christmas with the herringtons

The Herrington clan (Sean's sister Sara, her husband Warren, and her darlings Devin, Riley and Copeland) came up to Tennessee the weekend before Christmas.  We got together at Sean's parents' to let the cousins exchange the gifts they'd bought for each other.  That's a roomful of kids!!

 Baby Cade got this awesome diaper cake full of way cool burpcloths and a wipes case made by his Aunt Sara.

We went youngest to oldest with the opening, so baby Cohen went first.  This is his outfit from Wyatt.

Elliott got this adorable outfit from Nolen.

Nolen got some super cool army guys, trucks and tanks from Copeland.

 Gavin got the Tony Hawk Ride game from Devin.

Copeland got a Tron motorcycle dude from Kellen.

 Riley got a sweater from Cohen.

Wyatt got Loopz from Gavin.

Kellen got a Gator hoodie from Riley.

 And Devin got a sweater from Elliott.

What a clan, huh??

oh gator tree, oh gator tree...

Several weeks ago the boys and I made a traditional construction paper garland for the first time in their lives.  Ours, of course, was orange and blue, so I guess that's not all that traditional, but still...  I forgot how much fun it is to put one of these together!

 

 Elliott, you'll notice, is sporting her Belle Christmas dress.  Just like pretty much every day before Christmas.  No one said being a princess is easy...

 It got a little out of control - even after I wrapped it around each of them there was a huge pile of garland on the floor.

But that's ok - because it fit perfectly on the boys' Gator tree!

This is the first year in, well, forever, that the boys no longer share a room.  So the tree is in Wyatt's room.  Kellen has his own decorations, though, including a small little tree, and his nutcracker collection. 

 I didn't photograph all the nutcrackers.  These are about half of them...

And of course, Elliott has her own tree, which - shocker - is pink, and - another shocker - covered in princesses.  She redecorates it (which mostly consists of her undecorating it) 2 or 3 times a day.  I'm forever going in there and rehanging the ornaments, so it never really looks all that great.  But you get the idea.

hung by the chimney with care

I mentioned before that I was spending some of my bedrest time making 6 new stockings for the Gifford clan.  Thought you might like to see how they turned out.  Is it just me, or is that a lot of stockings?!

They're all ready for Santa to fill tomorrow night!

supper time

The other night I was making a big pot of potato soup.  Elliott decided she needed to help.  I gave her a few pieces of potato, and she did the rest. 

itty bitty hats

I've been looking everywhere for a brown baby hat to match our little guy's "coming home" outfit, and haven't been able to find one anywhere, even online.  So I decided if I couldn't find it, I'd make it.

I'd been needing to go to Hobby Lobby to get the fabric, which is hard to do when you're on bedrest.  Then it struck me - I needed brown knit fabric, which is exactly what Tshirts are made of...  Hmmmmm......  

A little google search later, and I found this "pattern" which I used, roughly, to make a couple hats for Cade.

I started with two Tshirts I'll never wear again.  (The Poison one is from a Headbangers Ball we all attended a few years back - good times.)

 Fold one shirt in half so that it's four layers thick.  Draw a "bunny ears pattern along the folded edge and cut.  This is a lot easier to see in the picture I linked to above, because mine's black.

 After you cut, you have a hat front and back.

 Pin the right sides together and sew.

 Turn it inside out and tie your rabbit ears into a knot and, voila!

 I also wanted to make a "one knot" hat, so I kinda guessed at the pattern.  For this, you just lay the shirt flat (2 layers instead of four) and draw a shape like this one.

 Cut it out - it doesn't haven to really be symmetrical (obviously mine are a little crooked...).

 Pin the right sides together and sew.  Since I'll have a December or January baby, I wanted the band on this one a little thicker to cover his ears.  So I cut it longer and then folded it up before sewing so there will be a double layer over his ears.

 After you sew, turn it inside out and tie the knot.  Tada!  The best part is how quick these were to make.  I woke up one morning with the idea, started around 7:45, and was done before my kids asked for breakfast at 8:30.  So easy!

i am number four

For months now, we've been referring to our soon-to-be new addition as "Number 4" because he didn't have a name.  (Well, all of us but my midwife Heather, who insists on calling him "Quattro.")  I recently was made aware, though, of a movie coming out this winter called "I Am Number Four."  Apparently, the title character in this book-turned-movie is an alien living among us who's on some hit list and who's number is up.  So, lest anyone confuse our unborn with an alien because of this movie, we thought we'd go ahead and unveil his name.

Little Gifford #4 will be named Caedmon Cross ("Cade") Gifford.  A little background helps explain our choice.  We picked Kellen's name because it was Irish and it means "mighty warrior."  His middle name is also Cross - he's a mighty warrior of the Cross.  When we were having boy #2, we decided to name him Wyatt Cross, because Wyatt means "little warrior."  And, as we searched and searched for a name for this little fella, we finally came across the name Caedmon, which means "wise warrior."  Our little wise warrior of the Cross.  Perfect, no? 

snow day

We had our first good snowfall of the season yesterday, and while GCDS was in session for the day (unlike all the surrounding school systems), we did take some time to play in the snow.

Snow angels, of course.

Little Miss Pinkalicious

My snow dudes

Footprints (Kellen, Elliott, Wyatt)

Number 4 -the only warm one among us

Mommy and the little giffords