I think my time of creating Christmas ornaments are done for now at least. Technically, I’m not done, I’m just not doing them by myself anymore. This year my nephew decided to accompany me on this conquest.
Decorative String (optional as many packs of ornaments come with them)
Baby Wipes
Full of creativity (and energy!)
For my birthday, I got a huge box that was full of two large bags of Christmas ornaments. I had plans to do gnomes and gingerbread men this year, but I couldn’t find an even number of both characters, so I looked for reindeer and they were so cute on the site, and I knew everybody would enjoy them just as much and once my nephew saw the ornaments, h immediately wanted in on everything that had to do with them.
Honestly, it was amazing to see how much excitement he had for these gnomes, because I feared he wouldn’t like them, but I was very wrong with that assumption.
He comes over for a slumber party every Friday (unless his mom or dad have other plans with him) and he looks for the massive box they’re stored in and arranges one from each baggy on the opposite side of my little table. We have five gnomes in a different ensemble while one reindeer head or face, and it doesn’t matter how many times I tell Nolan they don’t have to be Rudolph, because it’ll go in one ear and out the other, so there are many Rudolph on his side.
I’ve done some kind of ornament since 2014. I worked on them with my nana first and she was fine with using paint to decorate anything, including glitter (although there were years, she tried to cut me off!) but even after she moved up north, I still used acrylic paint for everything. I never thought to use markers before. My little nephew literally grabbed my box of markers and went to town on his stack, and I was speechless!
After I recovered from this epiphany, the ideas didn’t stop coming to neither one of us. Since he is in kindergarten now, he has learned how to stay in the lines, but for these ornaments he is able to scribble or use a LOT of black on his characters. He is definitely a fun of darker colors mixed in with some neon here and there. And since he loves these coloring so much, he usually has the sides of his hands smeared with fresh markings. He wears them like they are his tattoos or something!
We actually have one gnome we call the “Pawpaw Gnome” because I told Nolan he reminded me of my dad/his papaw. This one has a full and long bread with deer antlers poking out of his hood. I tend to go with my favorite colors that actually look great on my dad. I know dad enjoys the fact that he has a gnome dedicated to him, even though he no longer wears his bread/hair long anymore.
My second favorite is the girl gnome or has a feminine touch as it has pig tails in a bow standing out of the hood. The hat itself has medium and small size circles throughout and I like to add shadows on them to make them pop out a little more. This is the only gnome I’ll use a bright pink shade because it reminds me of the girly aspect.
I liked this one so much that I kept it back for myself as a little gift. The color scheme is made up of the Frozen films and TheSnowQueen by Hans Christian Andersen, I used on this year’s reading journal. I never had the perfect moment to publish what I was doing in the journal at the beginning of 2023, but I wanted to give you an idea of how everything turned out inside my journal. So, this gnome has my main colors: pink and green for Princess Anna and light blue and purple for Queen Elsa. Unfortunately, I didn’t refer to any other characters in my journal, but I added a bright orange to mimic Olaf’s carrot nose for the gnome’s pigtails and gave her brown boots to represent Kristoff and Sven.
I’m hoping by the time this post goes out, Nolan and I are finished with them and have been sent to their owners. If not, I hope you enjoy reading about my nephew and I’s new tradition. I think it will be probably three more years before my niece Kimber will join us. It’ll be interesting to see if Nolan wants to continue doing them with me once that time comes, but I’m focusing on the “now” rather than the future.
What kind of holiday craft(s) were you working on this holiday season? For those who include young kids, how do you help convince them to continue the traditions you’ve built with them?
What made me want to create an ultimate holiday playlist?
Since my papaw passed away in 2016, the first Christmas without him was odd; he was a quiet man, but very, very smart. He was a laidback dude, loved basketball, especially his alma mater Butler University and of course, IU. He was also the one sitting in his chair observing us or fallen asleep in the thick of it, and we have many photos to prove it too! The thing is, with him gone and my nana living up north, it means it’s up to us (my little hub) to attempt to carry on general discussion of our family, at least on my mother’s side, and talking about the holiday traditions we had, can be daunting. Thankfully, we have multiple generations and depending on what each person can remember, I feel like we won’t forget much for the younger ones.
Early on in my childhood, I can remember my papaw started this tradition on Christmas Day, when he would put on one of his favorite Stan Kenton holiday albums on his old stereo system. The setup was ahhh-mazing! It was one of those systems where you had a record player on top, a cassette and CD underneath; they were all connected by three very thin shelves. He had three generations of music technology in one place. My uncle Rick always tried to get him into CDs, but this was one thing he was stubborn about, like for most older men who was a youngster in the 1940’s, a record is going to win out of the newest ways to listen to music. He never understood what an iPhone was or how you were able to take selfies, although we have a handful of those as well!
Anyways, Christmas reminds me of my papaw, and I can still remember practically jumping out of my skin as he turned on the stereo on full blast after eight years! They lived in two houses when I was young, and the early years I remember the tradition well, but once I became a teen, he had issues getting the stereo to work, and there were a lot of Christmas mornings where we didn’t have a musical backdrop.
Now, when it did work, Stan Kenton was his weapon of choice–he played bandstand music and that classy rich sound of the jazz scene with other artists like Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. I can’t say he was picky, but we rarely tried to introduce him to modern music in the fear he’d absolutely hate it. My nana was definitely more open to her grandchildren’s music, but for papaw, he liked simple things. He liked playing the piano and I would sneak off to hear him play in the living room.
Unbeknownst to me, I would grow up to enjoy Christmas instrumentals more than anything else, full orchestral holiday music is my jam. I like to listen to a lot of Lindsey Stirling during the holidays; her music is interesting as the majority of it is made of her array of violins. I still love her first album; it has all of the classic songs we know but has a nice modern air about it.
My thing for choral music is interesting though, like the Irish a capella group ANÚNA and they like to tie into their Celtic roots and sing in English, Irish Gaelic and some Latin. I think it brings me back to my ancestry in a way, but I love that eerie feeling and sound you get with certain places. Some churches are very acoustic, and it makes Celtic music as a hole somewhere else, as I can imagine playing treasured Christmas carols on the piano or the stereo would do the same for him as well. I think he would enjoy the fact that he can still influence me in this way too.
Here are some tunes I’ve been loving lately! The first four are familiar, rich, and smooth; the last two are the oddballs. Lyric Noel is a rock/metal artist, and she shared her cover of “Silent Night” on Instagram a couple of weeks ago and I fell hard for it, and the other was played on Sirius XM’s Holiday Traditions channel, and I adore it so much, because it mostly airs “Papaw’s Music” as my mom put it one evening; and it was “Do You Hear What I Hear?” by The Carpenters. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of it at first. It sounded so out of place with the 70’s flair, and I saw the light and added it into my playlists.
Winter Wonderland – Tony Bennett The Christmas Feeling – Nat King Cole Jing-A-Ling, Jing-A-Ling – The Andrews Sisters Christmas Time Is Here – Vince Guaraldi Trio Silent Night – Lyric Noel Do You Hear What I Hear? – The Carpenters
I’d love to introduce Nolan and Kimber into the Christmas-y jazz world. Nolan might think it’s weird at first, and it makes sense for that to happen. He is from another generation. He’s always been a fan of music, and he loves to sing and is heavily into Christmas carols these days, so I’ll be attempting to return the favor my papaw and nana gave us (his mommy and I) as the festivities go on.
If you’d like to check out my “Ultimate Christmas Music” playlist on Spotify, click here to find your favorite classics or some interesting renditions in the last few years.
I don’t know about you, but I love a good fairy garden and Christmas village. I’m not quite sure how and why I’ve suddenly developed this interest in both of these things lately. I think it might have something to do with my love for nostalgia (and possibly my age!).
I was never a girly-girl growing up, I mean, my hatred of the color pink is still strong. I liked purple, mostly in a dark shade, but in the last few years I’ve started to fall in love with lavender and mauve too. Anyways, I didn’t dream of having my own Barbie Dreamhouse as a child nor did I appreciate the work of creating a doll house like my nana had years ago. It wasn’t until my parents started gardening, I wanted to make a fairy garden, but it wasn’t something my dad wanted in his garden. We have an old Scarecrow and a cow named Homer out there, and that is enough for him.
This past summer we finally fixed up our front porch. It is large enough to have a loveseat and two chairs and still have enough room for my wheelchair to go out and back into the house with ease. It’s an ideal space for all of us, including Rumer, she enjoys us sitting out there while she’s running around her yard. What I truly love about it, is my mom has been going all out with different ways to decorate it. She had her mums and bales of hay; plus, the painted pumpkins my nephew and I did at the end of September on the rails.
Now, that it’s winter and Christmas is coming around faster than expected, she’s upped her designing game with medium size red and gold bows in the front and a winter-y styled wreath that is HUGE! The wreath is next our light and windows. Dad is also feeling festive this year as he got her a garland and white lights to go around our porch.
I think becoming a Mimi (grandmother) to my nephew and niece has really opened her eyes that creating spaces can be fun. This Christmas, we are excited to see Kimber’s reaction is to everything too. Nolan has always been a crafter like many in our family, and his interaction to my mom lately is reminiscent to my relationship to my nana. My mom isn’t a crafty person, she wasn’t with her daughters, and so her mother, our nana gave us opportunities to get wild (especially me, 2012 to 2018 I think) and paint. My mom just accepted that glitter would make an appearance at some point.
Anyways, we have these little houses, that we used to keep under the tree; we also kept one of two of her Nativity Scenes (one in glass, the other is ceramic I think) at the base as well. Our pets had never messed with anything, although Chichi did pee on the cover once or twice, but those covers can be easily replaced, but between our dog Rumer and my niece, anything on the floor is fair play and will enter their mouths, so, we’ve had to move things onto our entertainment center and it is a safer place for everything, or at least for now.
Along with the Nativity Scenes, she’s had these four houses in yellow, red, orange and blue and a plan white church. They were obviously made in the 70’s, but they are painted with Christmas decorations in great detail. I’m not sure if they were hand painted but I always assumed so. I love them as they are a staple in our Christmas traditions, but with my mom’s decorative side coming out, she wanted to spruce the neighborhood up, especially since we no longer have a church. We don’t know what happened to it, all I know is that it disappeared before Nolan.
This year, mom got us a new Christmas village, or I guess, we’ve added on to our original layout. We have two houses and one church. They kind of reminisce San Francisco or the Brownstone-style of houses. The church is modest, but it is beautiful in its own way. They came with three trees, two streetlights, a couple of people and a snowman. In a way to tie everything together, my mom got a new tree skirt or snow, and cute a section for underneath the TV so everything looks winter-y. Next year, we have to remember to either tape it down because it is bunched up towards the ends, but it looks so nice!
Honestly, our living room–hell, our entire house, looks beautiful!
It feels so comforting and warm and reminds me of going to my nana and papaw’s house and between the living room and their kitchen, Christmas was everywhere in their house, and you could feel the love and joy of family togetherness! I hope and wish everyone could experience it more than once in their lives.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how crazy do you go in decorating your home for the holidays? Do you have a Christmas village or city on your mantel or entertainment center?
I was only away a month, but it felt longer this time. These breaks are liberating as odd as it sounds; blogging has always been my sanctuary and to take a mini hiatus and on top of that, enjoy the time away is somewhat scary.
I will admit though, I have really enjoyed putting together these “Life Lately” posts again. One of the things I’ve unknowingly done in the last four years is keeping private things like anything to do with my family to myself. It’s not really anyone’s business, but for these posts I can kind of let loose and your feedback is so nice and reassuring to the continuation of my blog. So, I thank you for your patience and understanding.
July started off as a pretty good month.
We had finally planned our trip up north for later in the month. I was thoroughly excited because I was bummed, we weren’t able to go back in April, but my niece wasn’t in the best shape–sleep wise–to make the four-hour trip. Nolan can be easily entertained by the construction on the road. We saw a lot of tractors and cranes. I particularly enjoy the cranes the most. I’ve always been mesmerized by them. Recently, we had a bad storm and one of the trees in our backyard fell over on top of our back deck. It’s the place I tend to hang out the most and the cats can come and go freely, and we needed workers to help get it out, and they brought out two different cranes, and my parents took video of them taking a large section of the tree over the house. I had the interesting spot because I could watch my mom basically hold her breath and see the shadows on the floor as they were lifting it from the back to the front yard. It was CRAZY!
Nolan also entertained Kimber in the first hour or so, as they were sitting next to each other in the car. My mom sat in the back with them, but she thought it would be easier to sit in the middle of the kids, as my sister was driving and isn’t as confident at trying to do little things for me, like feed me my McDonalds meal. We no longer have a McD’s in my hometown, and I practically go berserk because I miss their fries so much! It’s one fast food meal that doesn’t exactly heat up great in the microwave or air fryer, so I have to wait until we travel to indulge on a plan cheeseburger and French fries… I get one on the way up and as we drive home. It’s one of the best things about traveling for me.
Anyways, both of the kids did fairly well on the drive. Kimber was a bit bored within the last 20 minutes, but she was so good though! Nolan was a little sad as his iPad died on him halfway, but he had Mimi, the construction, and occasionally heard “Legends Never Die” song from the DetectivePikachu movie.
I spent the majority of the time counting yellow cars and, on the way, home I was busying myself by looking for hawks. On my mom’s side, we are obsessed with three birds: robins, cardinals and hawks. They each mean something different for us, and I do enjoy looking for them on road trips.
I was very happy to be out of the car and visit with family. We didn’t have everybody like normally, but it was still a fun gathering. The kids enjoyed the toys that my Aunt Laurie and nana had bought them. Unfortunately, for her Kimber though, they have hardwood floors all throughout the house, which is great for wheelchairs, but not so much with Kimber, she was just trying to walk, and we didn’t want to let her crawl all over the house because that’s even more dangerous. A walker was bought, so she could get around easily.
It was a little odd being in a brand-new house as my aunt and uncle moved last year, but they have a wonderful place and Nolan really enjoyed their backyard as it was fenced in and he could swim in the kiddie pool, play with his new Nerf gun (that broke within 20 minutes of using it) without having neighbors watching him. Not that their other place had weird neighbors, I just mean it was spacious and private for everyone. My mom and sister brought our Kimber’s pack-n-play outside on their deck and she could see everything, and you could tell she enjoyed being around everybody.
One of my favorite photos of our trip was the one of my nana holding her great-granddaughter, Kimber. I think I was the only one who realized there were four generations of her line present. I found it very special. Nana had already met her the month before, but it was the fact she remembered her, especially the necklaces. She was very interested in her Life Alert button, and seemed attached to the little silver urn necklace, she had told Kimber that was Papaw Miller’s. We refer my papaw as “Papaw Miller” I wasn’t on that decision to call him that, but I love it nevertheless.
This visit was interesting because I was actually able to have real ice cream again. I’ve been living off of vegan ice cream by SoDelicious since last November. I’ve tried four flavors, but my absolute favorite is their Cookies n Creme. It is dark chocolate with Oreo-like cookies crushed up, and it is made up of cashew milk. It is so, so good! I was told not to eat a lot of the fruits and vegetables at the start of the trip, because I tend to have a bad reaction afterwards, but I decided I was going to let loose a bit and I had a small Oreo blizzard (thank you Uncle David!) with a slice of ice cream cake after supper. I kept telling myself I was going to regret it in the end, but thankfully, nothing happened.
Now, let’s discuss August.
This month were slightly mind-blowing for us, as it meant my little nephew was going to start Kindergarten. I remember when he was a baby and his parents were trying to figure out what age he could start school, and I sat there thinking “oh, that’s so far away.” yet here I am trying to still fully grasp the fact he can go to school…
I posted this on my socials because honestly, I just needed to get things out of my head. I wanted to express my love for my nephew, but I also wanted things out loud. I mean, the kid is five after all.
“This week is a very bittersweet, as it is the week my little nephew begins kindergarten.
Even though I didn’t give birth to him, knowing he’s about to make friends, learn something new, makes me highly emotional.
My job as an auntie isn’t over. I have plenty of things to teach the little goofball. However, he will know a little of math. I find it absolutely hilarious that I was the one who did this, but math wasn’t my least favorite subject in school. It didn’t matter the grade/level, it all sucked!
As he continues to grow up, he’ll have sport events, birthday parties, etc and I will probably have to take a back seat on things. I hope he doesn’t get bullied or become the bully; he is such a caring dude and thinks of others (when he wants to of course!) as he makes sure every house or zoo, he creates has a ramp by the door.
Despite this sadness, I do feel honored to watch him blossom. These little toes represent his baby days. A wonderful but learning experience for this auntie. I hope he understands how much I love his goofy soul and enjoys this next adventure.”
Now that I have that out and about, I can finally tell you about something else has happened recently. I actually posted this immediately after the Nolan post, but in my defense, it was National Cat Day and I had to say something about our cats.
I have been keeping a secret from you. We have a new kitten to our neighborhood.
Back in late June, we had this itty-bitty kitten appear in our backyard. After discovering a family of skunks living underneath dad’s old shed and a group of raccoons destroying mom’s corn, this little thing was a sight to behold.
We recently looked back at our “memories” on Facebook to see how old our cats were, and we’ve figured out that from Bootsie to Stormy and Bear-Bear are about 9-12 years old, but Fifi, Nelson, and Oscar are probably eight to seven years old. So, we haven’t been around an actual kitten in years, so my mom and I were floored with this nice surprise. We adopted it into our clowder, (dad likes her too!) and she basically gets along with everyone, except for two of them. There’s no need to worry about them as they are perfectly fine with the skunks and raccoons.Â
We are in agreement with the fact it is a girl. She has no balls, as mom continues to check on a daily basis. We named her Chatterbox or Chatter for short; she likes to talk like Fifi and Nelson, so I thought it would be perfect for her.Â
She was hesitant to approach us in the beginning; she has enjoyed being held in the past month or so, but getting used to my wheelchair and I, was a bit much. When she finally learned to climb up onto the deck, she was able to hang out with us, and I finally have her trust after a few failed attempts.
I thought her arrival was significant as I am still grieving over the loss of my cat Stormy, and I thought our pride were feeling the loss just as much–none of our cats have sat on top of the rails to our deck. They will balance on the lower part, but I have yet to see them go on top like they used to, like Stormy. The big cats will not sit on the top, but apparently Chatter enjoys it. She about gave me a freaking heart attack, and I almost cried when she just settled in the middle of the coral, like it wasn’t a big deal at all. This little baby is still testing her limits with herself and us, as right now her favorite spot to sleep is on top of hot tub, and my parents are mad about it, technically, she has two others who join her from time to time, hoping they don’t get chased off in the end.
All right, that is it. I am officially done with this post. I apologize for how lengthy it became, but honestly it feels great to get everything out in the open now. If you’re still here after all that, leave me a heart emoji in the comments. 💜
I was going to give a life update in the June playlist like I usually do in those posts, but the longer I thought about it, the more I realized I was away for TWO MONTHS. As you may know, a lot can happen in 60+ days, so ultimately, I decided to have a separate post for this.
The month of April was good. We were supposed to go visit family up north for my nana’s birthday, but again, plans changed like always. My little niece Kimber is a little terror at night according to my sister. She also cries and screams quite a bit, and before anybody freaks out, they’ve tried various ways to stop these things, but nothing has worked. Now they believe she could be teething, but so far we haven’t seen anything along her gums.
Other than that, she’s a very happy girl and thoroughly enjoys causing a bit of trouble. When she was about two or three months old, she discovered rolling over on every surface, including her parents. After she conquered this, she moved onto crawling and she is a big crawler, but recently she decided to stand up on her own, so she continues to find ways to freak everybody out–honestly, I’m very proud of her for it.
We have done a lot of gardening lately. In early April, my dad asked me if I wanted to help him plant the seeds of our tomatoes (my dad has a LOT of them!) and at first the only job I could do was put the dates on the Styrofoam cups and I was content with that, but within a day or two, my dad gave me an even bigger job, which was to actually plant the seeds into our little nursery containers. I’ve worked on tomatoes and radishes, plus our zinnias and sunflowers. I loved having a chance to get my toes dirty with the soil and see whether or not my toes would be too large to grab them; if this happened, I used the tweezers.
I was going to get me some raised beds this year, but we just don’t have the room – between our dog Rumer and then the cats, I just don’t think it would have been something I’d be able to keep up with like my parents do in the gardens. So, I really cherished the opportunity to help dad with his stuff, and we even built our new deck furniture, and I helped holding things in place for him as it was a pain in the ass to screw together. We made it through, and they do look nice, but mom and dad haven’t had a chance to enjoy them.
As the month was ending, we had a sad moment.
Technically, we have five cats: Midge, Grumpy, Stormy, Felix (Fifi) and Nelson (Linus, as my dad calls him!) and we feed them and being around us has made them less feral in a way. They enjoy pets, some cuddles here and there, etc. Out of the five, I personally claimed Stormy and he has always struggled with allergies, it didn’t matter if it was winter or summer, he had nose issues like hard sneezing, nose bleeds, and his eyes were goopy and gross, poor dude was an absolute mess!
When I went to stay in the nursing home back in October, he was in a bad shape. He holed himself up in his favorite Styrofoam box house and slept in there, only to come out for eat and go to the bathroom. I hated seeing him like that, and it was around this time where I came to accept him passing away before I came home. However, by the time I did come home, he had regained his energy and strength and would jump up onto the deck with the other cats. Everybody was thrilled to see him do all of this again.
And once we made it to spring, his allergies were starting to come raging back and we kept the same routine my parents did last time, but one day he just decided to roam around the neighborhood, which wasn’t like him at all. We hollered and searched for him, but he was gone. I thought it was odd because Stormy rarely leaves the property. He’ll go visit my sister every once in a while, but he would always come out of a familiar haunt, but this time he didn’t. One morning while my mom was doing some cleaning outside, she found him in his house. He had passed away in his favorite place.
I am still grieving over my Stormy Eugene. Yes, he had a middle name. The majority of our cats have middle names actually! Anyways, I don’t think I’m the only one. I truly believe Fifi is also coming to terms with the loss. Stormy and Fifi were basically attached at the hip, so I figured if any of the cats actually mourn for him, it would be him. He wasn’t in the mood of loving in the beginning, until recently. Oddly enough, when I came home from the nursing home, Stormy had recovered but Fifi was the one with health issues. He’s doing much better now, and enjoying the one-on-one time with me again. While I was trying to gain Stormy’s trust, I had already developed an relationship with Fifi but once I spent most of my time with Stormy, he kind of took a backseat.
Honestly, since Stormy’s passing, Grumpy, Fifi and Nelson have become snuggle bugs. Grumpy and Fifi have always been like this, but Nelson has been eerie of people, including us, but he has been enjoying the morning loves. He runs up against my feet and we chat about our morning so far. I’ve been calling him “chatterbox” lately because he is constantly meowing at us.
Now, let’s discuss the things that happened in May.
I was able to help do some of the planting again. This time I did more than put dates on the cups. I had the job of filling the trays for our nursery, and this was something that brought me back to my childhood,
One time my sister and I were digging around their huge trees, and we had found something very white and tough, we were slightly confused in our discovery but otherwise very happy with ourselves too! After a few seconds, our mom came out to see what we had dug up and she squashed our dreams and told us it was part of the sewer/water pipes and we needed to find another spot to dig to China. We were pretty sad but put the dirt back and moved to the other side of the sidewalk.
Anyways, as I was filling each hole, I was also told that I needed to make a two-inch hole with this wooden stick that was just the perfect width for me to grip in between my toes. Once I was finished with that, he gave me a packet of seeds and I began to drop those into their fresh beds.
Speaking of plants, I do have some bad but good news to share. My first little plant my mom got me at the start of 2021, it was a bonsai or money tree I named Yuri Lilliekoi, well unfortunately, it sort of died sometime last year. It was very odd, but it had looked like crap for a couple of months so, we knew something was up with it. I was very sad to let it go, but then this past May, it was Nurse’s Week and my mom and all of the other nurses were given a goodie bag and succulent plants, and she was so happy she ended up giving it to me. Once she showed it to me, I fell in love with it and of course like my other plants, it was given a name.
Succulents are native to desert areas in Africa and Mexico. I already have a plant named for the Mexican region, she is a spider plant but looks like a spot of very long grass, and she was named Paulina Sylvia or PS as they mean “little forest” in Spanish. So, I knew I would have to find her name within the African culture. I found out the Aken people tend to name their children the day of the week they were born, which I thought was pretty cool, and since mom gave me this plant on a Thursday, I went with “Yaba” (Yaa-Ba) and I really like it. As for the middle name, I wanted a way to honor all nurses, so I decided to go with “Florence” dedicated to Florence Nightingale herself. My mom giggled at my explanation of the plant’s name, but she approved of it though.
Our dog Rumer was out most times while we were working on the flowers, and when I was done with everything, I would go into the living room and hang out with her. She and I are becoming best friends. She is starting to understand the word “cuddle” now. I have my own spot in the living room. It’s next to our sofa and opposite of our bathroom. I literally sit in front of two vents, so I’m usually always cold, but I lean over onto the armrest of the couch, and she’s lie down on the other side, and we’ll cuddle. She sniffs my hair and cleans my face and ears. She is in love with ears, and it can get a bit weird, but whenever this happens, she is as close to me she can be and I know that’s when I can hug her freely. For the most part, she really gentle with me and we know she enjoys it just as much because she’ll stay there for quite a while.
Last month was actually her birthday month. We are certain that she had to have been born around Memorial Day weekend, since we got her in the middle of August. We celebrate both days since figuring out the math there. So, she is in face two years old now. I still consider her a “puppy” though because she is so goofy. I don’t know about other dogs, but Rumer has learned to clean her face. When she is done eating, she’ll jump up on the couch and plop her nose right into the edges of the couch and rubs her face all around the back of the sofa. I’ve never seen a dog do that before, but it cracks us up everytime.
My little nephew just had his birthday, and I was going to blog about it, but there were quite a few people and children in the photos, so I decided against it to protect their privacy. However, I wanted to share something about Nolan today.
We have a large collection of different blocks. We still have a bag he’s had since he was about two years old, but over Christmas, he got two more packages of blocks–technically, it was one, because the other is actually a set of Jenga blocks! I’ve tried to teach him on how the game works but he’s fine with using them as the base of ALL of his buildings. I love to see his mind at work, so I just lie down in my bed and watch him do it all on his own. Honestly, if I try to help, he gets mad because it wasn’t what he was looking for in the first place!
He loves to create houses, fountains, zoos, fireplaces, trains, etc. His mind is everchanging and it is amazing to see him work out the different designs. For his birthday, I found a Lego build of a penguin, because they are one of his favorite birds. I thought it would be cool to see him build something more complex. The kid managed to do a Rubik’s cube twice, so I know he will enjoy the challenging experience.
I think I am officially finished with this post. I need to make a warning for myself for later to not wait two months to write about everything that happened. I know I’ve forgotten things, but I think you’ll be fine with what I was able to remember, right? I enjoy writing these posts, but I can never condense things, and I’ve always been this way. It takes me a good hour o finish a story, so feel bad for my parents who are told the majority of my stories…I do hope you have enjoyed everything though.
How was you? What were you up to in April to June? Let me know in the comments below!
Now, that it’s winter and Christmas is coming around faster than expected, she’s upped her designing game with medium size red and gold bows in the front and a winter-y styled wreath that is HUGE! The wreath is next our light and windows. Dad is also feeling festive this year as he got her a garland and white lights to go around our porch.
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