11.30.2011

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 3

Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge
Day 3
Holiday Decor!

This is our 1st year being in a house, so I am beyond excited to get to decorate it for Christmas this year and even spent some monies at Hobby Lobby recently to get some stuff to add since we have more space this year!

Let's start with our tree:

I bought this 6.5ft pre-lit tree from Walmart when I was in college for $30 one of our 1st years in the apartment - I couldn't go without having a tree! Last year we pulled (read: cut) all the pre-lit lights off it as too many had burned out and just bought 2 strands to put on. It's easier this way since all we have to do is replace a strand rather than waste time if some lights burn out.

I decided to keep it simple this year and just put up the fun ornaments, only higher up so Jay can't pull them off. Normally I have blue and gold shatterproof balls I put up as well as some silver garland, but not this year... maybe next year when he's bigger!

My parents have a pool going on who's going knock it over first - Jay or Tiger! So far Tiger's only climbed up in it once. Jay crawled over to it and touched the bottom but didn't seem to have much of an interest!

And the ornaments:
I have the entire Puppy Love series, aside from the new one for this year
The rest of our ornaments
Jay's 1st ornaments:
Elmo with a present tree
A snowman with Jay's name on it (well, "Jay" since we'll never find anything that says "Jaydran")
Guess How Much I Love You bunnies with book replica
Baby's 1st Christmas 2011 picture ornament

Our Dallas Cowboys' ornament that my mom gave hubby for Christmas one year
Our 1st Christmas as a married couple Precious Moments ornament
The nest I made in Sunday School when I was really little and always paired them with the doves. When I moved out, my mom decided just to give me the doves to go with the nest. I always enjoy finding the perfect spot for these guys each year!
My little mouse. I've had this one FOREVER and remember sneaking it off the tree once when I was little and sleeping with it, I loved it so much!
My ballerina angel. I've had this one since I was a kid too! Sadly, her arm broke off a few years ago =(
This is a new one for this year.
It's 2 big stockings with a smaller 2011 one and says up top "...and baby makes three!"
Our star!
It's glitter, which I *hate* but doesn't seem to get all over everything.
(Thank God! I *hate* glitter - as we said in art school, glitter is the herpes of arts and crafts!)
We got this baby at Hobby Lobby a few years ago!
The rest of the decor:
Our fireplace and mantle!
So glad we got this in time for the holidays! I LOVE having a mantle to decorate! And everything on it is new!
Jingle Bell tree - Target
Medium size Nutcracker - Hobby Lobby
Nativity Scene - Hobby Lobby
Dallas Cowboys Snowman Family
And the stockings I picked up at Bed Bath and Beyond and Hobby Lobby on clearance after Christmas last year. Jay's is the one in the center, obviously.
Corner end table decorations
Snowman I took from the "give away" table in our old apartment complex
Partylite Holly Lites Aroma Melt Warmer (with Gingerbread scent from Yankee Candle)
Nativity snowglobe
My Partylite set with Poinsetta and candycanes with Iced Snowberries tealights from Partylite
Holiday Eeyore, Pooh and Tigger keeping the loveseat warm (with Tiger in her usual spot)
Samantha's all decked out in her Christmas story outfit!
I got this guy from Hobby Lobby - I *had* to get one of these countdown things!
Advent calendar
Finding one without Santa plastered all over it was hard!
My new Yankee Candle Gingerbread jar with decorative top
I have a friend who sells PartyLite another who manages the Yankee Candle store at the mall. My Yankee Candle friend has "shop with my discount" sales several times a year and since PartyLite doesn't have just a straight Gingerbread scent I stocked up at Yankee since she gets 50% off wax! I've already burned 1/4th of this jar though and it's not even December yet! Definitely thinking I should have picked up 2!
At my kitchen sink I have the Bath and Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel moisturizing anti-bacterial hand soap with a holiday-themed holder
Holiday potholders (Gingerbread house and Gingerbread man) and red and green Christmas light hand towels, all from Target!
Next to my upstairs bathroom sink - Yankee Gingerbread tart and tealight in my bathroom aroma warmer (from PartyLite) and Bath and Body Works Iced Gingerbread moisturizing anti-bacterial hand soap (which smells sooooo good!)
The wreath on our front door that my mom gave me years ago.
The lights on the house!
We still have to put the ones in the front bush, as the outlet needs worked on there.
These are blue, twinkling icicle lights. Sadly though, none of our neighbors have lights up yet!
How do you decorate for the holidays???

Fun with Our Phones #14

 
A few days late again... oh well!

Jay figured out how to put the rings on that toy!
I thought it was an interesting number - 61616
We had him try some chicken nuggets for dinner

So much for that!
Tuesday night, after I had cleaned my house, my stupid cat decided to jump up on the fridge... well she missed. And decided to try again... missing again and this time knocking over hubby's birthday Brandy and a full, unopened bottle of wine as well as our babysitter notepad. The wine bottle shattered all over the floor and my kitchen reeked of wine! I got all the glass up but that was a good 30 minutes I would have rather not have spent cleaning up this mess!
Once again, Jay's 1st visit to Chuck E Cheese!

Winning with daddy!

Saw these in the Gordman's Black Friday ad and had a good laugh - they're obvious Disney Princess knock-offs! Only difference is that some of the names have been changed, lol...
Jay's 1st Thanksgiving!
Playing with Bear
Creating Hurricane Jay
The aftermath of Hurricane Jay, lol...
Trying to get daddy's beer bottle
Jay's plate of Thanksgiving feast
He had a few pieces of turkey and just a bite or 2 of everything else before getting tired and fussy and needing to go down for a nap!
Happy Thanksgiving!
"Look at me, mommy! I'm in ur cabinetz, bangin' the potz!"
"Someday I'm gonna be a Jedi..."
Hubby put some lights up on our house - still need to get the ones on the front bush working, but that's an outlet issue we're working on.

Jay's 1st time at Chuck E Cheese!

I probably should have posted this last weekend but I was just sooo busy with the holiday and work... this past weekend was quite busy!

"Chuck E Cheese! Chuck E Cheese!"
Anyways, last Wednesday we took Jay to Chuck E Cheese for the 1st time, at the request of my college roommate's fiance. They were in the area this past week for the holidays, visiting her family, and I had requested they meet up with us at some point (I really am thankful that my out of state friends still make time to visit with me when they're in the area!). Her fiance really wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese and requested to take Jay so he wouldn't seem weird going there sans kiddo, lol...

It was fun, but boy has that place changed since we were kids!

I don't know how your Chuck E Cheese was where you grew-up, but the one here was in separate rooms - you walk in and there's the register with the prize stand by the door as well. Then there was the arcade-type game room with the skee-ball lanes. Then there was a smaller kid area and some tables. Then there was another room with the main dining room and the stage with the animatronic Chuck E Cheese characters... and then there was another room where the tubes, slides and ballpit was.

Yeah... all the walls, dividing up the rooms, are gone. The ballpit is gone (thank God! I've heard and read about too many horror stories with those!) and there's a tube that you climb up and you can go in a few different tubes that are up in the area and one is connected to a slide - it's very compacted in a corner of the now very open huge room! It was sooo weird!

Anyways, we took Jay and he seemed to have a blast! He LOVED the kiddie car rides - there was one where you can take a picture with Chuck E and another that was Bob the Builder themed which Jay LOVED! I have no clue how many tokens we spent on that, lol... and once hubby showed Jay there was a button to push on it that made noises, that was all he wanted to do on the ride!


Riding with Chuck E.!
Picture of the crappy quality photo the ride takes, lol...
It was cute enough to hang it on my fridge though!




"Can we drive it? YES WE CAN!"
Winning tickets with daddy.
Playing with the token cup while mommy shows off our ticket receipt

We all shared tokens - hubby and I got 168 tickets (I hit a lucky streak playing Skee-ball!) and got Jay a blow-up mini guitar, a bookmark and some Fun Dip for myself! Jay also liked the token cups so I snagged a few of those on our way out so he can play with them at home.

We went at 8pm on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so it wasn't very crowded at all - only 2 other families and none of the kids were close in Jay's age so we didn't have to worry about sharing the rides he was hooked on, lol...

I definitely recommend checking their site for coupons before you go though, as the prices are a bit steep! We got a large pizza with 4 drinks and 70 tokens for $29.99, plus my friend's fiance spent probably $10 or so to get another bunch of tokens. It was a fun 2 hours though!