Color Me Daisy December Sneak Peeks

Under the Mistletoe...available November 30th at Color Me Daisy

Deck the Halls....

Mike spent this week getting the trees up and decorated. After getting the two trees up on Tuesday, we both had second thoughts about not doing a tree in the family room. But....I did not want to put up the big tree in that we put in the Family Room. It is a 9 footer "old school tree" that takes about 6 hours to put up. You know the kind, individual branches that have to be put in the tree and fluffed out, and no lights so you have to string them yourselves. Do you remember those?

So, there I was on Tuesday night at Target and Michael's looking for a smaller pre-lit tree so we could add one more tree to the mix. I was in meetings all week and out late for dinners with the out of town guests. Fast forward to Saturday morning, Mike has all 3 trees up and we spend today putting out the rest of the indoor decorations. This year I cut back (for us) and didn't put our all the decorations we normally do.

So as of tonight our indoor area is decorated, I am half way done with Christmas shopping and determined to make this December the most for the boys.

Here is the living room tree. It is our formal tree, lots of red, white and silver.

Here is the family room tree...lots of Disney ornaments on this one. We moved it to the corner because the family room is also the main play room and has a lot more toys now than in years past. So the corner is a better fit now.

Here is our stockings and one section of the Santa's...I collect Santa's and with little ones I have had to alter the way they are displayed. So they are in a few sections in the house now, instead of all together but I really like how it turned out.

Nicholas is enjoying the Christmas trees. Tonight, he crawled up on the couch and was looking at the living room tree. He kept telling me he was hungry, but wouldn't leave the couch to come eat his dinner that was waiting for him.

Happy Holidays!

Our Weekend & Jackson's Birthday Party

I can't believe how fast this weekend went. Saturday I took Nicholas to the zoo to the Wild Art Zoo class. We made a Kamodo Dragon Puppet, but Nicholas lost interest as soon as she wanted us to paint with shaving cream. So I made the puppet and he played. After the class we walked through the ZooBoutique, ate some popcorn and watched the giraffes for a bit. Before heading home to get ready for Jackson's birthday party.

We celebrated Jackson's birthday with Nana & Grandpa Rettberg and Nana & Grandpa Carr

Jackson wasn't really interested in opening gifts. He would rather play.

Nicholas liked Jackson's toys. Especially the Little People Airport.

Time for birthday cake. Jackson wanted to take the tablecloth off the table. but we were party poopers that way and wouldn't let him.

He enjoyed his cake ...

Full now...

Happy Birthday Little J. We love you!

Happy Birthday My Little Man...

A year ago today you entered our lives and we will thankfully never be the same.

You are my sweet Little J, mommy's Peanut Butter Pie, our Mr. Squishy, Nicholas's Mai Me, and our funny JJ (the second J because you are definitely a Johnson, ;0 even if it isn't your last name).

Love this new smile you started doing....

You had no hesitation digging in and enjoying your birthday cupcake...

We love you Jackson!

Oh What a Night....

“Early November back in 2-0-9
What a very crazy time
As I remember what a night

Oh what a night,
You know I didn't even know the game
But I was never gonna be the same
Was it crazy, oh yes what a night!

Oh, I got a funny feeling when he cried to soon
And I, as I recall we watched the TV toons

Oh what a night! Doo dit doo dit dit doo dit doo dit dit’

(If you are too young, Google December 1963)

Yep! This was a dose of our day. After about 5 hours of sleep the boys woke up way too early and were cranky from the get go. Jackson barely took a nap and Nicholas (my great sleeper) refused to take one. So by the late afternoon it was crazy in these parts of Arizona.

I usually love my day’s home with the boys, but today work sounded like a great idea. I have a lot of patience with my kids (yes those that know me everywhere else won’t believe that) but it is very true. I said to Nicholas tonight that he had worn down my very last nerve and he had. I couldn’t wait to get them to bed.

Mike had planned and cooked us a fabulous dinner of beef tenderloin roast and scalloped potatoes with gruyere and smoked gouda cheeses. After we aborted a family dinner and decided to eat after they went to bed, Nicholas woke up as I was spooning out the dinner plates.

We watched about 25 minutes of TV (the shows never seem to last that long, but tonight they did). Then finally Mike and I enjoyed this fabulous dinner with a fantabulous bottle of Tobin James wine.





Then about 10 minutes ago Jackson started crying. He is relentless, no crying it out works for him. So Mike is giving him a bottle now. Happy! Happy! Joy1 Joy!

I did get a bit of scrapping done with the November Color Me Daisy Kit the past couple of nights.

Trick or Treat

Our Halloween festivities started this afternoon with Nicholas helping to carve the pumpkin. No touching pumkin guts or seeds, but the pumpkin was okay.

Of course it was a puzzle, we had to put the cut parts back where they came from...

Almost done...


After all that work the pumpkin has to be thirsty...

We had our traditional pizza dinner, although this year we ordered it early as we had to take kiddos out to trick or treat instead of eating it while sitting in the courtyard passing out candy. Nana R came by too to see the boys in thier costumes. Both the boys woke up with colds today so we had to dress them a bit warmer tonight.

Time to trick or treat. It didn't take long to catch on how this works. We had to let Nicholas ring the doorbell at each house. A lot of people weren't home tonight but he still hit 3 blocks of houses tonight.

Let's race to the next house...

HOLY CANDY BATMAN!!! We had some generous neighbors, one giving full size candy bars!



After 3 blocks of walking the wagon came in handy!

Good thing Daddy wasn't as tired as we were!

Back at home we sat in the courtyard and handed out candy to the other trick or treaters. "Robin" had a cold but he stuck it out for handing out candy.

Nicholas likes to sing the "nananananananananananaa Batman" song from the old time TV show. Candy from trick or treating is pretty good too! Nicholas even wore his mask, although it fit funny so instead of over his face it was on his head.



This reminded me of when I was a kid. I had to dump out the candy and sort it for my favorites. Nicholas isn't too experienced with candy, but he still had fun sorting the candy, counting it and putting it back in the bucket (of course Marti wanted to help).

But with all the excitement our good little sleeper would not go to bed. It was after 10 before he went to bed tonight. I am tired too!

Hope you had a great Halloween!

Autumn Splendor is Here

Color Me Daisy's November kit is available now. "Autumn Splendor" is perfect for capturing all your fall activities.