They Wished Us a Merry Christmas!

The best thing about our house is that Donny and Jessica are only three doors away. They had us over for an early Christmas dinner Saturday night and it was amazing!

And they showered us with really thoughtful gifts too! We have spent many an evening playing Racko with them and now we have our own copy!Even Dudley got into the holiday spirit.

Meet the Professor

Creed looked a like a mini professor today in his corduroy blazer and bow tie. My dad would be proud.

There's a Thief Among Us

Creed doesn't realize that there's anything under wrapping papers so he hasn't opened any gifts, but the bows keep mysteriously disappearing.

And the Stockings Were Hung By The Chimney With Care

Let's be honest, if you stop by my house right now, with all the creative chaos going on, you would see that most of my house looks just like my kitchen table. YIKES! And I can't even show you any of my cute projects yet because it would spoil some surprises. But I can show you something else that I'm excited about, these stockings!

My first Christmas married, my mom asked me what kinds of Christmas decorations I was going to start collection; did I have a favorite theme or color (all snowflakes or stars, etc.). I told her that I really wanted to stick with red and silver, and not just any red, a deep, true red not orangy or pinkish, like the raw silk she used to my skirts for my bridesmaids. She happened to have extra silk left over and she made stockings for Larry and me and mailed them to us along with the extra fabric. I LOVE these stockings so much. I was supposed to use the extra fabric to make a tree skirt, but it's too precious so I've been hoarding it. This year I mailed it to my mom and she made one for Creed. She just mailed it to me and I love seeing all three stockings lined up along my mantle. Thank you mom!!!!!! The pictures don't really do them justice because I had bad light, but I was too lazy to fix the color in Photoshop.

And oddly, she made three more and included them along with the pattern. Hmmmmmm . . . what could she be trying to tell me?

What's in the bag?

Larry works really hard so it was so fun to see him so excited about this gift from a patient. All the Internal Medicine residents are required to spend time working in the clinic, which can be pretty rough. Most of the patients do not follow their doctor's instructions, they often don't show up to appointments, and many of them are clearly drug-seeking. That said, Larry has met some really great patients there that have just fallen on hard times.

This week one of Larry's patients presented him with this gift bag holding five pounds of chocolates. He said that every year, he and his wife save up their money and choose one person to give a present to. They discussed who made the biggest difference in their life this year and they both agreed it was Larry. Larry was totally touched. He told them that he was going to bring it home to show his wife why it was worth it to work late some days.

Baby Update

Creed's growing up so quickly, and I just wanted to report a few of the things he's been up to lately. This is the site I see at least 75 times a day. He crawls over to me and tugs on my pant-leg when he wants me to pick him up. He's usually standing, but for safety I made him kneel down while I took this picture.At my baby shower, my friend told me to make sure to have two of whatever stuffed animal or blanket he gets attached to. Too bad I didn't follow that advice, and he's chosen a favorite friend on his own. It's a stuffed duck named Wadsworth that Jessica knitted for Creed, and while it couldn't be cuter, it's already taken quite a beating. Creed is always dragging Wadsworth around with him while he cruises around the house. Looking back, Wadsworth is present in several of our pictures from the last few weeks.

The other day I didn't realize that Wadsworth was up out of Creed's reach, peaking over the arm of the couch, and Creed climbed up a boxed Santa suit that we had leaning against the couch to get to it. Who knew he could even do that? I was spotting him and he actually climbed up until he was leaning over the arm of the couch, not holding on because he was playing with Wadsworth. Scary!

I looked at the entertainment center, and what did I see?

Look closer

closer . . .

A Brazil nut!

Ok, only my family will think that's hilarious.

You see, we have a slightly embarrassing family tradition involving Brazil nuts (come to think of it, it should be REALLY embarrassing)

When I was little, every Christmas among other stocking stuffers, Santa always left us a few handfuls of mixed nuts, still in their shells, which we did not enjoy and really only used to throw at each other. If any of us was interested enough to even try to crack open the nuts, we never could get the rock hard brazil nuts to open so they were always left sitting around. And we thought they looked a little like . . . well . . . ummmm . . . ok, they look like poop. And since we didn't know what they were called, we called them poop nuts. We used to throw them in each other's beds or onto chairs when anyone stood up and we would exclaim things like, "Oh, gross! Look what so & so just did!" Hilarious stuff when you're eight-years-old.

Anway, this went on for years, and when Candice was the first to get married she was mortified during Mark's first Christmas with the family when he stood up and the poop nut appeared and Eli said, "Mark, that's sick!" That same Christmas Mark created a family board game that the Borups play every year on Christmas Eve. It has all sorts of spaces that remind us of memorable family events or quotes, and in the middle of the board was the poop nut space. If you land on that space, you cannot continue in the game until you do a skit with a poop nut. That first year my mom landed on that space and refused to encourage our behavior or embarrass herself so she would not do a skit with the poop nut and she stayed on that space for the rest of the game, and it was a really long game. In the years since, as everyone else has conformed, I'm pleased to report that she has come around.

So when I looked up at the entertainment center the other morning and saw this, I couldn't help but laugh. Larry actually went to the grocery store and picked one Brazil nut out of the mixed nuts and purchased it for five cents and left it to surprise me. Now we have our own family poop nut. Great . . .

Do you think that I'm wearing Larry out?

Notice the lovely drool trickling down his hand.

And here's how he put on his hoodie the other day
He didn't even notice that it was upside down until I said something.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

Well, snow will be here tomorrow, but we made some snowflakes Wednesday night. I was glad that I had something to look forward to after dropping Marissa and Logan off at the airport. My friend Reba is moving away next week and she requested a snowflake cutting party for her going away party. She's the guest of honor at the head of the table. I reviewed how to make a six-point snowflake with everyone and then Amy taught how to make eight-point snowflakes. We also got to try out making 3-D snowflakes and they turned out so pretty. You can find a tutorial here. Of course the best party of the evening was just visiting with friends. The party was bitter-sweet because I'm not ready for Reba to move on.

We Need a Little Christmas, Right This Very Minute!

Even though Creed's not old enough to really get Christmas, we're excited to share Christmas traditions with him. First, we ordered a Little People Nativity set so that we had one in the house that he could play with.

There are a lot of nativity set for kids out there, but we liked this one because not only is it cute, but there are no small parts that Creed can fit all the way in his mouth. He loves this set because when you push on the angel, the star lights up and plays a song. If you're interested in getting one, they are not sold in stores. You have to buy them online and the best price is straight from the Fisher Price site. We also bought a mini set with shepherds to go along with this one. And did you know that Fisher Price sells other special holiday sets like the Mayflower along with a Thanksgiving Feast? I think that this nativity set would be a great gift for any family with a new baby. And speaking of great family Christmas gift ideas, Gabrielle at DesignMom just received a whole set of costumes for their family nativity pageant. Brilliant! Check it out here.


We also had to take advantage of Logan being in town to get a picture of the boys meeting Santa for the first time.

If you're in central Ohio and want to visit with Santa, note that Tuttle Mall "strongly prefers" that if you visit with Santa, you buy one of their photo packages that starts at $16.00, while Easton only charges $5.00 for a photo and "welcomes" you to take a picture with your own Camera. Unfortunately, we were already at Tuttle and The Santa was so cute and Creed was actually in a good mood so we went ahead while we were there. But isn't this face priceless?
We took our friend Jason's advice to get a good picture with Santa. Creed has a little stranger anxiety so we didn't let him see Santa and backed Creed onto his lap and took the photo right away. It worked pretty well for us.

And if you're looking for a tradition to help your kids focus on giving instead of receiving, my friend Anna had a great idea. This year, each year her family is giving service to someone else everyday. They do little things like scrape their neighbor's windshield. She says that her son Spencer has started asking her every morning, "What are we going to give today, Mom?" Wouldn't you love to hear that?