Santa! We know him!

The big kids are at our house tonight and we were all just hanging out when we heard a knock at the back door.  Guess who stopped by?!  Santa!

It was a little chaotic with all three kids and Santa on the couch together, so the above picture is the best group shot I could get.

Anna and Wyatt were both great sports and took turns sitting on his lap.  Anna seemed to have a list of items to rattle off to him.

  

Wyatt asked for a Notre Dame win on January 7th, but Santa pointed out that he had on red and white...Alabama's colors.  Uh-oh.  Not sure if Santa's gonna pull through for Wyatt.

Katie didn't really know what to think about the man with all the white fur!

I'm just glad she stayed tear-free, although the screaming-baby Santa pics are usually the best ones.

First Christmas pictures with Santa...check that off the list!  Woot!

Twelve Feet of Christmas

I'm sure you're familiar with the Twelve Days of Christmas, but this year at our house, we're celebrating with Twelve Feet of Christmas. Twelve Feet of Christmas Tree, that is.  For years I've been saying we were getting a new Christmas tree, and for years we ended up putting up the same ol' dinky one that looked teensy tiny in our 11-foot living room.  Well, this year in our new house that has a two-story living room, I put my foot down and insisted that we buy a bigger, taller Christmas tree.

Behold, all twelve feet of our new Christmas tree, pictured below at nighttime and in daylight.

  

Y'all, it's big.  Like, really big.  As in, the step stool didn't even get me close to the top.  Nor did the six-foot ladder.  The eight-foot ladder wasn't much better.  It took me almost two full hours just to fluff up all the branches, and then I had to get Doc to take down the top 5 feet so I could decorate them on the ground and then put them back up.  It was quite the feat!  And it still doesn't have a bow or star or anything at the top because we haven't felt like dragging the ladder back out to put one up there.

Know how many ornaments it takes to fill up a twelve-foot tree?  A lot.  Like, a lot a lot.  More than we have.  So if you were to come over and examine our tree, you'd find that there's nary an ornament on the backside.  Nope, only the front got decorated.  Maybe next year we can buy some filler ornaments.

But, as painful and dreadful as it was to get it up and fluffed and decorated, it was so worth it.  I mean, it's so big! And pretty! And sparkly! And magical! Yea, I just went there.  Our tree is magical.  And I love it.

I also love that I already had my presents wrapped before our tree arrived, so as soon as we got the tree up I could stick all the pretty packages underneath it.  For the first time ever, I actually wrapped my gifts in a color scheme.  I've had intentions of doing this in the past but I always get hit up to buy wrapping paper from the kids and end up with mismatched rolls of paper, but this year that didn't happen.  I used a lot of just plain brown packing paper to wrap with and mixed in some solid rolls of red.  I love it!  (Sorry for the darkness of this photo.)

I kinda carried the same theme throughout the rest of the house with my other Christmas decorations - kind of a casual, burlap-y theme, if you will.  We still have lots of empty rooms and empty spaces, so there weren't lots of places to put things.  I decided to keep it kind of simple.  In fact, I still have two or three boxes of decorations in the attic that I didn't even bother to get out.

The kitchen table is major plain, with just two jute twine trees sitting on it.

On the kitchen counter, I have one of my little wooden Christmas trees I made several years ago.

The other two wooden Christmas trees are sitting in the living room, just off the kitchen.

Also in the kitchen I hung this new Advent calendar.  I bought it at an After-Christmas Sale last year for major cheap.  Not sure if you can tell but there's a small snowflake on a string that you move to the star with the current date on it.

Thanks to Pinterest, I was really excited about making a little Hot Chocolate Bar to set out in the kitchen.  I'm not really a coffee drinker, but I do love a good cup of hot cocoa when it's cold outside.  I borrowed the tray from my mom (it's from World Market) to coral all the items for the bar in.

I placed several jars on the tray - the biggest one is full of cocoa mix and two smaller ones hold marshmallows and candy canes.

Hiding behind those jars is a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps...for grownup hot chocolates.

I made a little sign with directions, even though I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to make hot chocolate.  I just wanted to use the cute little ornament holder!

And no Hot Chocolate Bar is complete without festive mugs.  I may switch these out for plain mugs after Christmas so I can keep my bar out through January.

In the entry hall, I set up a magnetic board to display all of our Christmas cards.  I just bought this recently and love it, but it's already full and we've received more cards!  I may have to get another one for next year to have 2 display boards.

This little tree fit in well with my casual, burlap theme.

It was an after-Christmas sale purchase as well and I love it.  It has little colorful balls on the ends of the branches.

Besides the big 12-foot tree, I didn't do much else in the living room.  I stuck these trees into the painted built-ins and pretty much called it a day.

We have a small hallway between our room and Doodle Bug's room where I finally got around to hanging a picture over the piece of furniture that randomly got placed there when we moved in.  I added these three felt trees too - another sale purchase from last year.

And last, but certainly not least, is the little tree in Doodle Noodle's room.  I had randomly purchased this hot pink tree last year (apparently I went majorly shopping for decorations after the holidays??) and thought it would fit well in her room with pink and silver ornaments.  I'm 100% sure she hasn't even noticed it, but oh well.  (She was also unimpressed with the 12-foot tree that I tried to show off to her.)

So that's it.  You may notice that I didn't show any stockings hung by the chimney with care...that's because there aren't any.  Yep, I'm the mom that didn't get a stocking for her new baby.  Oops.  We have cute stockings for the bigger kids, but they're so old that I couldn't find one for her to match.  I'll have to be on the lookout for some cute new matching ones for them.  Next year I'll do better!  (She won't even know this year, right?)

Wonder how long it'll take us to dismantle the giant tree in a couple weeks...

Entry Hall

The first place I actually hung anything on the wall in our new house was in the back entry hall.  It's this little area off our garage door that we pass through every time we come in the house.  The walls were already painted a dark chocolate brown and though they will probably eventually get changed, for now they're staying as-is for a little bit.  That means it's a dark little space. As we moved in, we plopped down a black table that we had in our previous house.  The black table didn't really do anything to brighten up the dark chocolate walls.  So I tried propping an old picture up to add some brightness.  Coupled with a pair of old buffet lamps, the entry way was looking something like this.

Pretty blah, right?  You may recognize the table and picture - they were in the kitchen of our old house, like this.

You can see that I had also stuck all my cookbooks back on the black table.  I was in the mood to unpack some boxes one day and those were the lucky ones chosen.  They at least helped add some color to the otherwise very dark table.

So I liked the idea of the lamps and a bright picture, but I was so over the ones I had sitting there.  The lamps were way too formal...and gold...for the look I was going for.  I wanted it to be bright and fun and casual when you walked in.  Also, while there's nothing wrong with the picture, I was so tired of looking at it and ready to replace it.  I had bought that back when I lived in an apartment by myself and then rehung it in our house after we got married, so it had been around for a while.  Time to go.

But because I wasn't ready yet to really tackle this space - like with paint and stuff - I wanted this mini makeover to be C-H-E-A-P.  I really didn't want to spend any money.

You've already seen how I made over the lamps here.  A quick coat of turquoise spray paint and a made-over lamp shade gave them some new life.  They probably aren't forever lamps, but they'll do for right now.

You've also already seen how I made some quick art using a putty knife here.  I popped that piece of artwork into that black frame that I already had and hung it over the table.

So, with very little money spent, my entry hall now looks like this.

It's not perfect, but I think it's a lot better than what I started with!

  

Here's a wider shot where you can see that I also hung a red shelf we already had.  This is my drop-spot when I come in the house - it's where my purse and the diaper bag both get hung.  I admit that it makes it look a little junky, but we have big plans for a mudroom someday so this is just temporary.

In keeping with the turquoise and red scheme, I also hung our colorful Family Birthdays sign on the opposite wall in this entry hall.  (Please excuse the smudged walls and toilet seat up...)

And that's a quick story of how three projects - putty knife art, lamp revamp, and the Family Birthdays sign - came together to make over my entry hall.  Who knows when we'll get around to really tackling this area, but you know I'll keep you posted and show you pics when we do!

Doodle Bug

Hello!  I'm back with another photo dump update of what we've been up to the last few weeks.  Most of these pics are from my iPhone, so crappy quality. We recently bought new furniture for our living room - pics soon, promise - and Katie enjoyed testing out the new chair.  I couldn't resist snapping a pic of her sitting in it because of how she put her arm on the arm rest like she was just chillin'.

Oh, about the title of this post.  Doodle Bug is my current go-to nickname for my girl.  I rarely call her by her real name.  She has lots of nicknames, but this week it's been mostly Doodle Bug or Doodles.

My dad likes to call her Touchdown Katie because of how she sleeps when she's not swaddled...

Did I tell you we flew to Indiana for Thanksgiving?  Yep, we can check the first plane ride off the list!  Doodles was a champ and pretty  much slept through the whole flight.

Here we are before takeoff.  Doc and I were pretty sure the woman across the aisle was on drugs.

With her daddy on the plane.

It was a quick trip to Indiana to see Doc's family.  The big kids didn't get to go with us since it was planned last minute.  Katie's Poppa fed her a bottle the first night there.  Who needs clothes to eat?

While we were at Doc's parents' house, Doodle Bug slept in a tiny crib in the room beside ours.  I was nervous about her not being in the same room as us, but both she and I survived!  She looked so tiny in the crib!

The main point of the trip was so that Doc's side of the family could meet Katie while she was still a baby, especially his Granddaddy.  Remember back in March when we went there to celebrate his 90th birthday?

I think they had a good conversation. :)

Katie also had some cousins that were eager to meet her.  Here she is with our nephew Nathan.

Our sweet girl is now giving us some good smiles.  Sometimes they come with wonky eyes, though.

Love those lashes!

The week after Thanksgiving is when we had to go to the doctor for her 2-month checkup and first set of shots.  She was so happy and in such a good mood before the shots came!

She weighed 11 pounds, 6 ounces at that appointment and was in the 50-75th percentile for height and weight.  She let out a really good scream when the first shot came, but the tears didn't last long.  Here we are shortly after the shots waiting in the car while Mimi was in Walmart.  Back to all smiles!

It's gotten a little bit colder here so she's been wearing her little coat that we got as a shower gift.  My little snuggle bunny!  Of course she acts like she can't move when the coat is on.  She napped in her coat while I shopped at Hobby Lobby.

One day we were in the car for a bit and Katie was really quiet in the backseat.  I looked back in the mirror to make sure she was ok and saw her like this.  Darn hood...I think it's a little big!

We've been practicing taking naps in the crib in her room.  She seems so little in it!

I've been learning how to use my mom's embroidery machine.  I'm slightly addicted!  I've made her a few Christmas onesies already, but I've learned that onesies are the hardest things to do!  We may have to move up to regular shirts soon.

I didn't make the one below, but I did fix it.  It originally had a gigantic green bow on the center present that kinda took over her face, so I replaced it with a smaller red bow.

My little Houdini...one morning I found that she hadn't gotten out of her swaddle.  She was so proud of herself!  How can you not love that sweet smile?

This is how I found her one night after her Daddy had changed her diaper.  Got those pants pulled up!

One last pic of my cutie before I go...

I'm really going to try to get some posts cranked out in the next few days.  We've made a lot of progress on the house and I can't wait to show you!

By The Numbers

20 ... states visited this year 10 ... size shoe

6 ... professional letters after his name (CPA, CFA)

3 ... half marathons run

2 ... average number of bottles fed to baby each day

50 ... push-ups done most mornings and evenings

11:00 ... lunch time

1 ... tooth filling

3 ... kids lucky enough to call him dad

28 ... rounds of golf played this year

72 ... ounces of diet coke consumed in a work day

1 ... bite needed to devour a cupcake

4 ... states lived in

23 ... shots taken on his 21st birthday (plus 2 gin and tonics and a pitcher of beer, he says)

25 ... years of wearing contacts

2 ... alarm clocks ignored each morning

1 ... big sister

39 ... years young, as of today

Happy birthday, dear!  I love you!