Nutcracker

The boys and I enjoyed our annual tradition of going to the Nutcracker last night. Their school organized a group to attend together. We had a reception beforehand and we had some special friends from the show visit us. The bear and the Nutcracker himself!

photo courtesy of Boston Ballet



Here we are ready to go. I wish you could see my skirt better! It is a great plaid from Hannah Andersson that I picked up at the outlet.
It was a 5:30 show so we didn't get home until almost 9:00PM! Very late for J and C! They were troopers though. John left to go out of town this morning, and the boys and I talked about having a sleep over in my room tonight, we arrived home to this is my bedroom!John had purchased and put up a Christmas tree in our room! He even got all the ornaments for it too. J, C and I will finish decorating it after school today. I am off to go buy some hooks now. How thoughtful was this???? I am really so lucky. He knows just what will make me smile. :)

Christmas Walk Weekend

My very dear friend, W, and her boyfriend came into town for the weekend. And what a fun filled weekend we had! It was our town's annual Christmas Walk. It started Friday evening with the town tree lighting. Can't say I've ever been to a tree lighting where "Sweet Caroline" was sung!
Saturday morning we got up and went down to the town dock to wait for the big man in red to come in on a lobster boat.here are Santa and Mrs. Claus. (The Mrs. looks SO excited!)


Many balloons went up...And the boys enjoyed watching them.
here we are waiting!
We walked around town, did a bit of shopping, had lunch at the Club, went to the Gingerbread House Festival (and got some great ideas for when we decorate houses on Thursday.)
Yesterday we woke up to snow! John took J and C sledding after church (even though there was only about an inch of snow on the ground!

Struggling a bit...

Hello friends,
I am looking for some advice today. I am struggling with my boys. I have been getting attitude from them and they are both being quite fresh. They are truly great boys, but something is definitely off as of late.
I try to keep my blog light and fluffy, but since I get so much inspiration from my fellow bloggers, I thought perhaps some of you may have some words of wisdom for me.
Perhaps it is the excitement of the season...
One of my biggest struggles is our playroom. They play in there a lot and I love that and they enjoy playing independently. They are very imaginative and will construct whole cities using play mobil and legos and whatever else we have around, the problem comes when it is time to clean up!
How do you all handle clean up? Do you do it for your children, have them do it alone or work with them to do it? I try (especially when the room becomes a complete disaster) to help them, but I end up getting extremely frustrated and then get angry. Not really how I want to spend the few hours I have with them each day! (they are in school everyday from 8-3)
Sometimes I feel as though i should just let it go, but I also think it is so important for them to learn good habits. I know in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a great life crisis, but it is really breaking my heart that we are having these struggles.....

C's Sixth Birthday!

My baby, C, turned six on Tuesday! I can't believe he is 6...
He came down for a birthday breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes. Certainly not the normal fare around here! I made this placemat for him from pieces of felt I had and some ribbon. I also sprinkled confetti over everthing (but had cleaned up most of it by photo time!)I also tied a big ribbon around his seat...

I had talked to the boys after a crazy birthday party about maybe having smaller parties and they both fully embraced that idea. (phew!)
All C wanted to do for his big day was go to Build @ Bear with his friend T and go to Uno's for dinner. Done. Easy. stress free. Fabulous birthday choice! C had a blast and we were really able to make his day special! (and I didn't have to hire a magic clown...)

C with his new friend before stuffing

And here are the boys making their wishes on the hearts. They all had a great time and it wasn't at all overwhelming. Can't wait to find out what he picks for next year!

Thanksgiving recap

I sure hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a great day. It was very relaxed and we had a great time with my family.

The Menu:
Herbed Roasted Turkey (from Cook's Illustrated)
Sweet potato biscuits
green beans with carmelized shallots
roasted sweet potatoes
Mashed potatoes
sausage apple stuffing
gravy

John carving the bird...

The centerpiece. This is my grandmother's soup tureen. We didn't serve a soup course this year, so I used it for the flower arrangement.

The table almost all set.

The turkey going into the oven. It was a really big bird (26 lbs!!) and I have a very small oven! At least I have a double oven..

Our wonderful fire that we had after dinner.

We have had a great weekend so far. I am enjoying making meals with all our leftovers. We had turkey croquettes last night and tonight we had this.
Tomorrow we are going to have black bean and turkey burritos.

We also started decorated for Christmas. We put up topiaries on our doorstep and I set up our nutcracker themed tree in the playroom. While trying not to impale my feet on all the legos! (the bain of my existence!) We even got some gift shopping done.

Last holiday season was SO incredibly stressful because I had so many furniture orders to complete. I am having such a wonderful time this year. I am so grateful to be able to take the time off that I have needed to in order to focus on our home more. I feel like last year we just went through the motions and got things on film, but I wasn't present for any of our holiday traditions. This year I am having so much fun planning and participating in everything. I even had the chance to play hide and seek with J and C today! What a luxury :)

Again, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Holiday Shop

The Junior Aid Holiday Shop is this week. For those of you in the Boston area, this is a great place to find unique gifts and give back to the community in the process! Money raised from this event, as well as a percentage of the sales, goes directly to women's and children's charities on the North Shore of Boston. Grab some girlfriends and come on up! Happy Shopping!!

Getting back to business...

Well, I am thinking my painting hiatus will be coming to an end after the holidays. I have disabled my website, but am now planning on getting Tickled Pink Designs back out there maybe Jan. 1. I am working on a few stools for repeat customers, but hope to be up and running again soon!an example of a footstool

and the stepstool. I also have table and chair sets, rocking chairs and can really get almost any child's furniture piece. Wish me luck as I (once again) attempt to manage the house and run a small (very small) business!