Blowing Rock

In mid-December, we headed up to Blowing Rock to do an early Christmas and Dad's bday celebration at their Tweetsie House. Mike & Jenn were there, too, so it was fun to spend time with them!


Jackson loves to sit beside Westie any chance he gets, and loves to lovably kiss all up on his face. Westie, on the other hand, isn't such a fan!


The only snow we could find was blown snow at Appalachian Ski Mtn. After playing in the slush for 5 minutes, we were asked to leave because we were "damaging their snow base."


Aunt Jenn & West


Jackson to rocking his new Wolfpack football jersey. He'll be able wear this one until he's 10!


As the Isaac tradition goes, the birthday boys gets wrestled to the ground and trapped under the kitchen table. In this case, its Poppy. He's the one buried until three 7-year olds and a 3 year old.


After managing to ward off his attackers, Poppy saves the day by dosing Westie up with a little cake icing.


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Location:Valley Fall Ct,Greer,United States

Family Adventures

Ben has been off work since last Friday, and doesn't go back until January 2. We are trying to be intentional about doing fun activities as a family.
Christmas Eve day, we went to Waffle House for breakfast and immediately decided that was our new Christmas Eve breakfast tradition. The kids loved it and I got off the hook for cooking both breakfast and lunch.




We have also been hitting up Lowes, Target, Costco and yes, even Walmart (on a Friday night no less) as family outings...I just didn't realize how much easier it is to run errands 2-on-2! I do admit that we spend at least 25% of our shopping time on the toys aisles when Daddy's with us, but no complaints here!












Today, we went to the Kroc Center to take the boys swimming at their really cool indoor aquatics facility. They both had a blast and swam like crazy for nearly 2 hours, followed by a picnic and indoor basketball. Too bad we don't live closer to the Kroc Center or we would definitely be members!













Lots of roadtrips -- Blowing Rock in mid-December to celebrate Poppy's 61st birthday and an early Christmas with GiGi and Poppy -- and to Conover on Christmas Day to celebrate with Bebe & PopPaw. These two love it when we put their seats side-by-side.







Lots of lazy mornings snuggling on the couch with the boys, and cherishing every minute of it!




The boys have also been working on playset additions (Ben has high-hopes of making it multi-level platforms) and have been busy digging post holes, setting posts and swinging on the new monkey bars Santa brought.
Ben also hopes to take Jackson ice skating before he goes back to work.
All of this playing and my house looks like a bunch of frat boys live here. Skimpily-stocked fridge, laundry everywhere, dust and dirt galore and 3 potties that need to be swished. But they always say there is plenty of time to catch up with the dirt & dust, so right now I am trying to live in the present and enjoy time with my 3 boys.
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Christmas Crafting

Without even realizing it, I've managed to squeeze in a few Christmas projects that are worth noting.

I had signed up to help host J's class Christmas party, so I made a Pinterest-inspired fruit tree that the kids were pretty stoked about. They only issue was that the toothpicks aka mini-swords kept coming out of the tree whenever a child would take a piece of fruit. I'm sure DSS would be less than pleased with this arraignment. It was cute, however!




Secondly, I made coasters for our family & close friends using either family pictures or scrapbook papers. I purchased 3.5" tiles from Lowes, mod-podge & scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby and printed the family pictures on my printers on plain paper and cropped them down to 3.25" squared.



So simple: cut the pictures/paper to a 3.25" square,mod-podge the tile and center picture on top of tile. Coat top of paper and edges of tile with a thin coat of mod-podge to seal. Let dry for several hours, then use a spray acrylic protector to finish them.
Once dry, cut cork squares to fit bottom of the tile, and hotglue them in place.




I typically give neighbors and close friends a box of goodies at Christmas time. This year, I was way behind the ball and could not find cute metal cookie tins anywhere. So I settled on some relatively plain-Jane ones, but added a streak of chalkboard paint across the face of the tin, which allowed me to personalize it and just step it up a notch.



As for the kids artwork, they have been doing some fridge-worth masterpieces lastly and I am definitely using their perfectly-imperfect art to help amp up the Christmas spirit.

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You can't make this stuff up!

{As I'm getting undressed to hop in the shower}
Jackson: "Mommy, your belly is getting biiiiiiiiigg. And LOOK at those big b--bies!"


{When praying before bed one night this week}
Jackson: "Thank you God for my life. Thank you God for this earth.
Thank you God for the trees. Thank you God for Weston and me.
Ahhh-Mmmeen!"


{Being silly & snuggling 3-deep with my boys at the mountain house recently}
Jackson: "Mommy, this morning, Baby West to me that Poppy's people name is Clark."


{Driving home from his class Christmas party last week}
Jackson: "Mommy, thank you for coming to my class party. I am glad you were there."
melt.my.heart.


{Runs up to me in a quiet voice}
Jackson: "Mommy, I want to tell you a secret! I love you so much, to the moon and back." And he tops it off with a sweet kiss. Man I love that little boy so much.


{Dinnertime conversation}
Jackson: "When I am 5 I will be a big boy and go to kindergarten and get married."


{Jackson, hands on hips, looking at his grits}
Jackson: "I didn't want butter in there, how did you mess that up?"


{I was feeding Jackson breakfast and he was playing with his toy phone.}
He looked at me and said, "Mommy, don't feed me when I'm texting my dad!"


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Christmas Fun

We have started getting into the Christmas spirit around here and the boys, especially Jackson, have really been into it this year. Three years old is the perfect age to get excited about the season and be old enough to enjoy the crafts, carols and stories that go along with it. And 15 months old is the perfect age to take ornaments off the tree, take baby Jesus out of our nativity and wreck havoc on my window candles :)

We kicked of the season by putting up our tree over Thanksgiving weekend. We used to go to the mountain, pick the perfect tree and have it freshly cut. Fast forward 3 years...its SO much easier (and cheaper) to go to the local produce stand and buy one. The kids still have fun running through the trees and "helping" find the perfect one so its no difference to them at this point.

Jackson was dying to decorate the tree THAT night so after Weston went down, we strung the lights and let Jackson decorate the tree.







We also put up our Jesse Tree, which we started using last year after I participated in a Jesse Tree ornament exchange. Starting December 1, we read a devotional & put a corresponding ornament on the tree each night, leading up to Jesus' birth. Each ornament symbolizes a part of Jesus' lineage and its quickly becoming one of Jackson's favorite things to do. He never lets me forget that "we need to put another decoration on the Jesus Tree".




{Last year, I participated in the ornament exchange with some friends from church. Each of us was assigned a particular day with corresponding story and symbol and made 25 identical ornaments. Then we all exchanged, leaving each of us with 25 unique ornaments and really engaging way to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.}

Earlier this week, we attempted to make homemade ornaments using a baking soda/corn starch recipe I found online. It seemed to work well at first but once they started drying, they cracked in places. Its all good because for my kids, its more fun to actually make them then use them.




Rusty, our holiday elf, has returned for a second year. He isn't a mischievous elf like some may be, but this is largely due to his lack of movable limbs. Since he is homemade, his body & legs are cardstock so snow angels and bubble baths are out of the question. But he does enjoy relocating every night and bringing the boys the occasional surprise.







We had a neighborhood playdate earlier this week while Jackson was at Bebe's...it was refreshing to have time with just Weston and his friends. We decorated sugar cookies and the tots had a blast sampling their creations.



Weston, Anna & Emmerson are all within 6 months in age (he's the youngest by a landslide). Its fun for him to have friends his own age rather than just hang out with Jackson's buddies. Although he is the only boy of the group.



And wrapping presents, I found the only little girl I'll ever have....





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Cutest.Card.Ever

I received my favorite Christmas card of all time yesterday from my super-creative BFF...


Better than Pinterest, no?


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Breakfast with Santa

Last Saturday morning, we attended a Breakfast with Santa hosted by the City of Greer and held at the newly opened special events center here in downtown. It was pretty nice -- comparable to the Breakfasts-with-Santas of my childhood at the club. The served a fully catered breakfast and it was refreshing not to have to stand in line forever to get a mere 30 seconds with Santa.


Jackson was so excited to see Santa and could hardly stand it as we waited our turn. He raced up to "Ho-Ho" (as he calls him) and jumped up on his lap like he was an old friend. He chatted it up and surprised us when he asked Santa for a toy airplane and a firetruck, both of which were news to us. The photographer for the newspaper was there and snapped a few pics of Jackson in all his glory so hopefully he will be in the paper this week or next :)



Weston, on the other hand, wasn't so eager to see Santa. We had to get that obligatory crying-on-Santa's-lap picture but it wasn't pretty. He already has issues with me leaving him at preschool and church nursery, so it was no surprise that he wasn't crazy about me plopping him down on a bearded strangers lap. But Westie did enjoy the breakfast that was served, and ate several pieces of sausage, hashbrowns, eggs and two powdered donuts. We got our moneys worth!!

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