Happy Easter!!

I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Easter, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!!

(I just had to get the above picture before church this morning.  Our third girl is allergic to latex, and thankfully, most Nikes are free of natural rubber latex.  So she gets to wear her Nikes with her fancy Easter dress.  I wish I could wear my Nikes with my fancy dresses and look just as cute!!)

Happy Three Kings' Day!!

Three Kings' Day is one of those holidays brought into our family from my Puerto Rican background, celebrating the wise men's arrival to visit baby Jesus (yes, we know they were wise men, not kings, and that nobody knows how many there were, but it's still called Three Kings' Day.  We also don't know when they arrived to visit Jesus.  And if you ask any Puerto Rican, they'll even tell you what their names supposedly were, as well as what they looked like.  Not exactly scriptural, I know.).

 On the evening of January 5th, we take the kids outside to gather up grass into bowls or shoeboxes.  We also fill a bowl with water.  The grass and water are put under the tree for the wise men's camels.  They "arrive" during the night, the camels eat the grass and drink the water (aka mama and daddy throwing the grass and water out into the yard), and in return, the wise men thank the kids by leaving gifts.

This year was a little messed up for us.  I normally have my tree up until January 6, but we had already taken ours down to make room for the baby swing.  The kids' small trees were still in their rooms, so we brought one of those out to the living room Thursday night.  Also, we didn't yet have any gifts for the kids.  Whoops!  Being on bed rest has thrown a huge wrench into...well...everything!  Life in general!

Nothing like saving things to the last minute and improvising!  Anyway, I ended up throwing fruit snacks and Starburst candies under the tree.  Our kids very rarely get candy, so this was a special treat.  They were so excited, and it was a success!

I hope you all had a wonderful Three Kings' Day, too!!

Amazed by Life #4

It never ceases to amaze me how you can waste spend hours of your time finding burnt out lights on a pre-lighted tree, just to have a whole section go out the following day.

It never ceases to amaze me how much fun kids (and daddies) can have decorating gingerbread.

It never ceases to amaze me how the very sight of Christmas lights makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside (as long as they're all lit).

It never ceases to amaze me how the God who created the entire universe by speaking it into existence could love me enough to come to earth as a baby and later give His life for me.

Merry Christmas, and God bless you!!!

Festive Hair Clips

I love the holidays, and I love holiday bling.  No, I'm not talking ugly Christmas sweaters, but I have a Christmas bracelet and a silver Christmas tree necklace.

Last year, I made my girls matching Christmas headbands.  

They still wear those, but this year I wanted to do clips.  I was going to do mistletoe ones at first.  Then my friend Brooke came over, and we decided to do holly, instead.  To make it even more fun, we did it in different colors and used single-prong clips so we could clip them onto thin, satin-covered headbands.

We started by cutting out the leaves and berries out of felt.  I don't know if we're super-silly, super-picky, or super-untalented, but it took us forever to get exactly the shape we were wanting for the leaves.  We then stitched a couple of stitches down the center of each leaf.  We sewed the leaves together, then glued on the berries and a cluster of seed beads.  For the headbands, we had thin, satin-covered ones from Wal-Mart.  We took a short piece of 3/8"grosgrain ribbon and hot-glued it around the headband to make a tight loop to clip the clips to.

I made the traditional green-and-red, a classy black-and-white, and a fun pink-and-brown.  I love how they came out!!  My girls love them, too!

No Poinsettias for Me!

I've always liked poinsettias.  Something about the vibrant red and green just put that holiday feel in the air.  Poinsettias have never liked me, however.  I don't have the time to put in the effort to give it the darkness it needs every day to stay in bloom.  And for some reason, I can't seem to keep them from losing all of their petals.  And their leaves.  So I start with a gorgeous flower and end up with a stem.  Not exactly sure what I'm doing wrong.

But, all of that doesn't matter any more.  Many of you may know that my Little Love #5 is severely allergic to latex.  Severely, as in she goes into anaphylaxis if she's in the same room as a balloon.  Those poinsettias that are doomed when in my care?  They're in the same family as the rubber tree.  That white, sticky, sap stuff you see when you accidentally break a stem?  That's latex.

Many people who are airborne allergic to latex are airborne allergic to poinsettias.  I'm not sure if LL#5 is or not.  I haven't gotten her close enough to one to find out.  It makes this time of year tricky.  Poinsettias are common Christmas decorations.  They're sold in the stores, on the counters in doctors' offices, in people's homes, in churches, nearly everywhere you go.  Our family members refrain from having poinsettias in their houses for my daughter's sake.  Our church changed their many-decade tradition of poinsettias and now use a different flower to decorate with.  Fake poinsettias are also a good option.

It's amazing how life can change when there are life-threatening allergies involved.  Things that once were attractions, now repel.  But that's ok.  I'd just kill them anyway.  =)

More sickness, contractions, etc.

This has been a rough week.  We were all excited to go to my parents' for Thanksgiving, when my two oldest ended up sick.  It seems like somebody has been sick most of the month this month.  That's one of the things about having a lot of little kids--higher chances of getting exposed, higher chances of someone getting sick, and it takes forever if it goes through everybody in the family.

Praise God, I haven't gotten sick so far.  The sitting and snuggling sick kids has actually not been too bad of a thing, as it makes me sit and relax.  I've been contracting a lot, and I'd really like to carry this baby to term (my last two were preemies).

So, we made the most of Thanksgiving here at home.  We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, my hubby grilled steaks for everybody, and he ran to a Redbox to rent Cars 2.

I hope everybody's Thanksgiving was wonderful!

'Tis the Season

We LOVE holidays!!  I've always been a big fan, and I have drug my hubby into the craze with me.  So our kids really had no chance.  =)

We're not the crazy-gaudy-light-up-your-whole-house-and-fill-your-yard-with-music-blaring-and-driving-your-neighbors-crazy type (no offense to those who are), but we do decorate the inside of our house, and we have fun doing it.  Today we got out our tree.  It's a pre-lighted one, so I'm still swapping out burnt bulbs, but it's up and plugged in.  We'll hang the ornaments tomorrow.

But I think my kids' favorites are the little trees in their bedrooms.

We bought the little trees last year, for like $8 each.  The girls picked pink decorations on a white tree, the boys wanted a silver tree with blue decor.  The girls wanted balls and a star topper, the boys wanted a garland and a snowflake on top.  The kids actually ask to go to bed early, so that they can lay in their beds and quietly talk for a little while with their trees plugged in!  I should keep these out year-round!!  =)

What are your kids' favorite decorations for Christmas?

Holiday Decor

I have a mirror with hooks hanging in my entryway, for guests to hang coats and jackets.  I've always had these hearts hanging from the hooks, saying "Bless our Home."  They're cute, but they're just not my style. I'm not big on hearts, country decor, or decorating in blue.  But they were given to me and I had nothing else to put there, so they've been hanging there for a long time.

I went to Michael's the other day, and brought these along.  My original intentions were to paint over them.  That would take care of the color issue, but doesn't change the fact that they're still hearts.  Then I saw a pack of 4 wood pumpkin cut-outs for $0.97!!

Today I sat down and started painting.  If you don't look too long or too closely, I think they turned out pretty cute!  

I then hot glued some twine to the backs and hung them on the hooks.  Cute, huh?  I'm debating whether I want to buy another pack just to have a fifth pumpkin on the middle hook.  Hmmmm....what do you think?

They also had other shapes!  I went ahead and picked up these for after Halloween.

With the Christmas ones, I think I'll let the kids paint them.  They'll have so much fun, and I'll have an excuse for the imperfect paint jobs.  =)  I love holiday decorating!!!