Christmas Traditions - Advent Calendar Day 11, 12 & 13

On Day 11 of our Advent Calendar, we visited my Dad's grave and left some flowers before heading out to lunch and a day of remembrance.

For our twelfth day, we stayed close to house and made Play-doh Snowmen! I think I had more fun with the creations than Molly did.

She did have fun gathering supplies on our walk home from preschool and loved putting buttons on the snowmen. She directed me in making a few of them too. 

Today, on Day 13, we headed to the Sheraton Gingerbread House Village which supports the JDRF Northwest Chapter. We had a great time checking out all the beautiful houses and Molly talked about the different ones all the way home. Maggie slept through our adventure. She would be so bummed if she knew what she missed out on. 

I leave tonight for my first solo trip away from the girls. I'm going to visit my best friend in San Diego and I am so excited for a weekend away. While I'm gone, Scott is going to continue the Advent Fun with the girls. I'm sure they will be having an exciting weekend themselves. 

Blog Reader Shangri-la, Top 100 Best Book Lists and ME Time round out this Week's Links from Around The Web

I've been mourning the loss of my favorite blog reader, Bloglines since it imploded a few years ago. I switched to Google Reader and then that disappeared! I tried out a few other readers since then but never found one that I loved, until BlogLovin'. I'd highly suggest checking it out and I'd love for you to follow my blog on BlogLovin'!

I love reading. I love reading books, magazines, blogs, newspaper articles, I love it all so I was excited to see the NYTimes Top 100 books of the Year. I now have a huge list of books that I want to tackle. My wallet is grateful that my library offers so many of these books as e-readers since I'm a bit addicted to my Kindle and with two kids, it is often difficult to browse books at the actual library especially when we are there for library story times and playdates. This article of the best Children's Books of 2014 excites me too since we read to the girls every day and are working to foster a love of books.

Scott takes amazing photos with his iPhone (some of the best photos on this blog have been stolen from him) and I'm constantly inspired by him and others on Instagram who do this. This Ted article provides some really good tips to get great photos with your phone.

Finding Me Time was a true struggle this year. With the birth of Maggie and the death of my Father, I had way more people to care for and responsibilities to deal with but this article helps remind me to find ME TIME and to take ME TIME.

I've been pinning so many "How to Blog" posts on Pinterest as I think forward to 2015 and this blog. I have some ideas and I really want to get back to this space. It's ME TIME and yet I want it to be more. I'm still formulating my ideas but I'd love your input. What would you like to see? What do you like the most about this space?

Happy Birthday Dad!

Photo Credit: Sweet Peeks Photography

Dear Dad,

Today would have been your 65th birthday. You were aiming so hard for this day. This was to be your official day to retire, your day to really start reaping your rewards after working hard all those long years to support our family and Mom.

It's been a long 4.5 months without you. I'm realizing just how much you did for Mom and the family. You really took on all the responsibilities when Mom got sick and kept everything rolling along.

Today Mom, the kids and I are going to visit your final resting place before enjoying lunch together. Later the entire family is going to gather so we can celebrate you. We'll have a few beers, eat some pizza and watch your grandchildren run around.

Molly misses you so much. We talk about you all the time and I really hope we can keep your memory alive in her. Unfortunately, your other grandchildren are too young to really remember you but I know that they will still know your love. You and Mom made a pretty awesome family. It's now our responsibility to tell your grandchildren stories about you and how much love you had for everyone. We love you, Dad (Poppa)!

Photo Credit: Sweet Peeks Photography

Photo Credit: Sweet Peeks Photography

Fifty Weeks with Chicken Nugget

Maggie went from four little teeth to six in the matter of hours this week. She is also in super destruction mode. Every drawer, cabinet and garbage can have been throughly rummaged through this past week. Temper tantrums are thrown when I remove the garbage from her reach.

Maggie is also obsessed with eating berries out of her yellow toy bowl. I personally find it adorable! She is a berry hound and doesn't care that they are totally out of season. 

Christmas Traditions - Advent Calendar Day Nine & Ten

We've been keeping ourselves occupied with a few quieter Advent Calendar activities since our weekend of festivities! I also made a switch on one of our items because it just wasn't working with our schedule.

Yesterday, we made a bunch of Christmas Cards for the Grandparents. Molly loved making them at first but it was a bit of a struggle to keep her attention going for the last one. Molly even got into the act and let me trace her little hand onto the cards.

Today we were supposed to go to the WildLights at the Zoo but I switched it with December 18th's activity which was to "Donate a gift to someone in need through a Giving Tree." The gift is also due at the Giving Tree by the 14th so it was a win-win for everyone. 

We gave an Amazon Gift Card which I hope is very helpful to our gift recipient. Molly really enjoyed selecting a tag off the tree and while I know she doesn't quite get the giving portion of this activity yet, I hope she is getting something from the experience. 

Christmas Traditions - Advent Calendar Day Seven & Eight

It was a busy Holiday weekend around these parts! We hit up the Mt. Rainier Santa Train on Saturday afternoon for a Santa Meet & Greet and a train ride along with my brother's family. There was excitement leading up to the train ride, unhappiness on the train, pure panic upon seeing Santa and relief when the train returned to the station.

Molly was so excited about the train while we waiting to load onto it. She chatted about the CHOO-CHOO and how she was going to see Santa and CHOO-CHOO! Once on the train, her excitement faded and Maggie began to get a wee bit cranky.

Shortly thereafter it was our turn to go meet Santa! We got the three grandkids together and headed to the Santa Train Car. There was excitement in the air. The adults discussed photo strategy. I got my camera ready. The other adults approached Santa with the kids and chaos rained down. There was screaming, limp noodle bodies and heels digging in. They were NOT GOING TO SIT ON SANTA'S LAP! And so they did not. Santa still gave them sweet little bears and wished them a Happy Holiday.

We headed back to our seats and entertained the kids until we stopped at the Railroad Museum which was fairly interesting. The ride back to the station felt shorter than the ride out. Molly announced that she was SO EXCITED to go back to the car. I think her excitement lessened when we told her that we were driving to Portland instead of home.

The Santa Train was a fun experience and the views from the train were amazing! I'm not sure this is something we'd do every year but it was an entertaining time.

Saturday night we headed down to Portland for a family birthday on Sunday. Before the birthday party, we headed out to breakfast in Sellwood and visited Sellwood Park to run off some of the girl's energy. While there we saw the Portland Santa Train and yelled, Choo-choo at the train. Molly still likes to yell at the trains.

There was a park bench with a holiday wreath and some holiday lights to check out in the Sellwood neighborhood. We had a grand time exploring the park and area.

Christmas Traditions - Advent Calendar Day Five & Six

Somehow yesterday slipped away without any Advent Fun to be had! We made up for it in spades today. Wellll, Molly and I made up for it in spades. Maggie just continued her reign of destruction around my house. Destruction brings her joy even if it does not bring the same feeling to me.

Wearing her Mermaid Costume (boy, have we ever gotten our money worth out of that thing!), Molly made cards (with a bit of help from me) for Teacher Janice, Coach Kirstie and her Speech Therapist, Deanna. I plan to add a little something to them and then we'll start delivering them next week.

Then we moved on to making treats for our neighbors. Every year I bake up cookies and other treats and then we make the rounds delivering the goods. I love visiting our neighbors and seeing how they are doing and I believe they like the baked goods. Molly's attention span wasn't great so we tackled just one of the goodies on our list today. 

We made Reindeer Chow Muddy Buddies which were perfect for today because they can be stored in the freezer until gifting time (hopefully sometime next week). 

I'm really enjoying our Advent Calendar Fun (even if we missed yesterday due to Holiday parties, appointments and commitments). I'm especially enjoying everyone else's calendars and I'm gathering so many ideas for next year! 

Christmas Traditions - Advent Calendar Day Four

Today's Advent Calendar activity was a field trip to Swanson's Nursery to check out the reindeer and camel along with the holiday trains. We also had our first advent guest! One of my PEPS friends joined us at Swanson's. Molly and her son are best buds so they had a grand time running around the nursery and checking out all the holiday goodness.

We spent a looooong, loooong time at the Holiday Train with Molly and her little friend checking out the entire set. They were greatly amused when the "Train Master" came along to fix a derailed train. 

After checking out the trains, we roamed around the nursery a bit before heading inside to watch the fish. Maggie thought the pond was awesome and ended up soaked when I wasn't paying as close attention to her as I should have been. 

It was a successful field trip to check out the holiday fun at Swanson's Nursery! Both Molly and Maggie took a nice long nap afterward. 

The Podcast Edition! Wednesday Links from Around The Web

A New Dawn for the Podcast Podcasts are huge right now and I, for one, am having a love affair with them. I used to listen to Podcasts all the time when I was working and commuting by bus. Then life changed and I stopped listening to them. Recently I got swept up in the Serial podcast craze and started listening again. I now listen to a podcast or two while doing the dishes every night. It allows me time to recharge while also getting something done.

Here are a few of my favorite podcasts:

Elise Gets Crafty Elise of EliseJoy.com started her own podcast to discuss blogging, creative endeavors and small business practices. I am gaining so much inspiration from Elise!

Spilled Milk - Molly Wizenberg of Orangette fame has partnered with Matthew Amster-Burton, an author of three really good books. I used to sponsor their show at my old job because I loved their work and when I get a chance, I still like to listen to them. They explore food and food topics in such a fun way.

DoubleKnit Podcast - My two knitting friends run this fun podcast about knitting. I love listening to hear what they are working on and to discover new things. They always know the latest and greatest things going on in the knitting world.

Stash and Burn Podcast - Just like DoubleKnit, this podcast is also about knitting. I love this one too because if I can't knit, I like to at least hear about knitting!

This American Life This is also a radio show but I don't always get a chance to listen to it when it is on NPR so I love that I can listen to it as a podcast.

What are your favorite podcasts? I'm in need of a few more and I'd love to branch out in my podcast interests!

Christmas Traditions - Advent Calendar Day Three

On this third day of Advent, we delivered wreaths across the city and made dough ornaments. The wreath delivery was definitely a highlight while the ornaments were ok. Molly enjoyed making them and Maggie thought it was fun to look on but they didn't really come out as beautiful as I hoped. Maybe my hopes and dreams were too grand for this project?

The kids did enjoy making the dough and rolling it out. We didn't let Maggie cut out the ornaments but she did laugh and watch us as we did cut them out.

The ornament are now drying and we'll attempt to hang them tomorrow. They look a little delicate to me but I might be wrong.

Christmas Traditions - Advent Calendar Day Two

Day Two of our Christmas Advent Calendar was to "Make a Cardboard Gingerbread House" which seemed like a fun activity when I added it to our calendar. It turned out to be a bit lame but I think Molly enjoyed the activity. We started out the afternoon by putting up the tree and starting to decorate it. I'll probably finish decorating it after the kids go to bed as ornaments and toddlers do not mix very well. 

Maggie's contribution to today's advent fun was to roam around chewing on a foam letter while throwing things around the house. She found that to be completely awesome. 

In the end, Molly had a great time using her glue stick and coloring her Cardboard Gingerbread House. It was a good activity for a quiet afternoon at home. I think next year though, we might tackle a real gingerbread house instead. That sounds way more delicious to me. 

Forty Nine Weeks with Chicken Nugget

This week Maggie discovered that running is fun! She also decided that it is extra fun to steal Mommy's things and run away from Mommy with them, especially my iPhone.

Maggie enjoyed her first Thanksgiving and since she is currently in the EAT ALL THE THINGS STAGE, she ATE ALL THE THINGS. Seriously this kid can pack away some serious food. She's growing like a weed and needs all the fuel she can get.

She's also started this thing where she raises her hands up in the air as if to say, TouchDown! or SuperStar! It's adorable. It's more adorable when she giggles. 

Maggie thinks her sister, Molly is the coolest thing in the world! She loves playing with her and follows her around everywhere. I am loving this playing together thing that they do. This is why I wanted to have two kids, so they would have each other. I can't wait to see how their relationship grows and I hope they are tight as they get older. 

Rock on, Maggie! In three short weeks, you'll be ONE! Can't wait to celebrate with you!