Presents, Presents Everywhere!

Henry, Grant, and Eli with their presents from Mom and Dad.

The big boys got new baseball gloves and Eli got some cool transportation pop-beads {can't you tell Eli is super-thrilled about his Christmas presents}!The boys coming down the stairs with daddy on Christmas morning.Family photo in our Christmas pj's in front of the Christmas tree

{We have taken a picture like this every Christmas morning since Henry's 1st Christmas....I am going to have to make a collage with them one day!!}

The boys each got three gifts from Santa Claus on

Christmas morning{to represent the three gifts that baby Jesus got from the Wise Men}.

Henry and Grant got a Planet Heroes Space Station set to share

with a few of the heroes to go with it.

Henry also got a tee ball bat with a tee and a V-smile handheld game.

Grant got a soccer goal and a V-smile handheld game.

Can you tell we {I mean Santa} have to do a lot of the same gifts for the boys......it helps with the "HEY! that's might, not yours" fights a lot!!

Eli got a new really cute lion ride/push toy, a neat toy for his car seat (with a remote for me!), and some soft stacking rings that I absolutely LOVE!

Henry with his new Planet Heroes Space Station

Grant with his new Planet Heroes Space Station
Eli with two of his presents from Santa....a car seat toy and some soft stacking rings.

In addition to all of the stuff the we {and Santa} got the boys, they also got stuff from their grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, great-aunts and great-uncle.

Hence the title of this blog PRESENTS, PRESENTS EVERYWHERE!

We have already made one trip to Goodwill since Christmas with some stuff from the attic and awhile back I cleaned out the boys' toys and took a TON of stuff to my mom for her to give to some people at her church. I think we may have a few more trips to Goodwill in our future to make room for all the new things that boys got for Christmas this year.

We are very blessed and the boys are really excited about all their new things, but it is so hard to find a place for everything....and I wonder if we really need all the stuff....I think the best thing for us is to give away the things we don't need anymore and hope that someone who is in need will receive them and enjoy them as much as we did.

I hope everyone had a GREAT CHRISTMAS and enjoyed celebrating the season of Jesus' birth with their families and friends!

Christmas at our house

The kids manager set

Christmas wreaths in the kitchen

Stocking hanging on the stairs







Christmas cards hanging on the front door







Front Entry




The boys' oranaments on our tree

Dining room table centerpiece

Santas in the playroom

The kids' Christmas tree

Merry Christmas!

Rolling.... and Some Gingerbread Boys

Eli almost rolled over!!

I left Eli on the floor to play while I was washing some dishes and when I came back to check on him, he was laying like this. He had gotten everything over except for his left arm {which he didn't seem to care about because he was enjoying sucking the thumb that was stuck in his face}! I talked to him a minute to see if he would pick his head up and get that arm unstuck, but no luck! Oh well, I guess he will roll when he wants to!

Our Gingerbread Boys

We made an army of gingerbread boys the other day. We normally make a gingerbread house or something like that when Jason is off of work for Christmas. But this year because he has been working so much overtime, it was just me and the boys. I made two types of Gingerbread dough, mainly because I haven't ever made gingerbread from scratch and I wanted to make sure that at least one of the recipes turned out good. So I made cookie dough while the boys watch a Christmas movie on t.v. {I think it was either Rudolph or The Grinch}. After the dough chilled for a while, we all sat at the table with our rolling pins (aka cups for the boys), cookie cutters, and lots of powdered sugar to use for dusting the table! Someone told me the other day that gingerbread is really sticky.....man were they ever right. I have made lots of rolled sugar cookies before and they were never this STICKY! Needless to say we had quite a messy time making our cookies. While we were cutting our the boys, Henry asked "Where are the gingerbread girls?" I told him we didn't have any, but I thought to myself, it sure would be nice to have gingerbread girls around here! Maybe one day!

So here are a few pictures of our cookie making adventure....Enjoy!

Wordle Wednesday

I saw one of these "wordles" on another blog the other day and thought it was the neatest thing. The website says it generates "word clouds" from whatever text you enter. You can also enter in the URL for a blog and it will make a "word cloud" from the blog entries. I played around with it the other day and made this one with all of our names. I couldn't figure out how to save it, so I printed it out, took a picture, and uploaded it {that's why the wordle looks funny and so dark}. It was a fun website to play around with.....you should try it!

Our Christmas Tree

Our Christmas Tree!

A Dreary Monday...

Today {and yesterday too} has been one of those dreary days where all you want to do is sleep....Well, I did that yesterday after church, so I felt like I should do something to be productive today. I put together some really cute penguin bags for Henry's Preschool Christmas party. The party isn't until Friday....It is so strange what I will do to procrastinate doing laundry! Anyway, I put a few pieces of candy, a candy cane, and a gingerbread man cookie {store bought, homemade cookies are not allowed at his school!} in each of the bags. I think they look pretty cute considering they came from the dollar section at Target!

Today I also spent probably close to two hours making a memory book from Walmart.com's photo center. They are going to be really cute Christmas gifts for the grandparents, and they were under $10 each! I uploaded a few pictures from each month of 2008 and made the book in chronological order including Mardi Gras, Easter, Summer Vacation, Halloween, and Christmas. I ended up ordering 7 in all because they were so cute that I wanted one too! I think it said they would be ready by Friday. I can't wait to see them and see if they are as nice printed out as they were on the computer!

Still not doing LAUNDRY!

I guess next I will move on to monogramming Grant and Eli's Christmas pajamas. They have been sitting in the dining room waiting to be monogrammed for probably close to a month....I need to do them now, so I don't keep putting it off and end up monogramming their Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve!!

I also have a few other things that need to be monogrammed too, and {as usual} a few loads of laundry {really don't want to do it!} that need to be done. I guess we will see if the laundry gets done....the couch is looking really comfy in this dreary Monday weather!

Monogramming and {almost} Snow!

For the past three days I feel like all I have done is monogram stuff and feed my hunk of a chunk baby! Oh, and a little laundry thrown in there too...because what mom doesn't constantly feel like she is doing massive piles of laundry! Anyway, I agreed to monogram some ribbons for a friend of mine who makes cute ribbon keychains and little girls hairbows. I thought it would just be few, because she was actually making the keychains for a mutual friend of ours to give as Christmas gifts at work. It ended up being twenty ribbons in all. It seemed like a ton of ribbon to monogram, but it went surprisingly fast. I even had time to do a few of my own Christmas presents and get started on monogramming the boys' Christmas pajamas! I still have stack of stuff that needs to be finished by next week, but it was nice to finish that big order of ribbon. I meant to take a picture of the ribbons, but I was so excited about finishing that I sent them over to my friend without thinking about it.....Sorry, I know pictures make a boring post like this a little more interesting!

Now....on to the snow part of the title{which I also don't have pictures of}. I have read a few blogs by people who live where it snows all the time and they HATE it. Well, when you live in the south and it NEVER snows you really LOVE when it does snow {every ten years or so}! The last time I remember snow that actually stuck to the ground here was in 1997! I think we had a few flurries here a few years ago, but nothing you could build a snowman out of. So, it snowed about an hour north of us yesterday. My mom called and said, "We should drive up there and let the babies play in the snow!" My first thought was that it would be really fun, but then I thought about the fact that we would be in the car for close to three hours for probably twenty minutes {at the most} of fun snow play time! And we are already had plans to drive up there today for my sisters' college graduation. That would be an awful lot of time in the car with three kids over a three day period....so we stayed home and missed all the snow. I am hoping there is a little snow left on the ground when we get, but that is probably not likely. Oh well, maybe one day we will take a vacation up north and see REAL snow, not just an inch of it on the ground!

One more thing.....After the graduation ceremony, we are going to eat dinner and we are supposed to be getting a cake for the celebration. I have to confess that I am secretly hoping that the cake is a cakewreck!!! Is that terrible? My mom is suppose to stop and pick up a cake at Walmart so there is probably a good chance we may have a wreck on our hands!

Christmas Pictures....

It {only} took two trips for us to get some really great Christmas pictures....The first visit went okay, but not great. The second visit {after a few tears were shed} went wonderfully. We got a really good picture of all three boys in their Christmas outfits, and we got a really cute picture that is a little quirky. Even though our first trip was not very good, overall I am very happy with the pictures that we ended up with. I thought I would post my favorite.

In a crafty kind of mood!

When I get started sewing and crafting, I find myself in a crafty kind of mood and start doing {and wanting to do} a lot of different projects. I almost finished the boys' outfits today....but I am still putting off attaching the buttons {I really hate them that much}. So instead I decided to make Henry and Grant a Christmas shirt to wear to the holiday parades and other festivities that we are going to in the next few weeks. Two shirts probably only took an hour and half....and that was while all three of the boys were awake!! I kind of had an idea in my head, but they didn't really come together until I got out the spray adhesive and starting putting the trees on the shirts. This is how they came out:

Pretty cute if I do say so myself!!

Before I added the tree trunks, I ask Henry what the shirts looked like. His first answer was pyramids. I added the star to the top of the tree and he said triangles and then he guessed a castle. After I added the trunks he said "Ohhh, Christmas trees...hahaha." Grant's only guess was a castle but I think that was just him copying Henry. I think they turned out really well and look just like little Christmas trees. I guess the boys may be wearing "castle shirts" at the Christmas parade on Saturday!! Oh, well at least they will look cute anyway!


Also, I figured I would post a picture of Eli being cute in his overalls since I didn't make him a Christmas shirt! He has baby's first Christmas shirt that he is going to wear instead.

Christmas Outfits

I have been working on the boys' Christmas outfits for a few days....and I am almost finished. The only things left to do are the buttonholes and buttons {my least favorite part after cutting out the pattern}. So I thought I would post a few pictures of the whole process from start to {almost} finish!

The pattern, fabric, and a few of my materials.

Sewing some of the pieces together.Grant's outfit partially sewn together....without the lining.Programming the monogram on my computer.The machine doing the monogramming. Red and Green. So nice for Christmas!The completed outfits minus the buttonholes and buttons!The boys are going to look so cute in their outfits....I am still trying to decide if I want to monogram Henry's sweater so that he really matches Grant and Eli. His sweater has green stripes that matches really well, but I think having his monogram on it would make it look even better! I guess it depends on how long it takes me to get the buttons done!

Sewing and Procrastinating

I am supposed to be working on Grant and Eli's Christmas John-Johns, but find myself procrastinating by reading various oh so interesting blogs. When I started this blogging stuff.....I thought, my life is so boring why would anyone want to read about it. Then I started reading other people's blogs and found their everyday boring stuff very interesting. So I think, maybe someone else will find my everyday boring stuff interesting too! Or maybe not! I don't think anybody other than me even looks at my blog......that's okay though, I find semi-anonymous blogging to be very therapeutic.

So here I am, procrastinating. Not making the boys' outfits. Did I mention that they both have to be sewn and monogrammed by Friday so we can have Christmas pictures made. I guess I should stop typing and start sewing.....Maybe I will post a picture of their outfits when {if} I get finished!

Black Friday....

I survived the most anticipated and most dreaded day of shopping! We (four friends and myself) headed out yesterday {thanksgiving day} for 18 hours of shopping, shopping, shopping!

We walked and shopped and walked and shopped. Between the five of us we bought fabric remnants, wrapping paper, a grill, shoes, a TV, a food chopper, a ton of DVDs, toys, two Christmas trees, a watch, a lamp, 450 thread count sheets, moose munch,a couple of cups of Starbucks coffee, and too many more things to list! We barely got everything in the car for the ride home!

I would say that I am sufficiently shopped out for at least a week! Only a few more gifts left to get for Christmas, and I still have almost four weeks left to finish up....I definitely need to catch up on my sleep before anymore all night shopping trips!

Christmas in November!

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the Christmas season starts earlier and earlier every year. I mean really, it is the week of Thanksgiving and all the stores have out Christmas decorations and are playing Christmas music. I swear last year I remember hearing the first Christmas song of the season while doing my annual "Day after Thanksgiving Shopping".

Annoying, yes...but acceptable. At least it was AFTER Thanksgiving! Yesterday I heard Christmas music playing in a few stores, and the radio station debuted a new Christmas song!! That is just NOT acceptable to me! Maybe someone needs to write a few Thanksgiving songs if everyone feels the need to hear "holiday" music at this time of year.

Are we eventually just going to skip over Thanksgiving altogether? I like to keep up my fall decorations until at least the weekend after Thanksgiving, but found myself taking down all of my pumpkins and cornucopias today......I saw Christmas lights and reindeer in more than one yard yesterday. I have a feeling in a few years, we will have to unwrap our turkey and dressing because "Isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about?"

As much as I like Christmas, I still enjoy the fall season too!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Daylight Wasting Time...

I hate, I mean really HATE, when time changes in the fall. I hate that the sun comes up so early and that my kids wake me up a full hour before the alarm is supposed to go off. I hate that it is already dark before we even leave to go to church on Wednesdays. And I hate that by the time Jason gets home, it is too dark to send the kids out in the yard to play with him for a while....so I can get a little peace and quiet in the house!

I can't understand these people who don't like daylight savings time.

Yeah, not everybody gets to sleep late in the mornings....so the sun coming up early doesn't bother them....But who goes to sleep before six o'clock in the afternoon! Nobody!
I love that we added a few extra weeks of DST last year. Maybe they will do that every year until all year long is daylight savings time! Much better than having to deal with "daylight wasting time" every year!

Back to the world of exercise.....

So, I went for my six week post baby check up last week. My OB said everything looked good and I could go back to normal activities. I assume that means I need to get my big post baby butt off the couch and onto my elliptical machine.....
I decided today would be the day. I will exercise every day until I am as tiny as a Hollywood starlet! I think I may need to cancel all my plans for next year and tie myself to the elliptical. I got in a whole ten minutes and then Eli starts crying....I can't see him in the swing, so I wonder if he is just mad that I left him, or if Grant is bothering him. My bet in on mad, because Grant is engrossed in an episode of Wonder Pets!!
Ten minutes isn't too bad considering it has been at least a year since the dust has been disturbed on my exercise equipment. Oh well, I guess I can give it another go after we get Henry from preschool and all three of them are down for their naps. But then when am I going to get my nap??? I really need a nap today.....I feel asleep more than once last night during Eli's 2 am feeding. Maybe I can manage 20 minutes of exercise and 20 minutes of nap......That will leave me about 30 minutes to do 4 loads of laundry, unload the diswasher, and eat lunch. Sounds doable to me.....and I wonder why I need a nap everyday!

All About Me!

Hi!
My name is Kelli. I am the wife of Jason, and SUPERMOM to three wild and {sometimes} crazy little boys: Henry, Grant, and Eli. I am stay at home mom with a bachelor's degree in Special Education that got one good year of use before I 'retired' to stay home with my kiddos!
I love to stay busy working on crafts, baking yummy treats, and trying my best to get a non-blurry picture of my ever moving children. I also LOVE to blog, and I love to make new blog friends. So thank you for stopping by my blog, I hope you will follow along with me in my attempt to be SUPERMOM!
Kelli
Random Thoughts of a SUPERMOM!
kellibwilson@gmail.com