Tickled Pink

This morning as I was making breakfast, Charlie stood in the kitchen, looked me in the eye and laughed a big, fake laugh. Then he stopped, shook his head and said "It's so funny."

At lunch today, Charlie was working on his second helping of jam and bread by dipping it into his applesauce. He said "Mm, mm, mm. It's so good."

As I did some chores this afternoon, Charlie was babbling to himself. He suddenly noticed what I was doing and said "Good job, Mama."

I can't wait to see what happens at dinner!

A whole lotta Christmas around here!

I've pretty much been thinking about Christmas since August. And that's because I decided, unequivocally, that I wanted to make an Advent Calendar. And since making things always takes more time when one has a Charlie around, I had to plan early. Still, I'm not as far ahead of the game as you might think, even for having been thinking about Christmas as early as I was. I've got about half my shopping done, but I haven't sent out a single card yet. Anyway, that hasn't stopped us from celebrating around here. We've got lots going on!

First of all, we've got lots of snowing going on. White Christmas!

We have a lot more than the pictures above show, but this was Charlie's first experience in his snowpants.
Here are some iceicles hanging next to our wood stoop. These formed in just two days of snow!

Charlie listening to Christmas music on Pandora. No, I wasn't drinking wine in the middle of the day, the bottle was still there from the night before... Yes, I'm a slow housekeeper...occasionally.

Here's a shot of some of our decorations. I try to center my "seasonal" decor around the hutch. That's our homemade advent calendar on the left there. Unfortunately, our beautiful orange dining room isn't very photogenic. The result is much brighter and more cheerful in person. You'll just have to come by for coffee and see it yourself!

And Keith's parents sent us this one specially for Charlie, along with a whole bunch of other pre-Christmas goodies!

Like this train! I know what you're thinking. How can you keep that out when you have an almost-two-yearold in the house? Well, in fact, the train scares him! Silly boy! But it is rather festive and as long as we don't turn it on, everyone is happy!
Here's our crazy tree topper.

This is my "red remnant cheater Christmas quilt." Basically, I bought remnants, fat quarters (only on sale) and big chunks of red fabric at garage sales, besides mining my own fabric "stash" to put this baby together (Mom? Margaret? Recognize anything?). Its a cheater because its actually a duvet cover, not a quilted quilt. I really want to make matching pillow shams, but I'm still panting from the effort to get this thing done in time for the Advent season, so we'll see.

One more of the sweet pre-Christmas gifts my in-laws sent. Aren't these salt and pepper shakers just the cheerfullest little guys?

Hope you're having fun preparing for Christmas!