The Holidays... better late than never...

Well, it goes without saying that I am behind... very behind as a matter of fact.

The holidays have come and gone, followed by many other events, and I am just now posting them.  Oh, well.  The most important thing about the holidays is that we made each and every one of the following memories PLUS many more... it was the best holiday season ever.  Seriously.

The first week of December, Columbia received 4 inches of snow one Saturday night/Sunday morning.  It was a beautiful morning with what we called "lots" of snow... ha!... little did we know... 

This is our new house with a blanket of snow

In addition to the lovely snow falling upon our door step, another special delivery was left at the front door.  Santa left a package for Lawson and Emmitt.

An Elf on the Shelf!  We have a new Christmas visitor and he is now a part of our Christmas tradition! His name, chosen by Lawson, is Free... yes, Free! :)  You see, Santa sent Free to our house to watch Lawson and Emmitt throughout the day.  When they go to bed he flies to the North Pole where he reports the Bragg boys' behavior for the day.  He then returns before they awake each morning, and lands in a different place each day... he's pretty sneaky.  And you can't touch him or he will lose his magic.

Dad is reading the story that Santa wrote about his little elf.

And introducing Free!

So exciting!

To learn more about this exciting Christmas tradition, click here.

--------

Onto the Christmas cookies... friends Carla and Courtney posted these adorable reindeer cookies on their blog, helping me tremendously, as I was trying to decide what treat we were going to take to school to share with friends.

They were super easy and super cute, and Lawson absolutely loved helping me make them.

--------

Waiting for something as exciting as Christmas is so hard!  The day after Thanksgiving I found this little gingerbread house to help with the countdown to Christmas.  It was really cute and Lawson loved his "little house".  He loved it so much that we had to place it on top of the refrigerator because he was sneaky and would move a chair in the kitchen to the counter where he would sneak surprises... I'm telling ya... Lawson was not sold on Free! Ha!  Anyway, it was very exciting to begin this tradition with him.  Each day he would receive a little surprise and no matter how small, there is something about opening a little door and finding a surprise.

This was December 1.  Russ is explaining the house and its purpose to him.

In the first door was a little slip of green paper with the word BIBLE written on it.  His first gift of the season was a children's Bible.  He loves it; it was the absolute perfect gift.

--------

On to the Christmas trees...  Each year we put our Christmas tree up and deck our halls the weekend following Thanksgiving and it is always so much fun to me.  Having shopped the day after Thanksgiving, I am always eager to decorate and fill the house with Christmas spirit.  That didn't happen this year due to the "moving mess", (we'd only been in our house 10 days on Thanksgiving, mind you...) but thanks to my sweet, sweet husband our tree was finally brought up from the basement, along with a few other decorations, and we whipped this house right up into the Christmas holiday spirit!  It suddenly felt like home and actually looked really nice given the circumstances...  All seemed to be right with the world.

Here is the tree in the living room.  And yes, we do have a new T.V.  Our practicality was challenged with this purchase, but we are enjoying it very much, and to be honest, it was the only place for a T.V. in this new living room.  If you notice the mantle, it has a little mess with the cords and such.  The cable box had not yet been mounted behind the T.V. therefore it had been sitting on the mantle with a mess of cords causing me to initially not plan on decorating the mantle.  I then decided it could only help the appearance and I am happy that I did. 

We also have new living room furniture.  Our other furniture is in the living room in the basement.

I do love our tree, I must admit.  It tells a story as it's sprinkled with special ornaments that we've collected over the years.  Each year Russ and I always reminisce on the past as I decorate the tree, and it is so much fun.  We are thankful for each and every memory associated with our ornaments.

The boys also had trees in their rooms.  Emmitt could've cared less, but Lawson was so proud of his.  We picked up a few more ornaments this year, and he was able to help with that which was exciting!

They are nothing fancy, just sweet little Christmas trees. 

Lawson's is dressed in popcorn garland which was passed down from Russ' childhood.

And Emmitt's is dressed in wooden cranberries also from Russ' childhood.

(Sorry for the lighting... I'm not sure what happened to the flash.)

I struggled with adding some "substance" to these sweet little flimsy Christmas trees, but liked what I finally came up with.  I added some grosgrain ribbon to these peppermint pics, giving it a little bit of a masculine look with the brown gingham, and I was pleased with how it turned out.

--------

On December 22 Lawson received a special letter in the mail... a letter from SANTA! 

(you can click on the pic to see it larger in case you don't believe it!!)

I ordered this from a friend of ours who just began this business this past Christmas.  She and her husband did a great job.  I filled out an application giving specific answers to their questions pertaining to Lawson, paid a small fee, and it arrived the next week.

It was mailed from North Pole, Alaska... it mentioned his baby brother, Emmitt... his new school and friends... his elf, Free... using the big boy potty... and acknowledged that he had asked for the "gun", and a work bench... it was really cool!!!

And that concludes the events leading up to our Christmas celebrations.  We enjoyed our first Christmas here in Columbia, and we were so excited to be going to Martin to be with family.

I'm not sure about you, but Russ and I have eaten many words since having children.  We've done things we said we'd never do, and we haven't done things that we just knew we were going to do... I am pretty sure it just goes with the territory of parenting.

With that said, we always said we would celebrate Christmas as a family at home on Christmas morning, enjoying the gifts left by Santa Claus, before traveling to Tennessee.  The past two years we have done just that.  We stayed in Evansville on Christmas Eve, woke up and had Santa, and then wearily drove to Martin to begin the exhausting holiday marathon. 

Now that we live 5 hours from home verses 3 hours from home, we had a little snack and ate our Christmas words this year.  : )

I AM SO GLAD THAT WE DID!!!

It was such a great Christmas for our family... For our entire family.

We arrived in Martin on December 23rd and our first Christmas gathering wasn't until Christmas Eve night.  It was so nice to be able to relax before hitting the ground running.  Free, our elf, followed us there and so did our countdown gingerbread house... magically. : )

Our first Christmas stop was at my Aunt Bertice's house.  We ate dinner and then opened gifts before hanging around and visiting.  This was Lawson's first Christmas gift to open.  He was so excited!

Doesn't he look ready?!

It was a fire station!  It was soooo sweet... Russ finally got the ribbon off and he tore into it.  When he saw the box he said to Russ, "Dad, I wuv it!  I weally, weally wuv it!"  His sincere excitement brought tears to my eyes.  We will never forget those words.

Here is Aunt Bertice... isn't she lovely?  She is 84 years old.

Julie and Emmitt

(isn't she lovely, too?!) :)

This isn't a very good pic, but I love Emmitt's expression

All of us with Grandmother and Granddaddy

(wish I knew what L and E were looking at)

All of us with Aunt B

It was a fun Christmas Eve!  We went back to Russ' parents where we tucked our boys in and waited for Christmas morning... we were all very excited!

Santa came and we had a great time!  Christmas morning went so beautifully that I continually found myself asking, "why would we want to stay at home with just "us" when we can have Santa with everyone... everyone who loves us and our boys!" 

It was a house-full on Christmas morning and it was so much fun!!!  My parents and Julie Anne came, along with Mama B and Daddy Denton.  I thank Russ' parents for opening their home to my family so that they could be a part of the special morning, and for the yummy breakfast, too!

And Santa did visit our boys...

Here we come down the steps.

We had to wake both boys up, and we did make Lawson wear his pajamas to bed. :)

Our first peek at what Santa left

Gifts for Lawson

Gifts for Emmitt

The GUN!!!

He was so excited and oh, so cute... I believe Russ' face says it all!

That's a pretty serious aim...

To infinity and beyond!

His new tool bench...

His new desk... Santa brought this as a last-minute extra.  He saw this and knew he needed it since he is at home a lot during the day.  I am glad Santa brought this because Lawson L.O.V.E.S. it!!!  He plays with it every single day.  Even more often than most of his "favorite" toys.  If you are looking for an "art station" or for something similar, I would highly suggest this.  Made by Step2.  Great idea, Santa!

Lawson loves to pretend to wait on you and serve you your food and drink.  He wanted a kitchen, but the father of two boys just couldn't bring himself to let that item remain on the wish list, so I saw this and thought it was perfect.  It came with a large selection of healthy McDonald food items, but I honestly don't believe he plays with it like he would a kitchen.  Oh, well.  I keep thinking I might find one dirt-cheap at a yard sale and then we can play with the fattening McDonald's food on the entertaining kitchen... who knows!  Until then we will play McDonald's and let Emmitt chew on all of the rubber food as it feels so good to his tender gums. 

And Mr. Emmitt got a few gifts, too!

As the tradition continues, Emmitt received a shotgun for his first Christmas.  Lawson's first Christmas was pre-blog and I don't have those pics on our new computer or I would share that with you, but Emmitt now has a matching gun to Lawson, both received on their first Christmas.

He got toys that make noises and sing songs... he loves them all!

So does his big brother...

After the enjoyable Christmas morning we headed over to my Grandmother and Granddaddy's for lunch and more gifts.  I got very few pictures while we were there, but here is Lawson with his new laptop which is also a fave.  I can't believe how much he likes it.  He can proudly show you the "L" for Lawson, the "E", the "R", and the "S".

We left Grandmother and Granddaddy's and went directly to my mom's house for Christmas with my parents.  It was a lot of fun!

Emmitt slept the entire time we were there; Christmas morning wore him out!  And I am guessing if we had all had the opportunity for a nap, we would've all been asleep!

Don't worry, Lawson happily opened all of his gifts.

The hi-lite of the time with my parents was Lawson's new Buzz Lightyear car!  My parents gave him this, and he was so excited!!!  He does a pretty good job driving it, too.  We are looking forward to warmer weather so that we can ride it outside as it is currently in the basement.

We finally concluded Christmas day with Russ' family.  We had a delicious Christmas dinner with his family followed with more gifts. 

Here's Lawson with his first gift of the night... JOHN DEERE BOOTS!!!

I think he likes them, don't you?

The next gift was a microphone and amp... he loved it, too!  Only to get home and add this set-up to the drum set my sister gave him... he is set!!!

And get ready - the following pics are microphone and boot pics... and there are quite a few, but I couldn't resist.  Hope you will enjoy them with me!

Pretty cute, aren't they?

And our last Christmas celebration was with the Bell Family.  We met at Aunt Christy and Uncle James Denton's on Sunday after church.  We ate another great meal and enjoyed lots of family time!

Here is Lawson with Maddie Claire, my cousin's little girl.

-My family-

Me, Emmitt, and Maddie... notice my cousin in the background wearing the gray shirt... we are expecting Jenna Kate on Friday!!! 

Another family pic

My dad, Aunt Sarah Beth, Uncle James Denton, Mama B, and Daddy Denton

Mama B and Daddy Denton with their great grandchildren... seven were present, two were in Knoxville, and two are currently on the way... wow!  eleven great grandchildren... It's a house full, I promise.

Front row:  Lawson, Emmitt, baby Jordan, and Maddie

Back row:  McKenzie, Logan, and Lauren

In Knoxville:  Nolan and Sally Ann

On the way:  Jenna Kate this Friday!, and baby boy Bell in April

We did have snow the day after Christmas which was very pretty.  As we left Aunt Christy's I snapped this shot of Lawson and am so thankful I did!  This reminds me of my childhood with the farm in the background... I really like this pic.

Ok Martin friends - if you missed out on visiting with Fred over Christmas, here is your fix!  Fredrick is a high school classmate who will show up at Russ' parents unannounced when we are there.  I think he must have a radar or something letting him know when we are in town.  Lawson has slowly warmed up to his bear hug, and he always has hugs for us, too.  He is very proud of his Chevrolet truck and always shows us his newest accessory, as well as takes a picture of us with him.  I happened to have our camera handy this time and here you go!

This pic is not so great as we were getting ready to head out and had been packing... he just caught us in the nick of time!  How about his Michael Jackson pose (as he called it)?! :)

And lastly, New Year's Day can't go unmentioned.  It was an uneventful day as always, but so enjoyable.  We enjoyed our traditional meal of battered bacon, fried cabbage, black-eyed peas, macaroni-and-cheese, and cornbread... mmm, good!

Emmitt enjoyed a few fruit snack puffs, too!

Whew! I think that gets it! What a holiday season... so much fun and so much love was shared by all.  We are thankful for our family and for the memories we made... we visited, reminisced on past memories, laughed, ate way too much, Russ and I took a date night, and overall we simply enjoyed each other's company.  Our new Christmas tradition is to always share the excitement of Santa with our family! 

Although this posting is late (and lengthy), it was worth my time... better late than never. 

Thanks for reading... more to come as I attempt to get caught up.

The calm before the storm

The flakes have already begun to fall, but the real storm is on its way.  The snow storm, that is.  We never expected to see so much snow in Columbia, Missouri, but Mr. Winter has certainly shared his love.  We have seen lots of snow, esp while living in North Dakota, however we have never seen this much snowfall at one time. 

Two weeks ago we got 9.5 inches... I will post those pics soon.  Today, yes "today"... all in one day... they have predicted 18 inches of snow.  18 inches... you read it right!

I took these pics just before dark last night when all was calm.  I will post more snow pics tomorrow after the storm has passed.  They are ordering all to stay at home as we are under a blizzard warning, with white-out conditions expected.  And besides that - who can travel with 18 inches of snow on the ground?! 

Here is the back deck.  At this time, we had already received sleet and freezing rain.  Everything is covered in ice.

And here is the view from our front door looking out across the front yard.  There is still a lot of snow left from the last storm.

We are prepared... pantry and refrigerator are both overflowing... meds are filled... diapers are in full stock... and a new snow shovel has been purchased.  If we could have found a snow blower, it would have been ours.  Please pray for Russ' back. 

Although we are stuck in the house indefinitely, and it is extremely cold outside, it's kind of exciting as we do love the snow... it's another beautiful reminder of the work of the Lord. :) 

More pics to come...  And by the way... as calm as it was outside last night, I can't say it was that calm inside.  Lawson was diagnosed with the croup yesterday and the cable box in our living room went out last night meaning no T.V.  :(  T.V. is not a big deal to be honest, but 3 days in the house with no T.V. could be bad; I am not sure that I am that creative.  Russ thinks the box from the basement downstairs will work upstairs.  Crossing my fingers.  As to Lawson, he seems to be doing pretty good... that cough is just pitiful!!!!!

Wordless Wednesday

It's official...

The painting has begun!

We are back home in Columbia, and Russ is working on the ceiling in the guest bath.  Bagel is the new ceiling color. 

We met with Claire while in Martin and we have a colorful new path ahead, and much Christmas to put away... a busy night, indeed.

More painting pics to come, and Christmas pics, too!

The MAGIC Tree

This past Saturday night after eating dinner, we took a Christmas light tour of Columbia.

There are many beautiful light displays throughout the city, however this one steals the show!  Last week our friend, Rachele, who went to school at Mizzou here in Columbia posted a link and pictures on her blog recommending us stopping by to see The MAGIC Tree.  I am so thankful that she shared this as it is the most beautiful Christmas display I have ever seen.  We have driven by many times, with Lawson's window down, (we started a habit that has been hard to break while looking at Christmas lights), however we haven't had our camera so we had planned to stop back by to get pictures.

It is truly magical and lovely.  It causes you to smile.  It is fantasy-like and loved by those of all ages; even Emmitt was fascinated by it.  The pictures turned out great!

Just a few tidbits of information about the tree...

- The Magic Tree is created by Mr. Will Treelighter.

- The Magic Tree was once located at his home, however it has been recently moved to The Cherry Hill subdivision/community as the number of visitors became too large for his home to accommodate, which he considered a happy problem.

- This is The Magic Tree's 16th year.

- This year's tree has about 15,000 incandescent mini lights, 15,000 LED lights, 7,500 color changing LED lights in three varieties, (the changing lights make it beautiful and magical in my eyes).  That totals 37,500 lights!

- It took Mr. Treelighter approximately 40 hours to put the lights on the tree.

- This year's Magic Tree has approximately half the lights last year's tree had... yes, 37,500 lights is half of last year's tree... I wish you all could have seen it!

 - You can visit the tree on-line at The Magic Tree.

A few pictures are below... I honestly have few words as the pictures speak for themselves. 

This is the North Pole according to Lawson; I LOVE his imagination!

A family pic plus a little girl. :)  There are people everywhere!

Emmitt didn't have a coat as it is too hard to buckle him in his seat with one on, so I had to bundle him the best I could, and we only stayed a few minutes.  Russ and Lawson played for a few minutes longer once we went to the truck.

Me and the boys

Lawson in the gazebo

 The courtyard/park area of the Cherry Hill community 



It was a magical night with an uplifting feeling that fueled our Christmas spirit!

Thanks for the information, Rachele!

Merry Christmas!

Touchdown!

Emmitt has a new trick...

Ready?

Touchdown, Colts! :)

Mandy taught Lawson to do "Touchdown, Colts!" two years ago, and now Emmitt is catching on.  I suppose he will someday recognize that his arms are supposed to be straight up. :)

He's also gotten really good at waving!

Merry Christmas!

Who needs clothes?

Not the Bragg boys!

You all know how Lawson feels about wearing clothes, or the lack of.  As I was walking through the living room this morning, I noticed that both boys were in their diapers. 

This is the norm for Lawson, which by the way, he no longer wants to sleep in his pajamas, but wants to... "I just sleep on my tummy, I not need my jamas." 

After a night or two with this power struggle we decided that as long as he slept we weren't going to fight it.  Hope we're doing the right thing!?

Anyway, Emmitt had just gotten through enjoying his cereal and apple blueberries which meant he had to come out of his pajamas as they were covered in messy purple splotches.  I was headed to get him some clothes when I caught this little pic of them sitting together.

Lawson is playing with his whistle that he received from his advent calendar, and Emmitt is looking on with amazement. 

What to do?

The best we can, right?

As long as he keeps his clothes on at school and while in public, we will deal with his bare bones here at home.  And as to Emmitt, he will be dressed until he realizes that he can go bare-boned, too. 

Time will tell!

Merry Christmas!

For Mrs. Jane

Back in November, I began following a new blog after seeing it mentioned on two other blogs that I follow.  I was very inspired and impressed by Tatertots and Jello and more so, by Jen's creative spirit.  She definitely possesses a talent within and when her love for that talent collides with her creative mind and spirit, she designs lovely things... lots of different lovely things!

Her creative spirit is as obvious as my lack of creative spirit.  She sees things before designing them where I don't see anything until it is already designed! :)

With that said, she posted a holiday project designed by someone else on her blog, and after seeing it, I decided to give it a try.  I was inspired and excited!

You see, 5 years ago this Christmas, we came home for Christmas and I taught Mrs. Jane, my mother-in-law, to knit.  Knitting was all the buzz in North Dakota and everyone was knitting.  We were teaching girls to knit while at recess, as well as in after-school.  Knitting was contagious.

  Approximately 50% of the ladies I taught with/worked with at Custer Elementary were knit-wits. :)

I loved it and was quite impressed with my ability to do something so crafty... to take a skein of yarn and create a scarf or dish cloth was pretty cool.  It was addicting and I enjoyed it very much.  With no children, lots of travel time when camping, and then time while we were camping, in addition to the 24-hour drives to Tennessee, I got in lots of knitting time.  I specifically remember the trip to Glacier, Montana when I knitted a total of six dish cloths the entire trip. 

Unfortunately, time for knitting no longer exists.  And even if I do have a little bit of time, sitting and knitting is not something that sounds fun to me... I hope the desire will return in the years to come.  On the flip side, Mrs. Jane is still a knit-wit.  She is a member of a prayer group that meets on Wednesday nights at her church and they spend time together knitting prayer shawls for various ones in need.  She has knitted, I dare to say, more than 100+ dishcloths, and possibly as many different types and styles of scarves in the past 5 years, in addition to the prayer shawls and scarves, she has knitted toboggans, multiple lap blankets for Granny, afghans, and other things, I am sure.  She is very talented, and I am happy that she finds joy in knitting.  And I am thankful to Amy Flicek and Nikki Huber for so PATIENTLY teaching me to knit... it is tough to pick up, but is kind of like riding a bicycle in that you can pick it up at any point in time and go right back to it.

Back to the creative project... the project that I discovered on Tatertots and Jello was a holiday yarn ball wreath.  When I saw it, my face lit up with a smile and I was inspired... I was going to make this wreath for Mrs. Jane.  We had spent two weeks with her and Mr. Richard and thought it would be a nice little thank you with a personal flare.  She loved it and it looks really nice hanging in her hallway.  My inspiration came from this posting.  Isn't it lovely?!  I think so.  I decided to give it a go, and I wasn't disappointed.  I did, however, use a different selection of yarn with regard to the colors.  Below you can see my creation unfold.

I started with an 18 inch wire wreath form, purchased at Hobby Lobby.

The yarn balls were made out of smooth-finished styrofoam balls, also purchased at Hobby Lobby, covered in various yarns.  I used 1 inch, 2 inch balls, 2 1/2 inch balls, and 3 inch balls.  I liked the look of the various sizes.  It took many more styrofoam balls than I expected and I believe it is because I incorporated the 1 inch smaller balls, but I really liked those little rascals.

I included yarns that complimented Mrs. Jane's style and "Christmas story" found throughout her house.

I chose a thin silver with a small sparkle, a shiny and flat mix yarn in a muted red, a thin white with a sparkle, a bulkier muted red/pine green mix, and then a bulkier muted pine green with a gold fleck.

They complimented one another very well and I was very pleased with how they all fit together; much better than I expected.  I purchased the yarn at both Hobby Lobby and Joann's.

And then the "sparkle" of the wreath.  I purchased this ornament combo-box of small ornaments at Target, and they were perfect!  I used all of them except for those with a shiny finish as they just didn't match the overall style of the yarn. 

And two other important supplies that I used were hot glue (lots of it) and toothpicks to hold the yarn in the styrofoam ball.

And the fun begins... the night before I started, I sat and yarned approximately 10 balls in all different sizes and colors, completely covering the styrofoam ball.  I held the yarn in place with a toothpick.  The next morning, I got busy.  I immediately realized that pre-yarned balls weren't the key.  I had to yarn them as I needed them, and although it was more time consuming, it was the only way to make it work, and much of the way, it was a guess-and-check process.  All of the yarn balls and ornaments were attached to the wreath form with hot glue.

This picture shows the first ten minutes... at this point, I realized it was time to yarn as I go.  I was feeling good about it at this point, and Russ was quite impressed! :)  I hung it from the pulls on my cabinet doors as it was important to "see" it while adding the balls. (And yes, those are Emmitt's socks covering the pulls so not to scratch them or the cabinet doors; they were the first thing I found when I turned around, and they worked well.)

Half-way done...

An up-close of the combined yarns with a few ornaments...

Almost there... and this was the most difficult piece.  In order to complete it, I had to have just the right size balls and just the right colors... it was a challenge, but I figured it out.

Emmitt got in on the yarning, too! :)

And the final product... here it is hanging on her wall.  She was very excited as was I.  I gained a little piece of confidence.  It certainly doesn't come natural to me, however I learned a lot while enjoying a new adventure.  I suppose I will be looking for another inspiration.  Time will tell.

And here is a picture of it hanging on my front door knob... I decided to post this because I took it at eye-level and it is easier to see without the shadow, although the background isn't so great.

And in closing, I would like to add that Lawson was so excited about this wreath.  He helped me shop at both Joann's and Hobby Lobby, and stayed right with me as I was working.  He was so excited to give it to his "Munnar".  When we arrived for the Thanksgiving holiday and gave it to her, he prefaced it with "surprise!"... he was very excited about it!

Lastly, thank you Mrs. Jane for taking care of us over the two-week time period.  I hope you will enjoy your wreath in the coming years and may knitting continue to bring you enjoyment.  See you at Christmas!

Merry Christmas!