Tis' The Season

Well hello friends!! Long time no talk.... but I've been sort of busy... between toddler, hubby, school, papers, visiting family.... oh yeah.. and getting ready for the most wonderful time of the year....

So if you know me well you know that I am 110% obsessed with Christmas time. I'm like a little bitty kid starting at the end of November until January 1st. It's honestly probably a little sad. I love absolutely everything about the season.... cold weather, Christmas smells, Christmas lights, trees, ornaments, the colors, giving, snow, music, the idea of Santa, and even the craziness of shopping during this time of year.... literally, I love everything.

Here at our house we are almost done decorating... the only thing we have left are our outside lights. Here's a peek inside our house :)

 This is Dax's ornament this year. Since he doesn't watch TV or anything it was sort of tricky to come up with an idea for ornaments because we wanted it to be something that reflected upon his interest and likes. His first word other than momma or dada was "bird" and he still to this day loves to watch birds, so we thought it was fitting :)

 

I think my favorite ornament on our tree.... I'm sort of obsessed with Santa... and this little guy is just presh.

  

This was one of Dax's ornaments from last year. :)

 I ordered this one from pottery barn last year and money went to an organization out of Africa. I love this one and think it's a good representation of what the holiday season should be about.

So we had this perfect wreath for our front door but could not figure out a way to hang it for the life of us. The seal on the door was too tight for a wreath holder, and command hooks on the outside just fell off when the door got cold. So while spending way too much time on pinterest, I came across this idea.

As you can tell it worked beautifully!  Upside down command hook on the inside, with ribbon tied around the wreath, over the top of the door, and hooked to the hook. We've had it up for a week now and haven't had a single issue.... I'm telling you... pinterest is a lifesaver!

I'm not a fan of very many Christmas potpourri scents so I opted for ornaments in my vase instead.... LOVE it!

Did the same sort of idea with my candle holders I have out. During the year I usually have small rocks in them that complement the living room great.... so for Christmas I put tiny ornaments in one, red & white pebbles in another, and some Christmas greenery in the other. 

 I adore these stockings! I ordered them last year online and have been 110% satisfied with them. We plan on having these for quite some time and even ordered and extra blank one for a future kid on down the line.

Have I mentioned I love Santa's??  Because I do.... especially this one. So does Dax :)

 And the grand finale..... our tree!!  (and dog stockings hanging next to it)

 I love it and it's absolutely perfect to me.

And this is Dax's tree! So before we put up our tree I started planning on how to handle 1 year old curious fingers with the decorations. For Halloween he had his own decoration area that he could take down and play with as much as possible. He never once touched any other decoration we had out. So for Christmas I decided it would be a good idea to have his own little tree out with toddler safe ornaments on it so he could explore it on his own and hopefully leave the big tree alone. We've had them up for a week and it has worked just as I hoped it would! After a couple times of redirecting him from our tree to his, he now only touches the ornaments on his tree. Exactly what I wanted to happen! I highly recommend this to other with curious toddlers!

14 Months

Well our little man was turned 14 months on the 30th! Each month I get blown away at how fast the time is going.... and I'm not a fan of that.   Here's a few little updates on what our 14 month old is up to these days...
* Talk, talk, talk. This boy is quite the talker... at least around us. I think he is going to have my personality in that I'm more of a listener in situations where I'm not completely 100% comfortable. It takes me awhile to come out of my comfort zone, and even then I'm still not that big of a talker. But at home with me and daddy he talks our ears off. A few of his words he loves right now are outside, golf cart, bye bye, more, all done, bird, puppy, cracker, shoes, hello, hi, ball, book. And he makes the sounds of cars, elephants, monkeys, lions, and puppies.
* He has officially given his binky a name. It is now his "nah nah".  Where in the world this came from I have no idea! We have always called it his binky but for some reason he has named it his nah nah.
* He is still our little Linus. He loves his blankies!  In fact when we got home today I looked in the back seat and he was holding his blankie up by his head and leaning his head over on it. It's pretty adorable if I do say so myself.
* He's not only walking... he runs. Precious.
* He loves to sit on things. Like child size chairs or steps. Just anything his size that he can get on and off by himself is a hit with him.
* Still loves to read.... especially animal books and his night time story
* He would live outside if we let him. We spend time outside every evening. He loves finding sticks, leaves, rocks, and listening for the birds. I don't know what we're going to do this winter.
* Sleeping in his big boy bed is still fabulous! And he now quickly falls asleep after our bedtime routine each night. He's still going about 12 hours at night as well.
* His eating is getting much better again. We have finally up'd his menu from veggie corn dog nuggets, peas, and bread items to include ham, cheese, carrots, spaghetti, sweet potato fries, pineapple, oranges, and grapes. We're almost back to where we use to be! YAY!!
* Favorite toys at the moment:  Ring stacker, balls, his big yellow dump truck, play phone, his push popper lawn mower, and any sort of up or tube (i.e. toilet paper rolls) that he can put up to his mouth and talk into.
* He has become super lovable. He's always been a kisser, but lately he's become a snuggler too which I'm a huge fan of! He will lay his head on my shoulder or chest and pat my back. Sweetest.Thing.Ever.
* He's really funny... at least to us. He has figured out that he can do certain things to get us to laugh and he'll randomly look straight at us and do it. He occasionally throws it out at random ladies in Target too....
* He knows that when the dogs bark at the garage door daddy is home. He runs to the door and starts saying Dada over and over.


We had some major activities going on Sunday in the Freno house.... here's what they consisted of...

I guess daddy got inspired by all of momma's Reggio and Montessori talk and built this fort for Dax in the backyard out of sticks and string. I was actually totally impressed and Dax really likes it. He thinks it's pretty funny to go into. :)

Someone found his way into the dog house... and while he was in there found this patch of sunlight shining through. He was very intrigued by it. This discovery got my teacher heart going like crazzzy. I'll probably try and do some more light activities with him  pretty soon since he was so interested in it.

So Dax is very into trees and leaves and collecting things in the backyard. So Sunday we (as in the entire family) collected some things in our back yard and on a walk around our neighborhood and created these little jewels for his room! Since being outside is one of his favorite things I wanted to bring a little nature into his bedroom. So I used all of the materials we found... even the two sticks, and tied them all together with fishing wire and hung them over his bed. He really likes it.... and so do we :)

We then took all of the left over things we collected and put them in a basket in the living room for him to explore on his own.

I also added this basket to the living room. It's a collection of all the random things Dax has found around the house. He obviously finds them interesting for some reason so I wanted to keep them all together so he has access to them whenever he likes. Some of the things are toilet paper rolls, tiny flashlights, a cell phone case, a pop bottle, the cardboard from around baby food, a door stopper, and an accessory to my blow dryer. Weird stuff... but to Dax they're treasures.

So super long post but a lot has been going on around here lately. Look for another one soon on my conference I attended this last week.... I'm super excited and super inspired.