Vail!

It had been 3 years since we had any skiing in our lives.  It had been too long, especially for Chris.  I actually am not the best skier.  That's an understatement, I am actually the worst skier ever.  For someone who has skied a total of one, two, three, four, FIVE times, I guess I am okay.  I am just a nervous skier.  I prefer a very slight slope with no steepness at all.  Yes, that's me you saw taking an hour to come down a not-so-long run, lol!

Enough about my skiing abilities!  We had a great time visiting Vail!  It is a very cute and quaint little town.  We also had the opportunity to visit Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, and Silverthorne.  It is so beautiful out there!  I think we might even try to make a trip out there one summer too, just to see how everything looks then.  We should probably take up hiking before that though, lol!

I am going to try and break up our trip into multiple posts this week so that this one post doesn't go on for days.  Check out the beautiful scenery below.  I officially love the Rockies!

Mike Mike and Kath who were so sweet to play with Reed while we skied.

Breckenridge

Looks like it goes on forever.

My favorite picture!  Love how blue the sky is!

I made a pillow cover!

Well, I made two to be exact.  Yes, this does indeed deserve its own post.  I sewed my first pillow covers last night.  They are even equipped with their own zipper.  I am super pumped about this fete and can't wait to continue my pillow making and hopefully get our living room in decorated order!

The two pillows on the right of the picture below are the ones that I sewed.  The one on the right was made with the fabric leftover from the dining room chair recovering project and the middle pillow was made from two napkins that I picked up from World Market.  The blue velvet pillow is from Crate and Barrel and I am in love with it!

A Novice Mistake.

I ended up recovering our dining room chairs last week and I can't say that I am excited about my fabric choice.  Underwhelmed would probably be the right description for how I am feeling.  I will chalk it up to being a novice decorator.  Oh well, it will have to do for now since that fabric wasn't exactly cheap.  It doesn't look bad, it just doesn't pop like i expected it too.  If I do ever redo the chairs, I will probably go with orange or turquoise.  Now, just to add something to the walls and this room will be finito!

Catch Air!

If you haven't been to Catch Air yet with your kiddos, I highly recommend that you go there soon.  I would say that it has to be one of the cleanest and most fun places to take Reed.  He absolutely loves it and I love that I don't feel like he needs a bath immediately after leaving, lol!  They have locations in Cumming, Johns Creek, Marietta, and Suwanee.  Check out the some of the fun Reed had below.  There are tons of other things to do as well at Catch Air, including a massive jungle gym of sorts with a huge slide, ball pit, etc.  Go there now!

Not sure what I would call this thing, but Reed loved rocking on it.

Riding the mini merry go round.  Too cute!

Brick riding the merry go round.

I heart disclaimers.

I use them.  Most moms I know use them.  If you don't know what I am referring to, here are a few examples for you.

"He just woke up from his nap."  

That's the disclaimer for my kid's crazy hair in the afternoon when I refuse to "fix" it before we run errands.  No, he doesn't normally look like this, but I choose to only tackle the routine of getting his hair to lay down once a day.

"My house is disgusting, don't look at it."  

I know you're going to look, but please just ignore it and maybe even forget you saw it after you leave.  Okay, you won't ignore it, but at least you understand that I haven't had the time to do it myself or the sense of mind to text the cleaning lady to come by as soon as possible.

"He didn't nap today."  

Yes, that kid in the corner with horns is mine, but I think this is only because of his I-know-what's-best-for-me toddler mind who refused to take a nap even though he was alone in his room in his crib for nearly two hours.

"The cookies are a little crunchier than I would like."  

Yes, it is true that I may not be the absolute best cookie baker ever.  Sue me.

"Reed woke up a zillion times last night."  

Please don't mind the dark circles under my eyes or my "casual" look or disheveled hair.

So, why do we use disclaimers?  I am sure no matter who they are, be it a friend or a complete stranger in a store, they have probably been there before.  But, I know for myself, it makes me feel a little better.  Even though the cookies may not be as good or Reed's hair may not be as neat, they are good or in place the majority of the time.  I guess it probably even opens up the idea that we aren't perfect.  I know I am certainly not perfect, but the disclaimers work to bridge the gap.  I mean, who could manage to do everything right all the time or even have the time to make sure everything is in order?  I'd like to see a person who could, I would be happy to know the secret.  Until then, I'll continue to use disclaimers.

Do you have any favorite disclaimers?  I would love to hear about them!

And because it's pretty hard to write a post without a picture of my adorable toddler, I thought you might enjoy this pic!

This is one bad hair day!  I probably would have combed that a bit before heading out the door!

Merry Christmas!

Santa came by our house a few weeks ago and dropped off some gifts for Reed.  He, unfortunately, could have cared less.  After he woke up on Christmas morning, we told him "Santa came and brought you some gifts.  Want to go see what he brought you?"  He replied simply, "no".  So, we forced him downstairs and he was none too excited about anything.  He did, however, go straight for his new book The Little Engine that Could and said "let's read this".  At least he loved his books!

Reed's loot from Santa!

"Let's read this!"

The books were probably the biggest hit!

After we put together his new book, he said "that's awesome, Mommy".

Trying out his new table and chairs.

Santa was so very thoughtful and brought Reed a pack of M&Ms, his favorite!  So he had to have a few before breakfast.

Our little family of three on Christmas morning!

And later in the day, a little bit better dressed, plus our newest family member, Woody!

An almost complete dining room!!

Remember this room?  Our dining room pretty much sat like this the entire time we were in London, well, minus the chairs because they got returned.  And before the table was purchase last January, this room sat empty.  I guess you could say this was our main decorating focus when we returned because it has seen the most changes.  We certainly have more rooms that need our attention, but one room at a time is all that I can seem to manage.

The first change we made to the room was changing the color of the walls to Benjamin Moore's Anew Gray. We also had most of the downstairs painted as well as the upstairs hallway.  You can see in the picture below the gray of the walls.  I wanted to include this picture to also refresh your memory about the before of the chairs.  

These chairs were really a pain to paint.  If I had to do it over, I would probably have spent the money to rent a sprayer.  Next time, next time.  Several chairs got painted as planned but there were a few where the primer had dripped and refused to sand away.  Any sanding that I did immediately went down to the wood again.  Uh oh!  So, on a few that weren't so bad, I peeled the drips and just "managed" (read paint, paint and repaint until the new paint is even with the old paint) the issues.  On a few others I decided that I would just start over.  Meaning I would use a paint stripper, strip the paint, sand them down and then re-paint.  Well, apparently, the particular primer that we used it meant to stay on the chair, FOR-EVER!  I ended up having to "manage" the much larger issues that I had created with the sander.  Not fun at all.  Without even going into further detail, it is obvious that these chairs aren't perfect and will probably one day need to be repainted but they will do for now.

And here is our almost completed dining room!  I think it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Ta-da!

A better look at the curtains I snagged from Anthropologie on a deep discount.  Woohoo!

A better look at the rug from West Elm.

We got this piece at a local antique store.  It was exactly what I was looking for and I was super excited when I spotted it!

A view over the table to the buffet.  Not great lighting but I wanted you all to see it.

One of the walls that needs some work.  I am thinking about doing something similar to what we did in the guest bedroom, cutting some artwork out of books to frame.  

And another empty wall.

So we still need to put a few things up on the walls and recover the seats for the chairs.  I am having a hard time deciding on the color, so please let me know if you have any thoughts.  They will either be yellow, orange or turquoise.  Below is a closeup pic of the curtains just so you can see the colors that we are contemplating.

Just the three of us for Christmas Eve.

This was totally unusual for us.  We, unfortunately, had a sick little boy on our hands and I wasn't feeling too hot myself, so we opted to stay home on Christmas Eve.  That meant missing lunch with Chris's family and dinner with my family.  Bummer.  It did, however, give us the opportunity to have Christmas with our little family of three.  We had a great time hanging out in our pj's most of the day, aside from the sickness, and opening gifts with our little man.  I did request that we go home on Christmas day even if we weren't feeling well though, because it just didn't feel right not spending time with our families.  Thankfully, we were all feeling better and were able to make it home for Christmas day!

What could it be?

Reed in his new boots that he had to put on immediately.

Reed playing with his big truck that had to be removed from the box immediately,  which was pretty much the request for all the toys he received.

"Let's watch this!"  The animated version of one of our favorite books, The Gruffalo.

Reading No, David.

Lots of fun with family for Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas spent with our families!  We are so very lucky to be surrounded by people who love us so much!  It was a wonderful Christmas!  It's my favorite time of year, for sure, and I am looking forward to next Christmas already.

Reed with Marin and Kallan!

Marin doing a little posing in the midst of all the pictures.

"Take a picture of Thomas mommy."

All the kiddos at Mike Mike and Kath's.

Love this one!

This is a good pic!  No telling what's being discussed!

Gavin was super-pumped about his new bike!

Jo opening her gifts!

PawPaw was excited about his golf cart cover, so he can ride around in the winter without getting too cold.

Reed opening his favorite Christmas gift from Uncle Marc, a Woody doll.

He might have been a little excited about his new golf clubs from Nana and Granddaddy.

Reed with Nana and Granddaddy