STOCKINGS

Now that we are officially past Thanksgiving (and survived), I am in preparation mode for Christmas.  Making these stockings was something that I had been wanting to do for a long time, and admittedly, I have been doing it for a long time.  You are really going to laugh at me as I tell you the back story on this little project.  I think I bought the fabric and found the pattern to make these three or four years ago.  I had them cut out two Christmases ago, but didn't get them sewn together in finished state until last year.  Oh, except for one little thing - there wasn't a way to hang them.  But now, after a grueling four year process, I can finally call them complete.  Tada!

Yes, I am displaying them in the bathroom, but that was the only place I had readily available hooks.  I think I'm going to go the Command Hook route (easy) and since we don't have a fireplace, I'll just hang them on our console (last seen here), though if little hands start to get too curious, they might have to move.
The tree went up yesterday, and this year I went with the "no color" color scheme (mostly clear, gold, and silver ornaments).  I'll have to get a picture up of if for sure.  It is funny because I only decorated the top half, again, because of curious little hands.  I really hope that I have time to work on a bit more decorating and holiday crafting.  I have a fabulous (in my opinion) idea (thanks, Pinterest) for ornaments and I would love to make initial tags for our stockings, too!

A THANKSGIVING TO REMEMBER

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  This year, we spent most of our Thanksgiving holiday in an unexpected place - the ER.  Yes, a few days prior to Thanksgiving, Mason had developed a little cold, and it progressed worse to the point that he was having severely labored breathing, vomiting, and our nebulizer at home couldn't provide him enough relief.  I spoke to the on call doctor around 11, and she said if things didn't pick up after one more breathing treatment to go ahead and bring him in.  To the ER.  Ugh.  We gave him the treatment and it just didn't last, so in to the hospital we went.  The ironic thing is that Byron had decided that we should eat at noon this year, when we are normally 2-3 pm type of people, so at least we got a good meal in before the real adventure started.
Fortunately, my dad, Mason's BFF, went with us.  They checked us in fairly quickly and the doctor was able to treat Mason with steroids and stronger breathing treatments.  He perked up pretty well, but they still kept us around for almost six hours before finally letting us go home.

Look how cute he was!  Thankfully the ER had a Thomas video and some toys for us to play with.  Keeping this normally very active toddler corralled in a hospital bed was pretty challenging, especially when connected to a toe monitor.  Grandpa was a huge help to us and we are very thankful he gave up some of his relaxation time to be with us. Fortunately, they let us go home that evening.  We did have to do round the clock breathing treatments, so those middle of the night alarms and the fact that Mason stayed up from 3:30 am were a bit of a challenge, but I am very grateful that we weren't in the ER for anything worse!

A LITTLE SWITCHEROO

I got a wild hair and decided to make a small switcheroo in our house. So what once lived here...

Now lives here...

We needed something to make this area look more intentional, so I just centered the art on the wall and bada-bing, bada-boom, there you go. (Do you like the toys and playing child that I didn't move out of the way?)  So far, I like it.  I am thinking about putting some shelves up where that print used to be.  But they would definitely have to be high enough that the little adventurer in our life doesn't try to climb them.  I know I saw a picture of something similar recently.  Must be the picture in my mind!