Christmas 2014

This year, Adam and I decided to change things up when it came to holiday travel. Typically, we spend Christmas Eve in Chicago with Adam's family and then on Christmas Day, we wake up bright and early to hike 6 hours to my hometown in Michigan. It has been our tradition for the last 4 years.

Because of the timing of Christmas, we found that we could flip our visit and go to Michigan first, allowing us to then have a good chunk of time to be at home and relax after the holiday. Additionally, Adly would be able to have her first Christmas at home, with Santa visiting. She knows who Santa is (he says "Ho-ho-hoooo") and we knew this would be the first year it would be really exciting to have her open gifts the morning of. Therefore we made the trip on the Friday before Christmas and stayed there for five days, coming back to Chicago on Christmas Eve. It was also our turn to host Christmas Eve, because you know, we like to make sure our schedules are always packed to the brim.

In Michigan, we celebrated Christmas on Saturday and Sunday with the grandparents. It was a little weird celebrating so early, while most people were still finishing up their shopping. However I'm glad we still got to celebrate with all of them. While we were home, we had an extra treat of visiting with my child hood best friends family and all the kids that have joined their family over the years. Adly loved the chance to get to run around outside with all the kiddos.

We then headed back on Christmas Eve to host Adam's family Christmas, which was also a blast. Having Christmas Eve with the siblings on Adam's side is a new tradition we started last year, and has been so much fun to carry on. All we need now are some new cousins to add to the mix. Hint, hint!

Adly had a truly wonderful Christmas, she LOVED opening "pesents" and playing with all of her new goodies. Being the only grandchild on both sides has made her Christmas very plenitful. We had so much fun seeing all of our family and enjoying this truly special holiday with our number one lady.

Happy holidays to you and yours!

Excited to see Braelyn!

Cooking with Tata and Papa.

Reading with papa. 

More books! Thanks Gaga Karen!

Checking out her calendar. 

More pesents!

Sitting atop the remnants of her haul. 

Cousins cruising, Michigan Style. 

Reunited!

DIY Travel iPad Holder...for $2!

As Adly gets older, the reality of our family changing is becoming clearer and clearer. Making the 6 hour (once 5 hour) trip to my hometown is becoming more and more difficult to do often with a now toddler. Sitting still isn't heard of these days and being forced to sit still for an extended time is now met with incessant whining, talking, and tears. Why toddlers all gotta be?

I tried to learn from our Thanksgiving trip and thought I had prepared for our next long trip home, this time for Christmas. I downloaded a few episodes of our current favorite TV show, Peppa Pig in advance to our iPad. I figured she'd watch a few then go night-night. Ha. Ha ha ha. Instead, our adept iPad user insisted on watching on repeat while continuously pressing the home button to end the program and then demanding mama to fix it. 

Determined to not be outdone by my smart toddler, I set about thinking of ways for a quick, cheap fix for our ride home. I knew I wanted a holder for the iPad to keep it out of arms reach but still easy to watch. The only ones I've seen for this are online, therefore I'd have to order one and it wouldn't arrive before we headed back to Chicago. So instead, I started to think of ways to devise one myself. 

While shopping at the trusty Dollar store looking for goodies for our annual white elephant gift exchange, I came upon a fake neoprene iPad case for $1. My mind started turning. As I continued perusing the aisle, I also came upon a lanyard necklace/keychain that had a clip on one end. The wheels started spinning and I set about planning how to create a contraption to hold the iPad out of reach of Adly and out of mama's hands. All for $2. I like challenges. 

When I got home and told my dad and Adam my plan, they both rolled their eyes and said good luck. Of course, this only made me more determined to prove I could do it.

First I put the iPad into the case to determine where to cut. Using scissors, I cut out a hole for the screen, a little smaller than the iPad. I bought a larger case for my mini, because I have a huge, toddler proof case on mine. If I had a regular case, I would have bought the smaller mini size. 

The case velcros in the back, so that encased the iPad. I then cut a hole in one end to clip the lanyard. Then I cut a hole on the opposite side to string the lanyard through. I wasn't sure how I'd attach it to hold, but figured I would just deal with that once we were in the car. 

Once we were on the road, I decided to test out my contraption. And it worked, no problem! To hold it securely onto the headrest, I tied a knot in the end of the lanyard once it was through the hole and tight enough to hold up the iPad. This will also allow me to remove it when our road trips are done and the iPad is no longer needed. 

All for two measly dollars. I love winning!! The only problem is that you can't control it from afar, so I need to be near to control it. A solution to that could also be downloading long movies to last. For now, I ride in back with her anyways to ease the drive so it's just what we need. No, this isn't the best ever solution and you could certainly purchase one that is stronger or more pretty to look at. But for two dollars, can you really resist?! 

If you're headed on a long trip for the holidays with an antsy toddler, I suggest this as an easy option to ease the pain of the long drive.....for everyone! 

Happy holidays to you and yours.

Holiday Photo Shoot

I am very lucky to have quite a few family members with various talents. Of course, these talents are most amazing when I find ways that they can benefit me, am I right? My cousin Nicole happens to be one of those talented people, and her talent is photography. While on the wait list to get into nursing school, she took a liking to taking photos, took some classes, and purchased a bunch of fancy equipment. A hobby became something she actually really enjoyed, and she began taking on jobs for various family members and friends.

This summer, I commissioned her to take Adly's one year pictures. I felt that those pictures were the kind of thing you just have to do as a parent, that I was not really looking forward to. I was grateful to have the opportunity to do the pictures at my aunt and uncle's in a relaxed environment to *hopefully* get some amazing pictures of Adly. Of course, babies have plans of their own and that day in particular, my little princess did NOT want her picture taken. Nicole was fabulous and all of my family spent the session hopping up and down, hooting and howling, making silly faces, trying to get ONE smile. Despite Adly's diva ways, Nicole still managed to get some absolutely adorable pictures.

With the holidays coming up and Adam finally getting some time away from work, I knew I wanted to do some family pictures, something we haven't done yet as a family of three. Nicole has since gotten into nursing school and photography has definitely had to take a backseat. Even so, I reached out to her to see if she could squeeze us in over Thanksgiving and do some family photos. Turns out she had the entire week off and was wide open, so she had no problem with getting in a session with us.

In preparation, I turned to my best friend Pinterest and searched for some good location ideas for holiday photos. A handful of them were in what looked like Christmas tree lots. I then started searching lots around my hometown in Michigan, where we would be for Thanksgiving. Turns out that the big season for tree farms begins the Friday after Thanksgiving. Who knew? So most of them weren't open for our session on the Wednesday before turkey day. However, I was able to find one farm that would be open, called Santino's Tree Farm. In the city, I have to imagine that heading into a tree farm without the intention of buying a tree wouldn't be heard of without paying fees of some sort. So when we got to Santino's and were greeted by the owners, I wasn't sure what to say. I asked if we needed to buy passes to get in, and we didn't. The owners were so incredibly friendly, I gave in and told them what our plans actually were. They were so kind and said they needed nothing from us. They then proceeded to tell us the best places to get pictures and after all that, they offered to drive us out and take us for a hayride! I mean, I was blown away by their kindness. I only wish we lived closer so we could have actually bought a real tree!

We set to our photo-taking and child abuse of having our child run around in the freezing cold without a coat. For the clothes, we went with browns and Adly and I had matching fur vests. I've had my vest for a few years and when I saw one in Old Navy, I knew Adly had to have it! After galavanting around the tree farm and trying everything possible to get some smiles, we decided to head to downtown Frankenmuth, MI for some Christmas-like pictures. Even though there wasn't snow, we were able to find a little town square with huge trees and decorated bridges. All perfect backdrops for some holiday photos with my two favorite people.

To say I love the photos is an understatement. Nicole did a fantastic job on them and I couldn't be more proud to say she's my cousin! While I know she's going to make a great nurse eventually, I think she's definitely got a knack for photography!

Be warned, photo overload begins now.

 My favorite. 

And then lets talk about that family photo fail...the one that happens when the mom lets go of their gleeful child's hand....

Happy Holidays to all!

Here Piggy, Piggy

So last night I was hanging out with Adly in her bedroom before bedtime when she wandered into her closet and started saying "Piggy! Piggy!" over and over again. She said it enough times that I got up to find out just what kind of piggy she had found in the closet.

This is what I saw.

Naturally, I picked up the piggy to give it to Adly, thinking she just couldn't reach it and that was why she was so panicked about it. As soon as I did this though, her eyes grew as big as saucers as she stiffly backed away from the closet, myself, and the apparently scary piggy. She looked beyond terrified of the thing. So of course I did what any nurturing, loving parent would do. I tortured her with it.

For what ever reason, I thought it was hilarious that this random stuffed pig was terrifying my daughter. At first I thought it had to be a coincidence so I walked toward her again with the piggy. She backed up quickly, running into and falling over her training potty. Oops. But I couldn't stop it there. Nope. Because I'm a jerk like that.

I tested it out a few more times because I just couldn't believe she was actually scared of this random stuffed pig. Each time I held it out towards her, she'd whimper and back up even farther away saying, "mama!" I couldn't stop laughing.

I then put piggy on her dresser, looking into her crib and told her it would be there all night to haunt her dreams. She responded with a quivering whisper of "piiiggy?"

Hiiiii Adlyyyyyy....I see you!

I then picked her up to take her to the kitchen so her dad could get a load of the "scary" piggy and what it was doing to our daughter. As I brought her out laughing hysterically I was all like, "Look at this! Isn't it hilarious!?! Watch what she does when I put piggy near her!" To which my husband immediately told me I was the worst person ever. And then he ended my fun faster than anything else could have with these cutting words: "at least we know who will be on duty tonight when Adly wakes up from nightmares yelling, Piiiiiiiggy!"

Any talk of losing sleep is like my own personal nightmare, so I knew I had to immediately backtrack the emotional trauma I had already inflicted. So much for scaring the crap out of my child for fun. I spent the next twenty minutes of book reading time deflecting Adly's worried requests for piggy that had by now been hidden by Adam. From me there was a lot of "Piggy who?!" and "Ooooh, look at that! Wow! Let's read this!" all followed up immediately with a "Piggy??!?" from my scared child. Curses!

I put her down and crossed my fingers that the damage had been repaired and I wouldn't suffer any sleep loss over my little fun with piggy.

Thankfully, I can state today that no, my daughter didn't have nightmares after this hilariously traumatizing event. This afternoon, as I snapped these pictures to demonstrate on here how ridiculously not scary this piggy is, Adly followed me everywhere carefully watching Piggy's every move. By bedtime she was carefully kissing Piggy night-night, so apparently she is just fine emotionally...at least for now. 

Sweet dreams, little piggy!