I need to go to IKEA.

OMG I love this.  I need to go to Ikea and start working on the large wall in our basement where I hang the kids' artwork. I want to remember this arrangement so I have to post it here. These are the pictures from the site I found this idea from. No I do not have a daughter named Kate and no, no room in my house is this cute.

New Traditions

This year we are making new little family traditions to mark the start of the Christmas holiday season.  I'm not really a traditional girl in any sense but for some reason the holidays spark this feeling within me and I want to create these little traditions for my kids. I have always loved Christmas time. It is such a special time and I don't think I am alone with this. Memories from my childhood make me feel warm and fuzzy when it comes to this time of year. My parents were always really into it too from what I remember.  I just love this time of year!!

Shopping with wine...

First on the list of new traditions is starting the shopping season off with the after hours night at Creative Kidstuff in Linden Hills with my friend Kat.  She got me to sign up for this event and it was SO MUCH FUN. I picked her up on the Saturday night before Thanksgiving and we went to our neighborhood toy store. It is such a fantastic store for so many reasons and I am lucky enough to live just blocks from one. We signed up for the after hours event and had 2 hours to shop while the store was closed and the best part was we had endless free wine and cookies, and of course the helpful staff and 20% off our entire purchase. It was really fun and a great way to get started with the holiday gift shopping. After we left the store, we figured it was so rare we actually got to hang out without the kids (Kat has 4 year old twins) that Kat and I decided to have a glass of wine at her place.  Her husband had a fire going in the living room and glasses of wine waiting for us. It was perfect. We had such a great night that we decided that it was going to be an annual tradition for us.

Looking for "our" perfect little tree.

No big deal, just walking with a tree.

Next up on the list of new traditions for our family is walking down to the little tree lot that goes up across the street from Turtle Bread and picking out our Christmas tree, then heading over to Turtle Bread to warm up with some yummy food. This year however went better in our minds then it did in real life. Evie cried the whole time we were picking out our tree, and it was busy so we were trying to stand by the tree we had picked out while waiting for the tree guy to help us out.  Since Evie was throwing a fit, we walked away and then someone else tried to take our tree. Luckily we were up next so we got the tree we had wanted, but I was already stressing someone else was going to take our tree (that is how I roll these days).  Then we found out it was cash only so we sent Tim off running to an ATM while the kids and I went over to the restaurant since it was freezing out and I needed to get the kids inside to warm up.  Tim and I have this ongoing little joke about Turtle Bread. We have wanted to go there for soup and a sandwich the entire year+ we have lived in our home, and we have never been able to with the kids. It's just too hard at the stage they are at. And they have all these amazing baked goods sitting out (croissants, rolls, cookies, you name it) and you have to keep the kids and their hands away from them or you are going broke buying all these goodies. Anyway, due to the situation of Evie's mood we grabbed a large chocolate pretzel shaped pastry and sat at the table fighting over it while we waited for Tim. Once he arrived we got the hell out of there!! Some day we will have our nice Turtle Bread lunch, but it wasn't happening today. Tim carried our tree home (3 blocks) and was a true lumberjack man. It was a fun walk home watching "daddy" carry our Christmas tree. He is one strong guy!

Miles helped me decorate the tree while Evie took a nap. We put some Christmas music on and got the whole tree decorated just the two of us. He was so cute helping. He did a great job and really got into it. He also helped Tim put up lights outside. Tim didn't test the lights out first and put them all up to find out that only part of one strand worked. He was not happy. Ahhhh time for new lights I guess. Love the holidays!!  

Looking forward to many more traditions this year.

Mr. Banana Face

Miles and Evie have this little beat up baby book that we got out of a Little Free Library, that has a picture of a face made out of fruit, mainly a banana.  Miles is obsessed with it lately so I started making these...

I mean look at how happy it makes him.  

He will eat these little fruit faces up so quickly. His sister on the other hand always wants one but never finishes them. Usually it is Miles who is not the best eater. I guess this is a big deal to me because I have NEVER made a fun face or any sort of picture out of food in the 4+ years that I have been a parent. I guess the little extra effort does make them want to eat the food on their plates!