In the life of me.

Since I talked about them, I had to share the photos with you all so you know what I’m talking about.

*hugs*
~Jen

As promised, here are the photos of my Christmas stuff. I particularly like the Advent candle thingie. Don’t mind the baby toys and paint along with some of the pictures.

Yes, Father Christmas appears to have had too much egg nog.

The Family section of our tree. One of the black bears there is for my father. I am on a hunt to find a snow man to represent John. Right now his are the two angels at the bottom. “The Joy of Christmas is Family”, my grandmother made that ornament, one of the last ones she has made due to her failing vision. She’s also made hand made German lace ornaments. I have several angels of that sort and a heart. I hoped to learn the craft, but her eyes went before I could be taught.

The Advent Candles

The tree I bought my first Christmas away from home. Yes, it was a dorm room tree.

A quilted table cloth sort of thing my grandmother made for me. I love it! She hand stitched all of it!

*hugs*
~Jen

Real blog with photos later today. I promise!

Appetizer
What is your favorite carnival/amusement park ride?

Ok for State Fair sorts, Gravitron. Amusement park…like Cedar Point, oh I can’t even remember the name of it…but the old wooden one where two go at once and they “race”

Soup
How do you react in uncomfortable social situations?

I try to avoid those sorts of situations…but usualy some sort of humor works on getting out of them.

Salad
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy discussing deep, philosophical topics?

I honestly have to be in a mood for it…2

Main Course
Did you get a flu shot this year? If not, do you plan to?

Every time I have wanted to get it, I have gotten sick. Now I’m healthy and I should get it, I wanna get it. Also, for adults they only have the spray here from what I’ve heard and I’m not gettin’ the live virus with a 2 month old around. No thankee.

Dessert
Approximately how many hours per week do you spend watching television?

Most of the time it’s on just for background noise. I only like quiet at night time.

*hugs*
~Jen

Last night, after a long walk and a workshop all about Advent and Christmas, we finally arrived back home. John was happily taken out of his bulky bunty and placed into snuggly jammies, all ready for his last feeding before bed time.

It was while Bry had his arm around me and as I fed John that we spotted Cinnamon behind the curtains, on the window sill. She carefully peeked her head out and eyed the Christmas tree. We were about to yell at her because her and Hunter love eatting our fake tree. Just two minutes prior to this, Hunter got busted munching on a lower branch. There are some fake Poinesettas all over the tree and she gently sniffed at one of the red ones. You see, she has a fixation with plant life, be it real or fake. It was so sweet, I wish we would have snapped a picture but the camera is lost somewhere…bad! My Mini girl also lightly batted at it before vanishing behind the curtain again.

*hugs*
~Jen

Usually I have a post up by now. I guess I’m a slacker today Actually, I’ve been finishing up what I need to for Christmas and hunting down a new dress for the marriage blessing. Why? Oh, because the dress I wanted apparently doesn’t exisit anymore. Lovely, eh? So now I have to match a dress to the pair of shoes that are on their way.

Today I tried out the baby carrier. I’m not really sure if I like it or not. John seems rather curious about it. It’s one of those chest carrier ones. I find it akward, granted, I’m top heavy as it is, another near 10 pounds does not help one bit! I might as well be Dolly Parton with John strapped on. He also likes to lean back in it, which is killer for my back. If Bry likes it, it will be his exclusive Daddy product cuz Mommy isn’t too fond of it.

I’m pleased to also find out that friends and family got their cards from me.

Here are some of the pictures that some of ‘em found inside.

Please excuse the white socks. Hehe, I had on what Bry calls my hooker boots, knee high, black leather, 4 inch heels. C’mon, he’s 6′4 and I’m 5′9…I need oomph! Anyway, out of habit, I took the boots off at the door, and there ya have the white socks.

*hugs*
~Jen

Finally, after many, many baths for this lil’ one he has finally stopped screaming through the entire process. It’s taken Bry and I a while to figure out he likes to kick…a lot and that we should stick something in his bath tub for him to kick at so he’s entertained. For now we stick the bottle of lavender lotion to help warm it up so he’s not screaming through that too. It’s probably a bad habit to get him started in, but we’ve also taught him that it can be fun splashing the water. Whatever keeps him calm, right?

Remind me to never brag about John’s sleeping habits again. He’s working on proving me wrong.

*hugs*
~Jen

Yesterday I made some chocolate chip cookies and caught the wiff of a great candle of mine, mint cookies. That made me want to pour a bit of mint extract into the batch of cookies…so I did. It smelled great and soon as they popped out of the oven and I poured myself a glass of milk, I tested them. Man were they good!

*hugs*
~Jen

I know I’ve talked about the blessing before. Well, I tried to cram myself back into my wedding dress. Heh…the bottom half fits just fine, the top would look great if it was corset style . There is no way I can get into it by the 30th of December. In an attempt to figure out what dress size I’m closest to, I try to fit into my old Army Ball dress. Once again, a complete failure. I was in a VERY pissy mood last night due to both of those.

Finally, I chalked up my silly hurt feelings about not fitting perfectly into things that fit great at marriage and early marriage and surfed online stores for dresses. C’mon, we all know what the wedding vows do to us, they make us a tad on the chubby side. At the wee hours of the morning I found the perfect dress for a not so bad price. It’s sage green, loose, flowy, elegant and simple. Just now I meandered over to Payless.com and found the perfect pair of shoes to go with it. Now I just hope the dress fits when it gets here, or I shall be another ball of tears when I try to squeeze in.

*hugs*
~Jen

Yesterday I read Bill Gathen’s blog “I’m Thankful for the Dale Earnhardt Story” (look in my blogroll under bg, that’s the guy) and it inspired me to want to tell of a Christmas that was 11-12 years ago.

My father drove my sis, his girlfriend, and I down to Meem’s and Pop’s for Christmas like every year before. We figured it’d be the typical fun filled holiday with pranks and jokes going all around. When we arrived, we discovered that the newest addition to the family had the stomach flu, as did his immediate family. The next day it spread on to my other cousin. By the time Christmas came and went, it was our little carful that hadn’t gotten sick yet. We thought we were in the clear until we started loading up my father’s Honda Civic in Hunter Green (I proudly helped him pick it out that year).

It was then that I found the urge to purge. Someone decided it was a great idea to give me cranberry flavored ginger ale to help me feel better. Needless to say, it was a very long 8 hour drive back home. I was in the back, curled up around a garbage bag with my sister. One hurl into the bag and it got me saying my first swear word in front of my father. “Daddy, I feel like shit.” This got him and my sister to laugh a little and ask me what I said again. Hurl and repeat and I got an, “Aww, poor thing. But that’s cute.” Somehow that made me feel better, not that nasty ginger ale.

*hugs*
~Jen

Ok, so no photos from yesterday, sorry. I meant to but between John being fussy, me needing to cook, and me taking care of me, I had no time to snap a photo or two. Everything went well aside from John feeding. The poor guy still has a rather snotty nose. He’s better at night though.

Today we did DnD again, added a new player and we had a bit of fun. I also re-discovered the cross stitch I started for my sister’s b-day. I still have until May to finish it, more like late April since her b-day is early May. Hopefully it will be done by then.

I have also started getting Christmas stuff out. All that’s really left to do is put up the tree and decorate it. We’re doing Advent this year and I figured we might as well take advantage of Bry’s long weekend to get this stuff done. It’s looking really sharp

*hugs*
~Jen