Christmas Pajama Party Link Up + Holiday Home Tour

Since it's Thursday (and I seem to like to confess things on Thursdays), I have a confession. I am a HORRIBLE blogger and have exactly TWO photos of Mason in Christmas jammies. Oh wait! I take that back. THREE. But only if you count the cousin Santa photo that Mason and his cousins did two weekends ago. {{insert monkey covering his eyes emoji}} Yeah, I know. AND to top it off, I am one of the hosts of the pajama party link up. So, without further ado, I bring you, my three failed attempts at pictures of Mason in his Christmas pajamas.

So this is attempt #1. He was playing with his new Go Go Smart Wheels set the other day and wearing his Hanna Andersson snowplow pjs and I snapped a picture real fast. Snowplows are used in the winter and Christmas is in the winter, so it relates, right? :)

And this is attempt #2. Same toy, different day, different pjs. These are his Hanna Andersson Christmas pjs. I seriously LOVE them. He got some last year as well and even though Christmas ended in December, I think he kept wearing them all the way until March or April or even May when it got warm enough to wear short sleeves and/or shorts jammies.

And attempt #3. His Carters "Santa's Helper" jammies with Santa. At least in this one he's facing the camera and smiling? Total fail on my part this year in the Christmas pajama photo department!

Link up with me (below) or with any one of my co-hosts and show us your kids Christmas jammies too!

Stephanie // Jen // Liz  // Jessica // Meghan // Whitney // Crystal

Since I was so, so horrible with the Christmas jammie portion of today's post, I thought I would share a little of our holiday decorations with you as well. I swear I love Christmas and all the festiveness but somehow I just never take a picture of my kid in his cute pajamas!

Please keep in mind that we live in a small town home. There's not much room to decorate, BUT I did the best that I could given the constraints.

One of my very favorite things to do is to hang lights inside. I think I've mentioned this before but ever since my mom first did this when I was a little girl, I have loved the look of it. I like to hang lights around our windows and then over around the door and around the bathroom door until it ends by the tree.

our tree topper - Mason's Santa hand print from when he was just 4 months old!

my first attempt at bokeh (taken on my iPhone 6 using the "Manual" app)

This is where I've been hanging all of the Christmas cards that we've been sent. I had originally planned on tying a ribbon around our closet door and hanging them on there but all I had was tape to attach them and because of the softness of the ribbon, the tape didn't stick well and I'd come home to a pile of cards on the floor every afternoon. So. I moved the cards to our pantry doors. I literally may keep them up way longer than I should because seeing all my friends and families faces just makes me so happy :)

This table is my make shift mantle. I'm DYING for a mantle to decorate. ONE DAY! So, for now, I decorate the table and pretend that it is my mantle. I absolutely love the look of hurricane glasses filled with Christmasy decor and I love to put these cute ornaments in them. I hope to get larger ones someday and possible fill them with those red, white, and silver bows (that you attach on to packages) or pine cones or candy canes or maybe just more ornaments. The possibilities are endless and one day, friends, one day I will be able to do this! Stay tuned!

I also updated the art gallery wall to reflect Christmas pieces. Thankfully Mason's school sent home some of his artwork early! That top left Christmas tree is my absolute favorite. They traced his hands and then cut them out using scalloped scissors (the teachers, not Mason) and then made a tree. He glued all the "ornaments" on himself!

And our last place of festiveness is Mason's room. He absolutely ADORES his tree. Every single night when he comes home from school, he wants me to turn on the lights. He loves to blow on the tree (I think to "blow out the candles" like on a birthday cake) and so we tell him to blow three times and then I plug in the lights. I don't know if he thinks that blowing turns them on and off or what, but he gets the BIGGEST smile and his face just lights up with joy when the tree turns on. I'm going to be crushed to have to take it down at some point in January.

So, even though it's small, I think we decorate a good amount where there is just the right amount of Christmas without being too overwhelming.

Some of you may have noticed that we celebrate Hanukkah too, which is true. However, I really only have one Hanukkah piece and since Hanukkah is over, I had already taken down the wooden Menorah that we have before I took these pictures. So just use your imagination on that one!

Don't forget to link up your Christmas jammies with us below!

2nd Annual Christmas Desserts and Tacky Sweaters Link Up

I don't know about you but the idea of this link up just brings a smile to my face. When Jamie, Courtney, and I got together to host this last year, our original idea was just Christmas Cookies & Desserts, but we knew we could make it just a little bit more fun, so...

 the Christmas Desserts & Tacky Sweaters Link Up was born! 

Honestly, it has been making me laugh ever since we landed on it last year. Just look at those fabulous sweaters above! If that doesn't put you in the Christmas spirit then I don't know what will. And this year, we're lucky enough to have Whitney co-host with us!

Here are the details of the link up...

Get in the kitchen and whip up one of your favorite Christmas desserts! Don't have one? Don't worry! Find something that looks fabulous and new to try or even go the semi homemade route and decorate some store bought sugar cookies. Anything goes!

Take lots of pictures to share and if you are up for it, snap a picture of you in a delightfully tacky Christmas sweater showing off your dessert as well. Write up a recipe post so we can all try it for ourselves, and then come link it up with either Jamie, Courtney, Whitney, or myself on December 3rd. The link up will open at 6am EST on Dec. 3rd and close just in time for Santa to make his rounds at 11:59pm EST on Christmas Eve. And don't forget to share those yummy recipes on social media as well using #sweetsandsweaters15 !

Don't forget to make a little extra so you have some to leave out for Santa to try too!

Not sure if you feel like shopping for a tacky sweater? No problem! Doctor up a sweater you already have and have fun with it! It doesn't have to be anything complicated, the point is to have a little Christmas fun with it. But, not to worry about if you'd rather not, you can absolutely link up just a Christmas dessert recipe - no silly sweater required!

Not sure what dessert to make? Try one of these: peppermint sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting, grasshopper mint chocolate bark (I made this last year and it was a BIG hit), Christmas crunch, gingerbread cheesecake bites, or pretzel hugs.

We hope to see all of your Christmas treats in two weeks!

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[It's the Little Things] Being Thankful for Quick Reflexes

It was Saturday morning, August 29, 2015, around 11:15am. Mason was at his ABA class and Seth and I were on our way to go to the bank and then to Seth's mom's house to drop off some snacks for her to take when she picked Mason up that afternoon. Seth and I had plans to go out to lunch and do some beer tasting for our friend's birthday. The car ride started off normal. We stopped at the stoplight off our street, waiting to turn left to head down the street to Seth's moms. Seth was driving my car and I was scrolling through Instagram or something on my phone. The radio was on. The light must have turned green and Seth started going and then IMMEDIATELY slammed on the brakes. I hadn't been paying attention since I was on my phone, but this alerted me and I immediately looked up. And what did I see? A car go ZOOMING extremely fast RIGHT in front of us. Keep in mind, our light had been green for a couple seconds now, which was why Seth started going. I am just SO SO THANKFUL that he happened to look to the side or happened to see out of the corner of his eye that the car coming from our left wasn't stopping. Their light was full on RED and they were not stopping.

Him jamming on the breaks shook the car a little since he had just started going and then slammed on the brakes so hard. I took a moment to process what happened and immediately asked him if he was ok. He said he was. I looked to my right and saw the car driving down the road, they appeared to be braking now (umm a little too late lady) and maybe just realized what happened. At this point, we started driving and heading down the road like we had planned. Seth was visibly shaken, completely understandably. And now, at this point, I think I fully processed what just happened and what COULD have happened and I got upset. Seth asked me if I was ok and I said I was, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to freak out and think about what could have just happened, and I started to tear up. Thankfully I was wearing sunglasses so Seth didn't even know (until now). All I could think about was "we could have died". I think I even said that out loud and Seth said that no, we wouldn't have. But seriously, we could have. And all I could think about was Mason. BOTH of his parents would be in the car and would be gone. AND we have no will. And that's when I really started freaking out. We could have died and what would have happened to Mason?

Needless to say, I plan on getting us a will soon (speaking of, if anyone has advice on how to do this, that would be appreciated. Do I need a lawyer? Are there kits? How do I get started?).

It just boggles my mind the things that people do while driving. I mean, I'm no angel, I'll admit that. But when you're going 40+ mph down the street, I don't think that's a good time to be texting, looking for something in your purse, or changing the radio station. I've done all of the above but WHILE AT A STOP LIGHT (which, yes, I know, doing anything on your phone no matter where you are, if you're driving, is illegal). I asked Seth if he could tell if she was texting or not and basically all he knew was that it was a youngish looking girl. But I'd have to assume she was doing something in order to just blow through a red stop light like that.

Anyway, I don't want to be Debbie Downer here in this post, but I did want to document -- I am SO SO SO THANKFUL for whatever made Seth look to the side or whatever made him see that that car was coming and that he slammed on the brakes. I always try to look both ways and make sure I see the cars stopping because I've seen one too many people blow through red lights before, but for some reason this one just hit me a little harder.

SO. THANKFUL. that I am the one here typing this and telling you about what could have happened rather than you reading somewhere about what did happen. It can only take a second to really put your life into perspective.

ps I promise to be back tomorrow with happier news :)

[Summer Reading Challenge] Link Up #3

As I've mentioned before, when Stephanie, Courtney, and I announced our summer reading challenge, I was really excited to start reading more with Mason. We've checked in for the first time to share our first three summer reading books and a second time to share three more, and now I'm back again today sharing what else we've been reading. This time we incorporated Mason's birthday in with the fun and we added a few extra books to the mix!

(source) LMNO Peas

(alphabet)

I've seen people commenting about this book for a while now and was excited when I found it at the library and thought it would be the perfect book for the "alphabet theme". It ended up being just as cute as I thought it would be and I love how they incorporate all the different jobs the peas have into the letters of the alphabet.

In order to incorporate the alphabet into play, Mason's new alphabet puzzle came in handy!

PS something extra fun... when I was looking for the image for this book, I actually discovered that LMNO Peas is actually just one in a series! I'm definitely going to have to check out the others at the library now -- Little Green Peas: A Big Book of Colors and 1-2-3 Peas!

***

(source) The Day the Crayons Quit

(colors)

I'm sure I've already sang this book's praises on the blog before, but we seriously love this book so it was the natural choice for the "color theme". And if you already have this book and love it as much as we do, there's also a sequel coming out super soon (August 18th!) -- The Day the Crayons Came Home -- I have it saved in my Amazon cart right now!

***

(source) Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

(A Book You Read as a Child)

I loved this book as a child and was so happy when I found out that they had a board book version of it! I'm pretty sure I actually bought this book when I still worked at Barnes and Noble and way before Mason was even a thought in Seth and my mind, just because I loved it so much. And as a fun little bonus for Mason, we read the book and then had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner :)

***

In addition to our three books from our reading list, we also added three more to help celebrate Mason's birthday....

(source) If You Give a Pig a Party by Laura Numeroff

(source) Mater's Birthday Surprise by Melissa Lagonegro

(source) If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff

And, as it turns out, if you give a Mason a pancake (or seven), he is pretty happy :)

***

Now, tell us! What books are you reading this summer with your children? What books do I need to add to our summer list? Link up with us below!

PS remember you need to have participated in the challenge as well as linked up at least once to be eligible for the giveaway on August 20th, the final check in!

[Christmas in July] The goodies.

Merry Christmas in July! In a few short months (less than five!), it will be actual Christmas, but for now, we celebrate a little early with some gifts in July!

I especially love this exchange because it falls during Mason's birthday month and makes it extra special for him. I literally feel like presents were arriving daily and he was SO excited to open them! Seriously though, the kid was so spoiled in July, he's going to be a little disappointed come August!

As for buying gifts, Mason and I were lucky enough to be paired up with Tia and her daughter, Malia. It was so fun to shop for a little girl since I don't get to do it very often. Tia mentioned a few things that Malia likes and the things that stuck out for me were that she likes pink and purple and likes to play with her kitchen and I immediately knew what I wanted to get her. I found a couple books -- Fancy Nancy: Too Many Tutus and Fancy Nancy and the Delectable Cupcakes (I LOVED these books when I worked at Barnes and Noble and even bought a few in hopes that I would have a girl so I know they are super cute) -- and this Melissa & Doug Slice and Bake Christmas Cookie Play Set. Now I know what you're thinking... Christmas cookies in July, but I thought it fit the theme of the exchange well :) Mason and I hope Malia loved her gifts!

And as for us, we were paired with Jamie and Reese from Cocktails and Carseats to receive gifts from. Mason was so excited when the package arrived and wanted to open it immediately and I was super excited to see there was a few things for me too!



And apparently Mason thought it was for him because he immediately grabbed the cup and tried to drink out of it.



But then he saw his gifts and was SO excited!

This Melissa & Doug Water Wow Coloring Book was by far the biggest hit (with him and with me)! I loved it because it was mess free and he loved coloring the vehicles. He colored for a good 10+ minutes which is a total win in my book because he usually has the attention span for coloring for 1 minute max.

Jamie and Reese, THANK YOU SO MUCH! I love that you included a little something for me and Mason, of course, LOVED his gifts! Seriously you hit the nail on the head with the Planes toy, the water gun, the bubbles, and the coloring book.

Now, link up with us and show us the goodies that you got! I can't wait to get some ideas to add to Mason's Christmas list.

Merry Christmas!

An InLinkz Link-up