATES having water pouring over his head.

Where James loved to go swimming from about 6 months old on - Tyler didn't learn to appreciate it until his 1st birthday... with a LOT of training in the backyard before hand.

It's an amazing journey of learning to parent each child differently to their strengths and weaknesses. In the early days and months - I remember thinking: "I did this with James... so it should work." Only to find that it in fact DID NOT! There are so many things about parenthood that people don't tell you - some I think are because if it was widely shared with people... our population might cease growing any larger. Other things, I think just vary so much from family to family and/or child to child - you just can't predict what can/will happen and what won't.

It's all a great big guessing game of trial and error - all with the hope that you will parent well enough that they become good citizens with a caring spirit and a gentle heart. It is an amazing adventure that can not be truly explained or shared until such a time as you can sit back, laugh and say - "yep, it's a crazy wild ride."

Cookie Boxes

At home in Texas, typically in addition to John's company Christmas party - we'd make some cookie boxes for his coworkers and mine too when I was working. I love baking, and it was always fun to share some Christmas cheer with people that we spent most of our days with. 

This year, there wasn't a big company party so John set off to have a breakfast party for his department - he made sausage & cheese kolaches and sausage balls. We supplied some drinks, and they did a white elephant gift exchange as well.

In addition to that, we made our traditional cookie boxes for about 14 people in his office, and a couple for our neighbors. Thanks to Pinterest, once again, I set off to make some festive things that we'd never had before. I was pleasantly surprised... 3-4 batches of each of the 5 types of cookies - which took us really only 2 days to accomplish... everything looks and tastes great!

The recipes are already online over at Momma Hawk Cooks but here are some direct links to the things we made specifically for these homemade treats.

Salty Turtles

Pecan Balls

Fudge-Filled Cookies

Red Velvet Cookies

Pinwheel Cookies

I hope that everyone enjoyed these as much as we did. It was fun to make them, and to do some baking with John. He did all the rolling of the dough and the engineering of the pinwheels as well as the engineering on the fudge-filled cookies. We even have plenty of the fudge-filled cookies, pinwheel cookies, and the pecan balls to take them with us on our trip. The salty turtles are so easy that I bought supplies to make them once we get there too - it took us all of about 10 minutes to get those made, and they are truly delicious! I hope you will try some of these cookie treats, and brighten your holiday!

Memory Calendar

I was browsing through Pinterest one day, and saw something that I just thought was BRILLIANT. Ok, who are we kidding? I think it's all brilliant. Anyway... someone had made a craft item that they hadn't officially named, so I'm giving it a name as I recreate it. Let me introduce you to the "Memory Calendar" - for someone like me (read: super sentimental) this was SO up my alley. 

It is super easy to make, and you don't have to be crafty to pull it off. Now, I know some of you could come up with way cuter things to do with this, but I was looking for something timeless. My initial thought was to make one of these for our family... but then I took it a step further. I decided that I'd make one for each of the boys (and hopefully their future sibling as well) to have as a keep sake someday. Personally, there is nothing more meaningful to me than getting the gift of a handwritten item to keep forever - with the idea that the item will live on even when you are not. 

So my hope is to keep this going for each of our children throughout their childhood - then at some point to be determined in the FAR future... it will be given to them to keep. (If I can ever part with it!) Can you imagine becoming a parent - and receiving the gift of a daily memory of your life from your parents' eyes - featuring every milestone and achievement in your life? Granted I'm about a year and a half behind on both boys - but that's not too far behind to get started... and I'd encourage anyone with older kids to get started wherever you are now... if that's something you feel lead to do. 

Let me explain what this is as we look at it through pictures. In the end, I've started making 3 of these. One I'm giving as a gift this Christmas - and one for each of the boys.

Here is the box that I am using for each of them - I bought them at Hobby Lobby for $9.99 - but even got it at 50% off. Very affordable. I then took a chip board letter for part of their initial... painted it with metallic gold paint and glued it to the box for a little added personalization. I could see this being just as cute painted black or a more bronze shade of gold too.

I headed off to Office Depot for the rest of my supplies. The example that inspired me from Pinterest used a date stamp for each day of the year, but I wanted to use a different color for each month of the year. My choice there either meant buying 12 different stamp ink pads OR coming up with another solution. I found a set of fine point Sharpie markers that had 24 different colors included (I think) for a reasonable price - so I opted to hand write each card.

I chose to use 4x6 index cards, and bought a pack of 300 for each box I was making plus one additional set of 300 to fill in the remaining days of the year. For the dividers - they didn't have blank dividers at Office Depot - so I bought a box of those from Amazon.

When it came down to it - I actually had to cut the cards and dividers with a paper cutter to make them fit in the box. The cards will still have room for about 11 years of memories on the front, but they were just a bit too tall for the box. I think I cut off a line and a half or so of the card - but that was just my planning. So if you'd like to avoid the cutting - maybe go with the 3x5 sized cards and dividers. (Just know there will be a little less space to write your memories.)

I wrote this note to the recipient of our gifted box this year... and it shows an example of what the concept behind this calendar is... basically - you make a card for every day of the year (include February 29th too!) then you write a memory for that day every year. The text in green kind of gives an idea of how it would look. The first year would be the least gratifying in the process - but think about every year after that writing down your memory for that day while also being flooded with the memory of things that happened that day in the years before.

I made a divider for each month - and for my boys - I took it a step further, which I will show you later in this post. The recipient of our gift box is VERY crafty... so I think that she will follow our lead on this and make it a project for herself or for her daughter. Which I think will make their box more personal to them.

I made a card for each day of the year... (three sets... a LOT of writing!) So on our January 1st card - we will go to the second line of the card and write "2012 - <insert special memory for that day>" but be sure to only use the first line... then you'll go back on January 1st 2013 and fill in the next line with that memory. The idea is that you do it everyday.

For our calendars - I took our January dividers and modge podged a favorite photo from their first year of life. I will do the same for February with a favorite photo from 2011. Then each year from here on - I will take the next month and put our favorite photo of each of the boys... when we get through December - I will turn the dividers over and start on the back. My goal is that when they receive the box - it will also have a photo for each year of their years growing up.You could absolutely just choose your favorite 12 photos of your family right now - and use those. It's not like you can't make different dividers over the years. (They come in a box of 100 after all!)

I initially thought of making one of these for the ladies in our family with young kids - but then thought about the time it's taken to make them - and the true feasibility of them actually using it... and I think there is one other person in our family that would use it... but I'm just going to tell her that if she'd like me to make her one - I'd be glad to do it in the new year... and she can just start writing her stuff in a notebook for now. 

I am so proud of how these turned out, and I can't wait to start filling ours with memories for the boys in a couple of weeks. It will just be something they grow up with watching me fill out everyday - and I think that will make it special too. A new habit of creating a special gift for our precious miracles.

Ornament Wreath

I apparently didn't get any photos of this in progress, but I can give you detailed instructions on how I made it instead.

I set out to make exactly what was on Pinterest, but when I got my clothes hanger out - it just didn't seem big enough for our front door. I wanted something to decorate the front door, and thought that this would be perfect because I used cheaper ornaments - so if something happened to it with the weather - I might not feel as bad as if I purchased a more expensive premade version.

John and I talked about other options, and he went to Lowe's and bought a spool of 9 gauge wire - then cut it for me to make the wreath.

I bought the ornaments from Hobby Lobby - and just as a PSA - make sure that you buy the ornaments with the wire fixtures at the end - half of mine were plastic and had to be drilled out to fit on to the thicker wire. You can choose any color, size, or shape you like - I made sure to get shatterproof (aka Plastic) ornaments for mine just in case it fell off the door because of the wind we have around here.

The ornaments I chose - I used 16 of the larger red glitter balls, 4 packages of the multi-sized candy cane balls, and only about 6 of the small red balls. I got it all at 50% off - so it wasn't too expensive in total.

Once you are ready, take all of your ornaments and hot glue the fixtures to the ornament itself. I took my hot glue gun and went around the entire end of the ornament. Thus enclosing the entire portion that could come apart in hot glue. This will prevent the ball from popping off when you are stringing them on the wire.

When they are all glued and cool - start alternating the different sizes and colors that you have chosen for your wreath. You might want to think through what you have and plan the pattern that you are going to use. I ended up having to go back for more ornaments, but I am so thrilled with the end result that it didn't matter.

Choose your ribbon and either make your bow or you can buy one - like I did. I happened to find the perfect bow at Lowe's when we were there getting our outdoor decorations and wire.

Once I got finished stringing the ornaments on the wreath, John cut the extra wire and fastened the wreath together with an enclosure we bought at Lowes as well. Both ends of the wire fit through the enclosure and we bent them out opposite ends to keep it in place.

I found that there wasn't enough space between our storm door and the front door to hang it inside for protection - so I used some of those Command Hook products and some additional wire to hang it on the outside of the door.

There you have it - it was super simple and looks FABULOUS! Let me know if you have any questions if you choose to make your own.

Christmas Decor

I thought it would be fun to show you how we decked our halls this year... I kept it fairly simple because of the little hands that can grab things and break them. I tried to not put out the more precious breakable items. Here is our little tour de Christmas... 

Our main Christmas tree - in the dining room - FAR from little hands.

I picked these up at Hobby Lobby this year - pretty and glittery

Another set of new glittery snowmen... LOVE them!

I like to buy things in 4's, but they only had 1 of these - and I needed it anyway.

Picked these up at JC Penny - got a Tyler, James, Mom & Dad

My plan is to buy a new ornament each year for the boys - and when they move out - they can take some or all of them.

More Hobby Lobby finds... LOVE blue, silver, and glittery

 Got these last year at Walmart, still really love them.

Got these online last year from Bronners - aren't they sweet?

One for each of my little men - I'm weird about hanging them at the same height on the tree too.

Our little family "mantel" ornament - also from Bronners... so cute!

I also love these - they were a wedding favor from John's cousin who got married 2 years ago.

My entry way jars with their December decorations

Our stockings - I ordered them last year. I also got a blank one for when #3 comes along!

The mini tree on top of our mantel - this one the boys enjoy looking at all day.

Our entire fireplace all decorated

The ornament wreath that I made, as inspired by Pinterest. 

I'm writing a post on how I did it for tomorrow.

A little piece of home out in front of the house. 

Our Santa & Rudolph 

The house all lit up for Christmas. 

We alternated red & white lights for a candy cane theme.

James' ornament that his teacher at school made

Tyler's ornament from school

So many things out this year that I love. Still some that I didn't put out - but there is love in every bit of it. Naturally, my favorite new decorations would have to be the ones the boys' school made. So cute, personal, and totally unexpected. I can't wait to pull them out every year - and smile at the memories from this year... and eventually hear the boys talk about how silly they looked. <wink> 

Coming up - I'll tell you about my 1st Pinterest project the ornament wreath... then I'll tell you about the cookies we made inspired by Pinterest... and finally some gifts that I made that were Pinterest inspired as well.

Thanksgiving Recap

I know that I couldn't be more over due on putting this post up - but what can I say? Ya'll... I totally need to do a relaunch on this blog - I miss the days of having people read and being a regular poster. My goal over the holidays is to get myself in a position to have some regular posts scheduled so that I can keep new content going up as often as possible.

Anyway, I think I've said before... but the stomach virus/ear infection mess kept us in Tennessee over Thanksgiving. We didn't do much of anything - but had the regular meal... and watched LOTS of football. Even watched our beloved Aggies lose to t.u. for the last time in the foreseeable future.

The boys didn't participate much last year in any of the eating - so for all intents and purposes this year was their first taste of holiday food goodness. To say that they LOVED it would be an understatement. They ate a little bit of everything... but loved the sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, jello and pumpkin pie. Tyler enjoyed the turkey while James really loved the ham a bit more. They also ate the Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, dressing, and some of a roll. Surprisingly, James loved the cranberry sauce as well - and the next day enjoyed a grapefruit. It's so funny to me the things that he likes.

Here are some photos from the day:

James looks so cute waiting for dinner

Tyler chillaxin before dinner - drinking his juice

Our dinner

Happy diners ready to load up

Me with my lovely black eye

Tyler enjoying some pumpkin pie with Daddy

James eating mincemeat pie... YUCK!

Then on Monday after Thanksgiving - it snowed our first snow of the season

It was gorgeous!

It oddly enough snowed over night, but mostly melted before morning

Here it is the next morning - too wet and slushy to take the boys out to enjoy... 

plus I'd like John to be home for their first snow play time.