Gingerbread playdate

We had a couple of kids over this morning to decorate gingerbread men/women and play.  The kids did great decorating.  They all played so nice (except C).

one little guy got creative w/the gumdrops

strung for ornaments

Advent Story Book

I had read on a blog I follow about an Advent story book.  I have verses I read w/C each day, but they seem to be over his head, so I thought--book, genius.  I ordered it on Amazon on Tuesday, and it came yesterday (geez, super speedy).  I started reading w/C today in a super speedy fashion (we have 16 stories to catch up on).  The ideal/point of the book is to read a little story each night of advent.  The story is about a little bear, Benjamin, that is so excited about Christmas.  He just can't wait, so his mom agrees to tell him a story each night to get him to Christmas.  Her stories are short, and always lead to a lesson about God.  Precious.  He seems to really like it so far, and the pictures.  We've read 7 stories throughout the day today.  9 more behind now.

I am so close to being finished w/Christmas shopping/wrapping.  I still need my brother and SIL's family list--ahem!  I bought a couple of things for my oldest nephew, but haven't got anything for my youngest nephew or Ken and Traci...otherwise, I'm finished.  I've got a few things in transit on Amazon, but otherwise--good to go.  Falalalalalalala! 

I had to shovel the driveway today since Scott didn't do it.  Me no likey to shovel.  My back is killing me.  C kept falling down in the high snow, so before we went shopping I had to strip him of his wet coat and jeans (while he was crying from the cold).  He insisted on goofing off the 30 minutes it took me to shovel (what was that 2 year old thinking!) and goofing off leads to falling over and over again.  I convinced him to keep his hands in his pockets since I was a bad mom and didn't put gloves on him (I really had no concept how long shoveling would take for 3 inches of snow).  He was great though on all our little errands.  We went 5 places and that's a lot of patience for C.  They were all fairly quick except Best Buy (which I hate at the holidays).  At 11:45 I had to wait in line like 10 minutes.  It's hard to entertain a 2 year old standing in line that long.  I let him hold a copy of the movie Cars that was in the line.  This made him HAPPY!  All three of us have a cold and my head is killing me from it.  I have to make gingerbread cookies for our playdate tomorrow, so I have to get sanitized. 

Confessions of a Perfectionist Part II

I thought it would be "fun" to do a gingerbread house together with the bad weather. I've never made one before. I'd bought a kit before Thanksgiving. I got it out after dinner. I was shocked to find that if you add up the wait time it's like 4-5 hours not including decorating time. We put the first parts together and started a xmas movie (The Search for Santa Paws--cute family movie) right after an early dinner. An hour in, I put the roof pieces on. I had the icing made, and I new it would harden, so after C went to bed I told Scott I was going to go ahead and decorate it. I'm glad I did. I can't imagine a 2 yr old doing it. It was hard. I know why we never did one at home. It made such a mess and was stressful. I followed the directions on one plan mostly. Scott thought that was ridiculous. 75 minutes later I was done. I would have wanted to staple my head to the floor had I tried to do this with C. It would have been an even bigger mess and held his attention for all of 90 seconds. Lesson learned. But it did turn out cute. My icing bag popped, so I couldn't get the pretty swirls.

C didn't even make it this far

If I'd followed their instructions completely, I bet it would have taken me 2.5 hours to decorate.

And just b/c they're cute!  Cosmo as a statue.  Try to ignore our hoosier purple towel/mat to wipe their feet.  Classy!

Look at that sweet Kona face. 

Oh, and ignore the tiny shoes in the middle of the floor and the coupon on the floor.  AAARRG--Scott really knows how to frame a pic.  I usually try to hide my mess. 

Confessions of a Perfectionist

So in all honesty, here's what I was doing while C was making great ink art across my bedding.  I was taking the perfect pictures of our Christmas decorations--b/c it evidently couldn't wait until a better time. 

Our new artificial tree--sigh!  Our first artificial tree in adulthood (except the year we moved over Christmas and we just put up my classroom 4.5 ft tree--very sad).  That little tree has found a home (pics to follow).  We have a bunch of stuff under the tree for C to play with.  A Swedish straw goat (gift from an exchange student of my aunt's), a Little People Nativity set, and Tigger and Pooh singing thing (huge hint, but annoyingly loud). 

Stockings hung w/care--just not at the fireplace. Some oldies but goodies decorations here, and some new fabric covered cones (a lime green one isn't pictured here as it wasn't finished when I took this pic).  Stole the idea from the Pleated Poppy. The jingle bell tree was a sale from Gordman's years ago.  You can see Hermie our Elf on a Shelf as well.  The silver sleigh/reindeer was a gift from my mom, I think.  C loves to take it down and turn on the candles (fake votives).  A small nativity is hard to see in front of the lamp.

 Our creative mantel.  This will stay up after xmas for some of my pretties I've had boxed up w/o room to display them.

a little dash of xmas decor for the entertainment center.  Another fabric cone tree, the kissing ball I splurged on from Pottery Barn a lifetime ago it seems--and some glassware filled w/ornaments and cranberries.

Closeup!

 Xmas candles

The Advent calendar.  I do not love this one--I want to make something better, but never find time or motivation this time of year when seasonal fabric is plentiful.  The giant stocking was a secret santa gift my first year of teaching.  Not really my style, but it holds memories.  There's a small key in a bag hanging next to the calendar.  New addition this year from grandma.  It's a special key for those kids who don't have a chimney for Santa to use.  You hang it on the door xmas eve, so Santa has access.  So cute!

Another old xmas decor I've had from maybe our first xmas married.  I think it was a Target clearance special.

A little silver and gold

My creation this year--free!  I strung old silver garland beads over our curtain rod; spray painted clothespins I had w/silver spray paint I had.  Then clip the xmas cards and enjoy the display.  We haven't gotten many yet as most people don't have our address or are procrastinators (like us this year).

My other xmas creation--rag garland.  I saw this in a gift shop in Memphis.  I used all scraps of fabric I had, except $1 of xmas fabric I bought and added. It's the same fabric I used on my fabric cones and others I had lying around.  It took forever to cut and tie all those strips, but I like it.  I used another one of the silver bead garlands as my base.

Basement tree.  It has all C's ornaments we've bought him and all Scott's childhood ornaments (I don't really have many).  I love we can put this up downstairs.  C loves it.

Merry Christmas!!!

Where Carbona Stain Devils Rock World

Blog World, remember our little ink fiasco over the weekend?  I'm proud to report that it is all fixed.  Every piece that I thought was ruined was saved--single-handed--by Carbona Stain Devils-No 3 Ink and Crayon.  Oh yes!!!!!! I didn't really think it possible.  I found this stuff at JoAnn's fabric (but Schnucks in Bloomington also carried some of it).  JoAnn's carries the whole line of Stain Devils--stain removers directed at certain stains--like ink.  It was easy, too.  I just squirted the Stain Devil on, rubbed/pushed it w/my finger. I let it set for about 20 min. and then rinsed in the washing machine.  It all came out except one spot on the white case.  I had obviously missed that spot b/c the other spots on that same case had disappeared.  I retreated the spot and repeated the rinsing.  All clear.  I want Scott to give everything the once over one more time before I wash them and dry them, but major crisis averted.  Now the Stain Devils aren't cheap, and my stains required 1.5 bottles (they're really little), but worth it.  I'd bought 4 stain removers that claimed they removed ink, but I started with this one since it was specifically geared toward removing ink.  Luckily, I can return the other ones. 

Embarrassingly, Scott had ordered replacement bedding from Overstock.com for a fraction of the cost I had suggested to actually replace our Pottery Barn set.  I think unless we just love the new set, we are sticking with the old (which is 5-6 years old, but I still LOVE it).  We will probably keep the new sheets if they look nice though. 

Hip, Hip, Hurray, The Stain Devils saved the day (to the tune of SuperWhy's hip hip hurray song)

Get to the store and buy some if you have a pesky stain--from nail polish to oil--they have a stain devil for you.  http://www.carbona.com/stainwizard.aspx

Snow, snow, snow...

Winter wonderland isn't all it's cracked up to be.  For the 3rd day in a row, C is stuck at home.  He is going crazy---I'm going crazy.  As soon as I walked in his room this morning he said, "What are we doing today, momma?  Where are we going?" My answer--laundry and no where--Merry Chrismas.  I feel so bad for him I'm so tired of this snow.  I feel pretty certain that we won't be leaving our house until March.  He needs to get out and run and burn off his energy.  I feel free more bad shenanigans are in store if we can' get out of the house.  I'm just kind of scared to go anywhere, but I think we're going to have to brave it.  Well, after we shovel out. 

The only place I've been is to a cookie exchange all weekend (which was so worth it), but now I've got to get C out. 

I'm blank on fun things to do w/C inside that hold his attention more than 5 minutes.

The Great Ink Debacle of 2010

So, until tonight C ruined his first important item.  Let me back up.  He was playing quietly in our bedroom after dinner, which isn't that unusual.  He usually just turns on/off lamps or burrows in the covers.  I went to check on him, and he was busy drawing away on our bedding w/a blue ink pen.  I about died.   Needless to say, our bedding is pretty much ruined.  I got mad at him.  Scott got mad at him.  C ran to the living room crying.  I came and spoke with him, but he was hysterical, so I tried to calm him down.  He stood there and puked all over himself and the floor.  LOVELY!  The vomit was the easy clean up.  The bedding---not so easy.

We've tried rubbing alcohol--to some effect.  We tried Spot Shot, but I ran out after one spray.  We've tried hair spray--to some effect.  I need to go buy more alcohol and try some more.  I've washed them, but they are just hanging out in the laundry room air drying until I have time to work on them more.  Here is the death toll of our bedding:

1 white sham: completely unsalvageable I think
1 sham that matches our duvet cover: questionable $29 a piece, but our duvet set is unavailable so we will have to buy an updated version that's similar)
1 duvet cover: questionable ($129-139)
1 decorative pillow: salvageable
1 pillowcase: most likely unsalvageable (but I will continue to sleep on it probably) (our set to replace comparable is $70

Cost to replace the bedding ruined (which is basically everything except our Portuguese Matelasse coverlet) is about $260 w/o shipping.  AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does anyone know where I can buy Ink Out? 

And in more thrilling news: we are under a blizzard warning.  Our street has a sheet of ice on it, so I feel doubtful about the cookie exchange or church tomorrow.