Christmas Stockings

It's a funny thing to do a blog post on, but I love our family's Christmas stockings. They are each special in their own way. They are not your average run of the mill store bought stockings, ours are all hand knit, with love by family. Neal's stocking was made by his great grandmother on his mother's side and mine and the kids' were all made by my grandmother, Sophie.

The story of how the stockings came to be.....

Neal and I have had our stockings for as long as we can remember. When I was pregnant with Sophie in 2006, I knew that I did not want her to have a store bought stocking, but rather the made-with-love kind her Daddy and I had. At the time my grandmother was feverishly knitting baby blankets for the 3 babies that were about to enter our family (myself and my two cousins were each welcoming little ones that year!) so I thought why not ask if she could whip up a stocking too?! Much to my disappointment my grandmother no longer had the pattern for the stocking that she made for all her children, her children's spouses, and her grandchildren. She did, however tell me that she still had my grandfather's stocking up in the attic that she could simply stitch Sophie's name on. I was overjoyed not only to have a knit stocking for my new baby girl, but what made it all the more special was that it was my grandfather's who passed away when I was just 2 years old.

When Jonah came along in 2009 I knew I was going to need another stocking to keep the tradition going. Knowing that my grandmother could no longer knit one due to the lack of a pattern, my mom offered up her stocking to her new grandson. My mom lovingly stitched Jonah's name onto her stocking making it his.

Fast forward 2 years almost to the day and sweet Maisie Dorothea enters our family. We most certainly could not have mismatched stockings at this point, so my mother already had a plan in place, my father's stocking would become Maisie's.

So while the children's stockings were not made specifically for them, the theme of how they acquired them remains the same........love.

Cedar Lake Tree Farm 2011

It is our family tradition that every year we head out to good ole' Iron Station, NC to Cedar Lake Tree Farm to pick out our freshly cut tree. My parents and I have been going to this tree farm since we moved to NC, and then once Neal and I married we continued to do the same. It is a family run farm that is truly an awesome experience. Cedar Lake has cows, bulls, turkeys, chickens, donkeys, Santa Claus, and of course Christmas trees. Outside of all the livestock fun probably the most alluring thing is a gigantic mountain of hay bales for the kids to climb all over and perform death defying jumps from...you know the kind that give the on looking mommies a death defying heart attack!

What trip to get a Christmas tree is complete without candy canes? After eating 2 & dropping 1 he proceeded to tell me how "kicky" (sticky) he was!

His "cheese" face.

She Is Five

Last week my first little girl celebrated her 5th birthday. Wow, I have a 5 year old, wow I have 3 kids, but that is a whole other blog post! Anyhow, since things have been a little, well, busy around here we decided to keep both of the kid's birthdays low key and celebrate with just us. We started the day off for her with the infamous huge balloon and presents of course. It was a pretty low key day, she went on a nature hike with her Daddy where she climbed over fallen trees, jumped off logs, swung from vines and in general had an all out fabulous time. Neal said they probably walked for over a mile in the woods at the end of our cul-de-sac and she was sad they had to come home. She took along her camera so she could snap some photos of all the nature she saw and Daddy even entrusted her with his camera which she actually got some really good shots with. She is definitely following in Daddy's footsteps there with her love for photography. All her birthday dreams came true when after lunch we revealed to her the Silvermist (one of the fairy's from Tinkerbell) cake that she had been talking about for days. All in all even though there was no huge party this year with all her friends, we did our best to make her feel special and make the day all about her. We will make up for it next year when we will certainly have our work cut out for us when we celebrate 3 birthdays all within 3 weeks......stay tuned for that one!











Painting her toes the day before her birthday, a gift from Gigi and Papa Slimick, she was so proud of herself that she painted her toes all on her own.

Leaves and Dry Ice

The kids enjoyed a beautiful afternoon outside playing in the leaves, even Maisie got to outside for a little bit, the weather was that nice.






My Aunt, Uncle, and Grandmother sent us a very, very nice care package of assorted Omaha Steak products to help keep us nourished while we adjust to our new life. In the cooler along with the meats was a very large chunk of dry ice, which we proceeded to have LOADS of fun with in the kitchen sink! The kids got a huge kick out of the smoke that the ice produced. Sophie was a little hesitant at first but eventually came around to the idea that the smoke was not going to hurt her. Based on the pictures I am not sure who had more fun, Neal or the kids???

Bath Time & Pumpkins

Thoroughly enjoying bath time.

Jonah got to paint his pumpkin and the Baby's pumpkin while Sophie and Daddy carved her pumpkin and one of the bigger ones.

Seeing as I seem to always be pregnant around Halloween time (although this time I didn't think I would make it this close to Halloween) we started when I was pregnant with Sophie painting my belly to look like a pumpkin, and we did it with Jonah which you can see HERE.

Jonah made the nose, Sophie did the mouth and the mustache, on top of the nose!

Jonah was clearly VERY upset that we were all done painting my belly.