SANTA...I know him! (but will we celebrate him)

Can I just say that I am a Christmas freak.  I beg Reid to let me start decorating early each and every year, to which he replies "get through the current holiday first".  I used to be a purist who waited till the turkey was put away until I even considered Christmas, but now as I get older I don't feel like I get to enjoy the holiday for long enough.  I think this is only going to get worse now because I have to show Mason EVERYTHING I know and force him into a hundred photos for memories. 

I did finally get my Christmas stuff up and I love coming home to my house filled with lights.  Here is what we ended up doing!

 Entryway looking into the living room

 Close-up

 Over the TV with my reindeer

 Dining Room with my Snowflake china

Snowflake china from Target, been collecting this set for 5 years

I would love to have my Martha Stewart part of the house, and then also a Dr. Seuss part of the house for Christmas decorations, so here is my small shout out to him for now.  Seriously, I want to live in a room that looks similar to the way Universal Studios decorates for Grinch-mas.

Another Christmas conundrum for us is what are we going to do with Mason regarding...dun dun dun...Santa!  I was afraid I was being too Chapel Hill about my desire not to do Santa, but looking at a mom I met through the adoption ministry at Summit, I got some good insight.  She posted this blog.  I realized that I was not making a choice about robbing my child of the "joys" of Santa, but rather focusing on what I need to teach him is the focus.  I think that each generation of parents feels like they have arrived in the "how to's" of raising children in their current society, but I had to get over myself.  Choosing Jesus over Santa should not be a decision I should be ashamed of.  I think it is important like the blogger said not to ruin things for other kids.  We are just lucky that we got to look at this before Mason was ever introduced to the red jolly man.  We may even get our picture with him on Thursday at Pullen Park, but he won't become his world for the holiday.  Well, I guess we will see how much influence we have rather than school and friends and TV.  Watch Mason become a Santa freak who dresses up in tights in hopes of becoming like Buddy the Elf (because smiling is my favorite).  Hopefully we won't look back on this decision and wish we had let him have fun with the idea. 

I think I am almost done with our Christmas shopping now, just a few crafty details to do for the in-law presents and gathering supplies for my always epic challenge, getting Bill Hottel (FIL) the best present ever that makes him laugh and or cry.  Last year we relied on his food love and made a moon pie tree for him which made him bust out laughing.  I think I can make him cry this year with my epic plan though ... mwahahahaha!  We have some fun Christmas parties heading our way and a lot of baking of the famous Mead Family toffee...I can't wait!  I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

Thanksgiving & Black Friday

We had such an amazing time at mommy's house yesterday for Thanksgiving.  I woke up early and pretended to be all domesticate by making food for my family like a rock star.  I made these amazing Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Biscuits in an attempt to find a family tradition food for us to have.

And the boys loved them.  After that we made Oreo balls for dessert and gathered our apple pie ingredients, then headed for mommy's house.  One of the best parts of the holiday is having my brother come back into town.  It is amazing how me and Tracy alone are an episode of "Gilmore Girls", but as soon as you add Sean to the mix we become an episode of "Friends".  We have so much fun together and I looked around the table this year thinking that I truly have the perfect family.  We have all been through so much together, but it has given us such an amazing friendship and bond.

You know what else was a surprise?  Sean actually liked Mason.  We give him a hard time when it comes to kids because he has a very low tolerance for the jerks that people are raising now.  One time at a restaurant there was a little kid crying repeatedly and his parents did nothing as he disrupted the entire restaurant.  My brother nicely asked the waitress if they could move to another table or do something about the crying child, but apparently there were no seats anywhere else and they couldn't step in on the tables parenting.  After another few minutes my brother started mockingly making the same noise that the child was making.  The waitress ran over to his table to ask him to stop carrying on the way he has, to which Sean replied that if no one was going to say anything to the kids table, he should be able to act the same way. The waitress told him that the difference was that he should know better, to which Sean screamed at the parents that they should know better too!  Awesome moments.

Well after we ate Tracy and I looked through the ads to plan the Black Friday attack.  Nothing huge that we wanted this year, but it is like crack through my veins to go shopping at that time of day.  Sure the crazy savings are good, but running around among all of the crazies is much better.  It is the essence of my current catch phrase a "Psychological Wonderland".

We dropped the boy of at his Bama's & Gapa's (Reid's parents) then hit Walmart, Target, Express, & Game Stop before heading home to sleep.  After we woke up at 6, I headed out to get the boy before heading to Michael's and The Loft.  The boy was a champ and hung with me, but then we headed home to hang out together.

One of my favorite things to do is cuddle with my boy.  I decided to forego cleaning and instead rest in the recliner in Mason's room.  He cuddled up on my chest and slept for an hour... magical.  We woke up and started decorating the house, or at least moving farther than just having the tree up, which hopefully I will be able to post up soon!

Turkeys and Tinsel

I FINALLY GOT TO START PUTTING UP CHRISTMAS LAST NIGHT...AWESOME!

And it was not because I asked people to harass Reid on Facebook, but because I fulfilled my original deal of cleaning the house completely.  When we got home last night I sat Mason down with a snack as I climbed through the attic.  After I would grab a few boxes I would run and throw more food on the table to keep him happy...great parenting I know, but there was some fruit.  He was not a fan of how much attention I was giving these inanimate objects, but eventually found a sock and was well occupied again.  We got the tree up with full decorations, but I had to stop because I had no cord to plug it into the outlet.  Without being able to see the finish product I couldn't go any further in case I had to switch to one of the other trees (there are 5...much to Reid's demise).

But today's project is going to be much more fun...A turkey shirt.  And guess where I got the idea?  Anyone?  No guesses?  Ok, I will tell you...PINTEREST!  I know, that is a shock that I am spending so much time on this site.  It is not like I have an addictive personality when it comes to crafts.  So this is what I am making:

Is this not the cutest thing in the world?  Mason learned how to say "Gobble, Gobble!" at school so my sister and I have been trying to figure out a way to get a costume for Thanksgiving day...very exciting!  I am going to have to post a video of my little turkey gobbling around the house for all to enjoy.

I have to look up a killer recipe tonight for my dessert to bring to my mommy's house tomorrow.  Any thoughts?

New Mom...Turning over a New Leaf

So last night I did something that I have been dying to do for quite a while...DIY projects.  I recently found out about PINTEREST.com the other day through some of my friends blogs from Bible Study and it has forever changed my life.

Since we adopted Mason, our lives have been so enriched by him.  He is an amazing kid and so well behaved. Even on the days where he acts like a typical toddler, he will do something to melt my heart completely.  The one thing that Reid and I say though is that we are glad that we got to skip the full baby, waking up every 3 hours for feedings, extremely fragile, stages.  However, we also missed the ramp up into toddler-hood and jumped into the deep end feet first.  Normally this isn't a problem until it comes to the moments when I need to run into the store "real quick" and end up dragging all our stuff with us or when I need to clean up the living room which ends up feeling like a game of Perfection where I have to get the pieces put away in under 60 seconds before they pop back out...which they do.

The above is the reason that I was so excited to get a DIY project completed.  I started small and went and got 2 XL mens t-shirts and made infinity scarves in royal blue and olive green (two scarf colors I have been missing).  I also made one of the ruffled t-shirt scarves in the olive green (see below).  It was so much fun, especially because it was a simple enough project to do because
          1.) the project was crazy simple and had like 2 steps
          2.) it was quick enough that Mason didn't try to get into it
It is amazing the sense of accomplishment that I had after completing such a simple thing and I was able to fill a winter wardrobe hole as well as dress up some plainness.  Megan and Kaitlin, you have created a monster.  I felt so accomplished I even made this new blog which will keep me sane while Reid is away.

After I was done with my t-shirt scarves I started working on some Christmas decor and plotting Christmas.  Black Friday is one of my favorite days of the year because I get to shop like a crazy person at stores I don't normally get to shop in (Express and LOFT, here I come) but Reid doesn't get mad because I can be so thrifty.  Christmas will be homemade this year, and yet better than what I have been able to do in the past.  I am so excited, but mainly because this is our first Christmas with the boy.  Tonight we start decorating!