It's the last day of November, so . . .

. . .why do I already feel so far behind?? Well, let's see . . .
For starters, 9 out of 10 neighbors on our street decorated their houses on Thanksgiving weekend. We did not. (I mean come on, it was like 75 degrees. That just didn't feel like decorating weather!)

Secondly, I had all intentions of being the online ordering queen and taking advantage of "Cyber Monday". Yeah, I ordered 4 Christmas presents and then got overwhelmed and gave up.

And thirdly, we do not have our tree yet. Traditionally, we spend Thanksgiving weekend up in the mountains at my mom's house, and go the Saturday after Thanksgiving to a big mountainside tree farm to cut down a tree and bring it back home. But since my mom and Paul moved to Raleigh in September, we had Thanksgiving at our house, and I have not been jumping up and down to buy a tree that we didn't get to cut down. (I know, spoiled.)

BUT - on the positive side . . . We did watch Christmas Vacation on Thanksgiving. LOVE that movie!! And I have hauled most of my decorations down from the attic even if they are not officially "up" yet. We have also been visited by our "Elf on the Shelf"(Marley named him Elfie - and he's a sneaky little guy!) So tomorrow I'm going to jump into this Christmas season with both feet!! Merry Christmas, everyone!!!




Design: hurtigbredbaand.dk

A New Family Tradition

Ok - first of all, I know I am giving in to all of the EARLY holiday decorations and gifts in the stores, but it really has made me want to start shopping (and thinking about our Christmas card) about a month ahead of schedule. You win, consumerism!!!

The fun thing that I have taken from all of these IN YOUR FACE holiday products is the desire to start a new family tradition. Enter matching Christmas pajamas. Yes. I realize that to some of my "cool" friends and family, this may sound a little dorky (well, maybe a LOT dorky to a few of you - and you know who you are), but I will just throw this in the bag with Christmas Vacation (I love you Clark Griswold) and cream cheese & pepper jelly on Ritz crackers (just EAT it people).

So, if you plan to spend Christmas morning with the Windley's, you are going to be wearing a new set of Christmas pajamas. Preferably flannel. Now, I wonder how Santa will deliver the aforementioned pajamas? I'm thinking he delivers them along with the Elf on the Shelf that is going to appear sometime around Thanksgiving . . .

And just to get everyone else in the holiday mood a bit early, here are a few fun photos from last year.

 

Yes, that big red belly contains a baby!

 

 

 

 

Bailey Claus

 

Chris "engineering" Marley's Christmas gingerbread train.

Fall Farm Day

We headed out to Ganyard Farms this morning for the third year in a row to have a little fun on the farm. It was the most glorious day and we had an awesome time!

We all scream for ice cream

I am so freaking excited right now! Why? Because I have been struggling with how to celebrate Marley's upcoming 4th birthday (November 13th!), and I am finally getting over my "planner's block". The ideas are rolling in!

The only direction Marley had given me so far was "I want my friends to come to my house and play dress up". So, the "dress up party" invitations are currently in design at The Green Kangaroo and I've moved on to dessert ideas. :)

One of Marley's classmates had a birthday today and brought cupcakes to preschool. (The evidence on her face led me to the conclusion that they were of the chocolate variety.) She mentioned that she wanted cupcakes at her birthday party too; specifically "chocolate ones with chocolate syrup on top like an ice cream". Well, lo and behold - I found a recipe for cupcakes in an ice cream cone! Sweet!

I'm going to use these for inspiration:

But in Marley's world, neither cupcakes nor ice cream are complete without a rainbow of sprinkles, so I will definitely be adding those!!

"New" baby alert

Well, it's taken me 6 months to officially introduce our newest member of the family, but here she is . . . Chandler Laine Windley. And what a sweetheart she is!



Marley is proving to be a wonderful big sister - I am so proud of her. And I think I have finally adjusted to having two little princesses to care for. Chris, on the other hand, may never recover from the amount of female drama that fills our house these days! God bless him! :)

Marleyisms

Here are a couple of things Marley has said lately that has cracked us up. :)

Last week we were having dinner with Chris' mom (aka Sasa) when Marley says, "My mommy is getting smaller at Weight Watchers." And then after a brief pause, "My daddy needs to go there too." I almost fell out. She doesn't really know adjectives like "skinny" or "fat" (and I hope it's while before she does), so smaller is a pretty good description as I have lost 23 pounds since mid-June. Go Mama!

Marley started back to preschool the week of Labor Day at the Kirk of Kildaire Children's Center (Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings) and when I pick her up I always ask her to tell me about what she did at school. The other day she responded with, "I like school, but my teacher is ALWAYS telling me what to do!" Guess she better get used to that one!

Here's a recent picture of the little rascal that I took while we were making sugar cookies. We got a little crazy with the flour!

Once in a blue blog . . .

Just shy of the 6 month mark and one baby later, I am back. I laugh every time I see our blog in print (on our Christmas cards, on my Facebook account, etc.) and how truly neglected it is. But hey - I am making progress as my previous posts were 7 months apart instead of 6!

I've been thinking about what the point of this blog should be? Is it a reflection of me? (I write it.) Is it a reflection of our family? (That's why I originally set up the blog.) Is it just a way to share photos? Is it another avenue to share cute little occurrences that are too long for Facebook? And how personal is too personal for the web?

I read other people's blogs here and there, but I am not much of a blog follower - mostly I get someone, or something, on my mind and search out their blog for a quick "update". I used to journal in a little black and white notebook (like 20 years ago), but I have never been able to stick with that either. Chronicling my activities online is one thing, but I actually sharing my FEELINGS is a whole other thing. So for now, I'm going to concentrate on updating our sad little bios and photos and see if it's worth printing our blog name on the Christmas cards gain this year. Wish me luck!

Count down to baby #2!

I am officially the WORST blogger that I know! Just realized that I have not posted since August - what??? Oh well . . . this blog is inspired by an email from an old friend - she asked for our blog address and I was EMBARRASSED when I realized how long it had been since I had written anything!!

So, we have less than 2 weeks before baby girl #2 is supposed to arrive. I have been washing baby items all day and trying to finish all of my nursery "decor". We somehow happened upon a bird/owl theme and I'm trying to keep it cute without being TOO "themey" (is that a word?).

Will post some pics as soon as I am finished. But for now here are a few new photos of Marley. She is now a ballerina! :)