Surprise!

Christmas came a little early this year- John Wilford Larson was born December 23 at 5:27 AM. So far he has been a little angel, rarely crying and always wanting to cuddle. Here are a few pictures of the little man.





And someone is just soo excited to be a big sister. Grace has told me that she "has got a baby." and then said "happy happy happy." At home every little while she goes, "where is the baby" and has to find him and then say "Hi baby." Since Grace has a bit of a runny nose my main goal has been keeping her from kissing "baby" on the face.

Gingerbread

Last night some friends dropped off a gingerbread making kit and Baby G went to town!Please excuse the mismatched PJs :)Oh and we painted our kitchen green last weekend, you can see it in the background.

projects

Here are some things I have been working on recently.
First off some art work for the baby's nursery. I'm going to hang them over the crib.
Next my friend Tara showed me how to make simple little girl dresses. Grace was a knock out in this with a black turtle neck and tights.
I have been experimenting with making flowers so I threw this little number together for my baby shower. I felt like I needed some flash. I just extended a pearl necklace I already had with some ribbon and attached the flower. And yes that is an old earring in the center :) It made my day when I wore it to my doctor's appointment and my doctor asked if it was from JCrew.


Then today I recovered a pillow for the TV room couch, inspired by the pottery barn pillows. For some reason the couch and pillow clash in this pic but they look fine in real life.
And finally I jumped on the band wagon and made some silhouettes of our family for the bend in the stairs. The most challenging part of the project was finding inexpensive oval frames. Originally $40 Michael's had them on sale for 50% off and then I found a coupon to take another 25% off the sale price. The planets aligned so I could finish my project.
Here is a straight on shot.

Its that time of year

I just got home from the mall and my shopping experience was surprisingly stress free. Well, someone waiting for our parking space (who was not filled with the Christmas spirit) did honk at my friend and I as we were loading all the kids, strollers, and bags into the car and Baby G did start going a little crazy when she realized I was not going to let her run wildly through Pottery Barn Kids. But we went over to Anthropologie where they had story time, juice and cookies, and a Christmas craft. Grace listened like a little angel to the Hungry Caterpillar and then made her own pom pom caterpillar ornament laughing all the while. (and yes I am going to count ornament making as our Christmas activity today:) Then we came home, had lunch and Grace went down for her nap with a great big smile. This was a relief because yesterday she was a total drama queen during nap time. I can't believe the amazing sales they are having right now. I just can't say no to $5 sweaters and fleece for the kiddos. And the new baby got a few fleece outfits from Baby Gap that are just too funny. I am relieved to say I am pretty sure he will be good looking, I have been studying the ultra sound head shot picture. And in more exciting news, Neil and his mother are painting the kitchen on Friday :) Yay!

Today at the Doctor's

Doctor enters room

Me "Hello, I am pretty sure that this baby is giant and ready to be born."

Doctor "Well," (flipping through file) "I can see you had a good Thanksgiving, you gained four pounds" (Doctor laughs)

Me "I told you this baby is GIANT."

(Doctor laughs again) "Lets do the ultra sound"

(Doctor starts ultra sound)

Doctor "Well, the baby is measuring at 36 weeks 2 days"

Me "are you sure?" (in a dubious tone, the baby is suppose to be 37 weeks and keeps causing me physical pain when he moves- I was sure he was at least 7 or 8 lbs)

(Doctor takes another measurement)

Doctor "Yes, it looks like he weighs about 6 lbs 2 oz"

Me "Are you kidding?"

Doctor "No, but if you are dilated to a 5 you can have the baby."

Neil (he finally pipes up) "That's not going to happen she only ever got to a 4 with Grace and that was with labor inducing drugs"

So while I had hopes of having a baby today it is not going to happen. My doctor, husband, baby, and cervix are all against me.

......

Ok- so I totally fell off the wagon with a toddler style Christmas. Saturday we went Christmas shopping, so maybe that counts and yesterday we watched our church's Christmas devotional while Grace performed acrobatics in the background. But tonight we are coming back with a bang as we make super cool ginger bread houses (out of graham crackers). In baby news I have my final ultra sound this afternoon and three weeks from today we will have a baby.

Waah Waah Waah

It is snowing outside. This is very unusual for the Houston area. There is suppose to be an ice storm tonight which will coat the streets in ice and the roads may be closed. Baby G and I hadn't left our house since last Saturday as we have been feeling under the weather but today we had to go forage for food. I wouldn't mind the roads being closed but Neil has been out of town and his flight home is tonight and I was really looking forward for some parental backup. Really I just want to take a Tylenol pm and sleep out this sickness. Now at night I wake up every few hours to use the restroom (pregnancy) and every little while because I can't breathe which pretty much equals no sleep. Plus I have a harder time falling asleep when Neil is gone. And some teens stuck a zumiez (or something like that) sticker above our garage and I am too short to get it down with out hauling out a ladder. Last night as I was trying to fall asleep I started imagining that the sticker was a marker for the delinquents to come back and rob us. Yes, I am crazy. But I do have some delicious pineapple orange juice to bring a ray of light to my world.

Ruffles

Remember how I wanted to make a ruffle pillow? Well I finally got around to it. The one I wanted to make had a line of ruffles going all the way across the front but I quickly realized I was packing my flower petals too closely and adjusted to this large flower design instead.
Here is a close up of the little lady.
I guess you could say I have been in a ruffly mood because here is a necklace I just finished working on. Please don't look too closely, I have hit that lovely point in pregnancy where even my neck is retaining water :) I found a tutorial for it on oneprettything. The material is a great deal more brown then it looks here but you get the idea. I love how it looks all fray-y!

PS: for toddler day 3 we are just going to watch rudolph the red nose raindeer and drink hot coco

Day Two a Toddler Christmas and an Update

Today for our Christmas festivity we Larsons will be rocking out to jingle bells, with Baby G graciously shakin' it with her beloved angel bell ornament. Then that lucky little toddler will get to color a bell picture found (for free) here, http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/pdf.htm?christmasbell.pdf.
In other news Baby G and I are a little under the weather. Grace's voice is so low and crusty sounding that she has been confused with a man. I, myself sound like I have sandpaper throat. I probably did not help my cause staying up until after midnight making G a dress out of scraps but you can't control when a creative surge of energy will hit. Oh, and I must take a moment to sing the praises of the magic eraser. In a crazy frenzy of immense naughtiness Baby G managed to decorate the upstairs walls with dark orange crayon. She even hit the walls going down the stairs. All this took place in about 5 minutes but two magic erasers later the walls are once again unmarred. yay!

A Toddler Type Christmas Countdown: Day One

While Baby G is a bit too little to understand Christmas I wanted to come up with one activity a day we could do as a family to get into the Christmas Spirit. And in case any of you have toddlers and want some ides I will post them online. So here we go with my plan for day one.
Family Project: Set up Christmas Tree (OK we already did this but it would have gone great with the other activities)
Song: Sing O Christmas Tree
Game: Christmas Tree Matching. If you go here- http://lds.org/gospellibrary/pdfmagazine/0,7779,594-7-1-2009,00.html and click on the December issue of the Friend Magazine, there is a free Christmas tree and ornament matching game you can print out on page 26. (I was just going to scan it but the scanner gave me attitude.) It also has the meanings of each Christmas symbol on there, which would be great for older kids.
Enjoy and Merry Christmas!