Getting Out of the Post Christmas Slump

Holy Hannah Montana!

Christmas has come and gone and it apparently took all of my energy with it!  I don't think there has ever been a year I have felt this way after Christmas.  The easiest way for me to describe it is like I just worked 3 night shifts in a row and got no sleep!  I just can't seem to drag myself out of my bed or off of the couch!  SO in order to regain control of my life I have come up with a few ideas:

1. Drink at least 8 glasses of water.

I am THE WORST when it comes to drinking enough water throughout the day.  In fact it's not uncommon that at about 3 in the afternoon I think myself, "I don't think I have drank anything all day."  So to help make sure I accomplish this I have set aside a water bottle and plan to put washi on it with check boxes for the number of times I refill it! 

2. Do light exercises compatible with my walking boot

Now this stupid boot of mine is likely to stick around until late March or early April so I need to get back into exercising.  I have found a few YouTube videos of upper body exercises that I will do and will try doing some modified lunges and squats.  But also I have found that using my iWalk 2.0 provides quite the ab workout and right leg workout so I may begin to go to a local walking track with that.

3. Clean one room per day

I am very much so the type of person who will neglect cleaning all day and then at the end of the week get so overwhelmed by the clutter that I have a freak out moment and go on a rampage until the whole house is clean.  Well since I am still not allowed to walk on my left foot, doing that is not good for me.  So I plan to take a little bit of time and clean one room completely each day and recruit Alex to help me get things off of the floor, and even better have him help me sweep the floor with his new vacuum from my Grandma.  (He uses this same vacuum at my Grandma's and helps "clean" for hours every time he is there.)

4. Spend as much time outside as possible

Our weather in Cincinnati has been all over the place over the last few weeks. One week it is 70 degrees and the next it is back into the 30's.  I believe this one will be the most difficult.  Walking around on crutches stinks!  However we have family that have screened and covered porches that I spend a significant amount of time with so maybe on weather permitting days I will go there and sit on the porch and read for awhile.

5. Get up before the boys

Now with Chris working the night shift currently it should be easy to be up before him, however our bed is so warm and very cozy in the mornings.  Chris has been awesome to let me sleep in in the mornings and he will sleep in Alex's room with him or play with him in the mornings until I get up.  Did I mention that since I have been off of work that I really love sleeping in and feel like I require 18 hours of sleep a day? (My work hasn't let me return to work on my crutches)  I feel like getting up early would provide me ample time to get ready for the day, relax and enjoy the quiet and even get some work done around the house or for my photography.

I hope these tips will be beneficial to you as I hope they will do the same for me.

Toddler Christmas Gift Guide

This Christmas we have had the hardest time shopping for Alex.  As we find he needs or wants something throughout the year we typically just buy it.  But he wants and needs have changed so much over the last year.  Last Christmas it was all about choo-choo trains this year it's all about games and candy.  So I figured I would share with you some of the things on our radar when we were shopping for Alex.

 Over the last few months we have been working diligently to transition Alex from sippy cups to "big-boy" cups.  Tervis Tumbler's have been a life saver in this process.  Chris and I have found a few throughout the year and have purchased them for him to use but I have purchased 2 more for Christmas presents.  They are VERY nice to hide candy in for Alex as well!

Another gift we have done is, we ordered a few movies through Alex's Disney Movie Club membership.  We love using our membership to preorder upcoming releases but also to get a discount on our purchases!  If you have never looked into this before you are wasting your money buying movies from other places!!  Another awesome feature is that if you enter in movie codes on most new movies you get a free digital download that will play through the Disney Movies Anywhere app over WIFI.

We also found a VERY gently used bike with training wheels for Alex this year.  We debated the tricycle but wanted something that would last him a little longer.  I cannot wait for it to get warm and take him outside with his bike!

Alex's big ticket item this year is definitely this LeapTV Educational Gaming System.  I absolutely hate video games, however Alex loves them!  So I set out on a mission to find something he could learn valuable things from and it wasn't long before I found this.  We ordered him 2 games to with it, and I believe one of his grandma's ordered him some more games and another controller.  Now I would never pay $130 for a game for a 3 year old but I found this 50% before black Friday at Target! I really think he will love this and hope it makes learning as fun as it looks in the promos for it!

 

Now this LeapFrog Epic 7 tablet was defintily at the top of our list to get Alex this year, but it is also $130.  But seeing as though  I have been off work and not getting paid even a 1/4 of my normal pay we weren't able to make it work, but don't tell Alex, this will be his potty training gift when finally gets potty trained!

We have gotten him a few other little things but I figured these would be the big ticket items I would share.  I hope this helps you out in some way, and if you have other cool ideas please let me know in the comments section!!

Our Visit With Santa & The Festival of Lights

Every year for the last 3 years we have gone to The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens to visit Santa Claus.  In my opinion he is the best one in Cincinnati and I won't waste my time in the mall Santa's line ever again.  Now Alex has only cried once with a Santa but never the one at the Zoo.  He is just simply magical and makes grown adults like myself believe again.

This year Alex told Santa he wants candy and pow-pows.  Santa replied, "I know we have plenty of candy in the North Pole, but I will have to see what I can do about those pow-pows."  Alex was waving to Santa the entire time we were in line and couldn't stand still when he was next in line.

 These will forever be some of my favorite photos of Alex.

After we finished our visit with Santa we went around the rest of the zoo and looked at the lights and Alex and Chris rode the train.  Since I am still non-weightbearing on my foot we borrowed a wheelchair from a family member Chris pushed me around in that without a word of complaint.  I truly have an amazing husband.

Aren't my boys so handsome?

Just checking on Santa's reindeer, making sure they are in tip top shape.

 He is so stinkin' cute!  And that hat on his head, we have had for the last 3 years, it still fits his head, and dare I say it might be a little big.

Every year Alex and I have taken a picture on this trail, The Twinkling Trail, at the zoo.  They are some of my favorite pictures of us together. 

Alex saw this Gingerbread Man and said, "Mommy, I want to take a picture with him and then I want to eat him!"

He had so much fun looking at all of the lights and riding the train.  He is the sweetest little boy and I am blessed to call him mine.

Our First Week With Christopher Pop-In-Kins

Our elf Christopher Pop-In-Kins has returned from the North Pole!  

Let's take a recap on his shenanigans for the last week!

On the first night, 11/30, we opened our first gift from our advent calendar.  And it was our Christopher Pop-In-Kins book!  Alex loved listening to it for the first few minutes so we highlighted the important parts for him.

When Alex woke up the next morning, 12/1, Christopher had made the long journey from the North Pole!

He brought him a super nice note, which Alex carried around the whole day!  He even took it to bed with him!

The next morning, 12/2, we found Christopher in a bit of a predicament.  It appears as though he was looking for a DVD, or maybe a particular picture?  He got trapped in under this cover in my old picture storage discs.  

 

The next morning, 12/3, we found him on a zipline of Christmas lights. Our mistletoe is at the end of the line.  Maybe he was wanting a kiss?

On the morning of 12/4, we found Christopher on our tree.  On Thursday Alex and I spent the day shopping with my mom and grandma.  My mom bought me this beautiful Christmas tree topper and we got home too late to be able to put it up that night, well it seems Christopher knew how much I wanted it up so he it took it upon himself.  He can be so helpful!

On Saturday morning, 12/5, we woke up to find Christopher in this position.  He must have heard how scared Alex was of the noises the dryer was making the night before. He found my washi tape and taped the door shut but also sat and stood guard with one of Alex's mini nerf guns.  (PSA: If your son is obsessed with nerf guns like mine, he may have a massive freak out to find his elf playing with his "pow-pows.")

And Sunday morning, 12/6, as we were getting ready to walk out the door we went to pour Alex a glass of chocolate milk and found Christopher in the fridge hooked onto the chocolate milk.  I think he was thirsty.  

It has been a super fun week! We can't wait to share the next week with you!

Christmas Eve with Cait's Family

Now onto Christmas Eve with my family!

Alex with my Mom, he had his first piece of fudge from her that night, needless to say I was not ok with it, but Alex had a new best friend, and he only had a VERY VERY small piece.

Alex with his Godmother, my cousin, and one of my other cousins.  He loved these two!  He always loves his Godmommy but he loves my cousin now too that she is not afraid to hold him!

My sister with one of the wreaths I made for her and my mom.

And Alex was so worn out from opening all of his gifts and partying that he passed out!  He napped here for a good hour and a half.

Christmas with Chris's Parents

Because Chris and I both have to work on Christmas Day, and Chris' family celebrates on Christmas, we went over the Sunday before.  So here are a few pictures we got before my camera card ran out of room.  I need to be better at clearing off my memory card.

We were all so blessed by Chris's parents and family!  Alex actually was tearing some of the paper off of the gifts, solely so he could eat it, but nonetheless.  He got so many cool new toys that I was glad Santa nor I bought him any.

Christmas Decor 2012

Now compared to years past my Christmas decorations are slim to none.  I typically go all out, but decided this year I wanted to stick to a theme.  I think I have done pretty well other than a few things.  Oh by the way pardon my mess in the background, I am doing laundry while I do this post. 

I bought this snowman lantern a few years ago and I love it.  Whenever we buy a house I plan to put it into our room or some other room in the house.  It doesn't necessarily match but it "goes" well enough.  And look how cute my baby was when he met Santa on Tuesday!

Both of these things were gifts.  I have chosen to stick to a theme of snowmen, red, silver and white.  And it matches the theme perfectly.

For the last two years I have been gifted a snow globe at our annual ornament exchange!  I love it!  I hope it is the start of a tradition.  If not I will just buy one for myself. :)

And the snowman in this picture is a gift Alex got at the ornament party this year.  Once again he does not really match but he "goes" pretty well.  And in the frame is one of the pictures I took for his Christmas session.

Our stockings.

Our tree.  I love that I chose to do silver and red.  It look amazing with the white lights!  One of my favorite things about it is the tree topper.  It is a Santa hat.  It's not a snowman, but I figured as Alex got older it would be cool to have him put it on and say that this tree is out "Santa" tree where Santa puts all of his gifts.  And see that the tree skirt matches our stockings!  I got all four of them from Kohls for a total of $20 after Thanksgiving.

This is my favorite way to look at the tree. With all of the house lights off. 

This was a Pinspiration I got last night.  I love it!  I tried to paint the scarves to match the stockings a tree skirt.  They look much better in person.

Another Pinspiration is the ribbon on the kitchen cabinets and mini clothes pins to hang up the cards.  

And the other side of the kitchen.  I am trying to learn how to use deco mesh.

This is in our dining room, since the paint on the bottom half of the chair rail is green, we chose to do blue and green decorations for the most part, but it is kind of a hodge podge.

I must say recently I have begun to love nutcrackers.  My older cousin who is like my sister is in LOVE with them and she has rubbed off on me.

This is a piece my grandparents made.  I love it!  I call him my drunk reindeer.

And this is my drunk Santa that they made.

My Willow Tree figures (Chris gives me one for each "milestone"), some other collectibles and my Christmas figurines and last 2 years snow globes.

Kohls puts out a plate by St.Nicholas Square in this shape each year.  I think my goal is to get one each year to add to the collection.  My mother in law gave me the blue one last year, along with some other table things that match like cheese spreaders and a loaf pan, while my great aunt gave me matching placemats, napkins and napkin rings, all without coordinating.

One of my steals from my mom's collection that I LOVE!  

Of course I had to get this stocking too!

And Alex's pitiful tree in his room.  My goal is to get him a green tree after Christmas to put in his room next year.  And we will move the football tree to a box until Chris has a man cave.