Happy Birthday to my Christmas baby!

I can't believe its been a year since we welcomed little Max into our crazy home! Since this picture he's gotten used to us all a bit more and we don't seem to promote such a stark reaction, so its a win-win. 

He's been such a fun baby, in that he'd actually sleep when it was dark outside, no day-long scream-a-thons, lots of happy smiles and a cuddly little face to kiss!

He's become amazingly tough with three older siblings who mostly want to play with him, but occasionally think the walk-by punch is a good idea. He already loves wrestling with daddy and the brothers.

I'm sure the more kids you have the faster the years go by. It definitely doesn't feel like a year, its amazing how fast newborns become babies, become toddlers. I feel as if I've forgotten so much of past first years, even though they were only a few short years ago! The babyness is all at once a lot of work but so much fun. I'm always a little sad when a first birthday rolls around, even though it means such great steps towards a little more independence for them, which I usually love as well! 

He's so loved by his siblings and loves them back so much its so exciting to see, and I really shouldn't take it for granted. Max's loveable and easygoing nature has most definitely come out early, and can I say that I think he'll be one of those people that everyone likes? I'm sure every mom says that about every child, but his personality already seems so friendly and fun to be around. He's also got a great sense of humour which is also a great thing to have, I love that he finds the crazy stuff his brothers do hilarious!

Happy Birthday to my little man! We all love you!

What I Wore on Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are still celebrating with a gusto-because that's the Catholic thing to do! 

Anyone else suffering from extreme Toddler Christmas Hangover?? Because around here I can barely move from exhaustion and turkey. The hubby had to get back to work today and after not stopping since Saturday? the kids are a tiny, itsy bit grumpy. Theres toys everywhere, and wrapping paper in heaps here and there since we had to book it to the fan-damilies as soon as we opened our gifts Christmas morning. I've decided today is a lazy day and the only chores getting done around here is the bare minimum of underwear washing. And maybe eating...but theres still a lot of gingerbread cookies left! 

But heres my not-exactly-magazine-quality outfit shots for lovely Grace (thanks to her for her fun-tastic hosting as usual!):

These are the only shots of me probably from all of Christmas. I've got on a stretchy/cheap sequin tank from Joe Fresh-because if you can't wear sequins at Christmas time then when can you, dammit!? A navy pleated skirt from H&M borrowed from my sister, it was the only remotely cute skirt in our collective possession with a generous elastic waist. And my navy cardigan because I didn't want to scandalize at Christmas Eve Mass, and my braided belt to create the illusion of a waist. I'm well aware that the waist illusion is probably only visible at about a thirty yard distance...but still.

This pic just makes me laugh. 

Clearly things went downhill from here on out. 

But there was so much fun, chocolate eating, gift unwrapping, and happy toddler playing that the craziness was the very best kind.

I'm out to lie like broccoli, drink coffee, and watch an illegally gotten Christmas episode of Downton Abbey with the sisters, oh, and of course eat another couple boxes of chocolate! If my children slide into a sugar coma my husband will find them this afternoon!

What I Wore Sunday

Hey everyone, I'm back, because I think I may be addicted to What I Wore Sunday.

Wishing all of you linking up from Fine Linen and Purple a very Merry Christmas!

Now on to the festivities.

What the what?! She's wearing a skirt! I decided that apparently its just going to be -25 for the rest of the winter so I might as well bite the bullet and finally wear a dress again to Mass! I busted out the ol' tights and took the polar bear plunge of running from my house to car to Church, and then Church to car to house. And I have a rule that if I'm going to wear horribly uncomfortable tights they damn well better be a colour. These are supposed to be "violet". The nighttime glow doesn't really do them justice.

And its official. I'm getting worse at looking even close to normal every single week.

In full disclosure I totally wore boots, but had to put four kids to bed instantly after returning from Mass tonight because it was our Parish Christmas supper and everyone was completely exhausted and unreasonable so the boots had to go. And this cardigan makes me look McFrumpy but its really cozy and I have to maintain my Queen of the Cardigan status. 

The cute shoes, by the way, are the pair I won from Grace which I have hardly had the chance to wear...which just makes me sad. 

I look forward to eating my five pound Toblerone bar of chocolate while catching up with the more fashion conscious!

Seven Quick Takes-Christmas edition!

Joining reality star and hot Christmas mama Jen and all the takers again this week!
(I wasn't able to watch last night's Minor Revisions episode so I'm painfully out of the loop, but I loved, loved the first episode! Of course!)

{one}

How to perfectly wrap a Christmas present designmom.com? Nah, I'm good.

I've been blogging deprived this week due to our extreme overage on our monthly internet allotment, and the sudden realization as of yesterday that I have hundreds of gifts to wrap. Hundreds! Ok, obviously not hundreds, but its shocking how fast they add up even when we only get each kid three or so gifts. But never fear, I wrap half-ass-ed-ly so I'm sure I can wrap up the last of it while I watch a whole season of Duck Dynasty tonight! 

{two}

 Peeps have been asking about our tree sitch from that photo of me wearing clothes from last Sunday so heres the scoop. We've always had a child of prime Christmas-tree-destruction-age for the entirety of our marriage, (except that first Christmas when I was just preggo and too sick to get out of bed to put up a tree at all, oh and last Christmas when everyone was over the age of two-weird I know!) so we've just gravitated to putting the tree on a coffee table. It gives an extra 18 or so inches of child protected-ness, and we still usually have to put a further coffee table as an extra deterrent around the tree, and I still only put very cheap unbreakable ornaments on the lower quadrant, but so far its actually a handy idea. Our house is too small to have it more roped off than that so thats the best we can do. I'm sure I stole the idea from Martha. 

{three}

I obviously love the crazy charlie brown-ish type tree. I refuse to have anything but a real tree, and my whole life I've only had trees that my dad and then my husband have chopped down themselves. Living out here on the edge of the arctic, err I mean arboreal forest, it takes only five minutes driving along a road that cuts through my dad's property for us to spy a tree we think will be good enough. I'm not going for perfection, clearly, but it seems much more charming having random holes in places. And I think my decorating scheme I'm going for is vintage/handmade/red and gold chic. Maybe if one day I have a ridiculously large house and get to go to town and put a Christmas tree in every room I'll break down and do a "blue" tree or a "pink and red ombre" tree, but until then I think its more important building memories of imperfect charlie brown trees and all our collected mish-mash of ornaments. Hey I could go on about Christmas tree decorating and the philosophy behind it but you probably have a couple hundred gifts to wrap too.

{four}

I barely recovered from my horrible start to the week. I was a complete irritated, angre, grumpy, probably hormonal total Grinch. And what added insult to my already really poor imitation of a good mother, was how I felt I had so many good intentions to just love, love, love my kids especially in the wake of last week's tragedy. But lo and behold Monday it was all I could do not to yell at the fortieth request for a glass of water. One of those days where it feels as if every single thing you say to your toddlers is met with an extremely hostile "NO". Which of course always spurs me to a demenour of kindness and syrupy smiles. Tantrums over napping? Throw those in too. Tantrums over an incomplete cracker? We're on a roll already, why not. Needless to say I yelled everyone into napping for a couple hours and then I just wrote the rest of the day off with the only goal of not being a total ogre to everyone. Tuesday was a bit better but with my irritation aimed at everything else in my life. Can't finish things before Christmas? Cancelled appointments? Even trying to get to confession a complete pain in the ass? All things that completely irritated me. I think I'm almost to the point of trying to let go of all the things I can't control but wanted to get done, all my epic mishandlings of the week, and concentrate on the fun times of the next few days and ya know, Jesus and stuff. But my track record has been abysmal of late so we'll see. And if you could say I prayer that I actually do get to confession this weekend it would be great!

{five}

Ok. This is the second straight Christmas that I'm pregnant. Albeit last Christmas I had a baby three days later so I had a glass of wine with Christmas dinner because a woman nine months pregnant deserves SOMETHING, and I most probably will have a drink at each holiday dinner this year too, but I so miss alcohol this time of year! I miss hot buttered rum (which is really weird and gross if you've ever made it from scratch but tastes ridiculously awesome!), I miss my signature cranberry cocktail, I miss my champagne, I miss eggnog and rum, I miss eggnog and kahlua, I miss eggnog and brandy, I miss a good scotch while filling the stockings Christmas Eve, Christmas morning mimosas, Christmas afternoon Spanish coffees, wine. I just miss alcohol dammit! And this makes me sound like a complete lush come Christmas time, but when is there a more festive time to drink any ridiculous concotion of alcohol?! So please, if you're not pregnant, have a drink and think of me!

{six}

Oh remember when I was pontificating all that Christmas/Advent advice?! Well this weekend we have our parish Christmas party, company coming for the weekend, the Husband working half of Christmas Eve, me and my planning of all the Christmas Eve Mass music which I haven't even thought twice about yet, Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day and then travelling to the in-laws and back again Boxing Day. And my hundreds of gifts to wrap, and zero baked cookies. Basically its chaos from here on out. Chaos without the benefit of a good drink people!

{seven}

And to leave you with something that is the complete opposite of merry and festive this is our forecast for the upcoming week:

	SaturdayDecember 22	SundayDecember 23	MondayDecember 24	TuesdayDecember 25	WednesdayDecember 26	ThursdayDecember 27
Conditions  6am - 6pm
	Scattered flurries	Flurries	Cloudy with sunny breaks	Mainly cloudy	Scattered flurries	Variable cloudiness
P.O.P.	60 %	40 %	30 %	30 %	40 %	30 %
High	-17 °C	-19 °C	-21 °C	-23 °C	-20 °C	-20 °C
Feels Like	-25	-27	-28	-34	-33	-29
Low	-21 °C	-20 °C	-29 °C	-29 °C	-26 °C	-25 °C
Wind	N  10 km/h	E  15 km/h	N  5 km/h	S  10 km/h	SE  20 km/h	SE  10 km/h
24-Hr Snow	2-4 cm	2-4 cm	-	-	close to 1 cm	-

14 Day TrendHistoricalStatisticsWeather MapsVideo Forecast

Doesn't seeing a forecast like that feel you with horror?? Apparently its the coldest Christmas in over 40 years. Hurrah! So our happy Christmas will most definitely come from what's important like enjoying the excitement of "Baby Jesus being born to Mary and Josept in the barn with the cows!" Every day Gemma and Dom wake up and run to the nativity that lacks a baby Jesus and say "Aww, but when is baby Jesus coming?!" And its Max's first Christmas so I'll most definitely try to get as many forced Christmas poses and wrapping present-eating pictures as possible! Christmas is really wonderful with children, and somehow all the work and chaos is totally worth it. So if I don't get on here before then, I wish everyone a very blessed Christmas and hope you all celebrate to the fullest!

What I Wore Sunday vol. 5

Hey everybody, I'm completely keeping it real this week and putting up my sad looking outfit just to be honest! Somehow it makes me feel less guilty enjoying looking at what everyone else is wearing over at Fine Linen and Purple when I at least contribute! 

We had a whirlwind weekend of Christmas shopping, seeing family, sneaking in a date night (yay!), then speeding back to make our 5 pm Mass last night. By the time we took these pictures I was completely exhausted and it was the late, late hour of 8 pm. 

We ended showing up at Mass only right at the end of the opening hymn...which I was supposed to be playing...whoops...with only one kid without shoes! Clearly, the one kid was the one who doesn't walk on his own yet or else that would have been an awfully cold walk through 8 inches of snow from car to church. 

And this is actually a nice shot of our tree. We always go about two minutes down the road and end up having to make a tough choice between the many trees that grow along the side of the road on my dad's land! The kids start getting ansy if theres no chop chop within five minutes. The spoilt little tots!

Ignore me and keep focusing on pretty Christmas tree. But heres the ensemble: a little preggo number of boring/now completely hated jeggings, me now graduating to embracing form fitting tops again when out in public and a little black tank top, and another of my many cardigans I think from H&M last year. And that pendant is one of my owl pocket watch-type necklaces...I have more than one...draw your own nerdy conclusions!

And I was trying to go for a side preggo shot but ended up looking really tired and with an expression that says "I'd eat that!". Attractive. I'm also totally not allowing my husband to take accurate pregnancy shots...I need to work on the vanity. And I just had to check my pregnancy app to figure out I'm 22 weeks. Which seems ridiculous. The thing with being pregnant all the time is you completely adapt to thinking pregnancy and all its weird effects are just normal which makes you loose track of pregnancy time! Or maybe I'm just losing it. I have bad pregnancy brain, which my husband is still refusing to believe is a real thing, but its real right??

And I'm going to work on finding an extension cord thats not bright orange.

Happy Gaudete Sunday!

G.K. Chesterton and How to Celebrate Christmas

G.K. Chesterton's witty and wonderful wisdom can be found on just about any topic, but one of his favourite subjects was Christmas. Chesteron's gift of bringing together foreign ideas to help understand the profound and simple truths of life are very much needed in our culture today when it comes to Christmas. The celebration of Advent and Christmas was very important to Chesterton as he believed it encapsulated the meaning of Christianity and needed to be both properly reverenced and celebrated. 

"There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is."

Here Chesterton makes the great point of how our leaning towards early celebration of Christmas diminishes and takes away from the true celebration of Christmas. What immediately springs to my mind when reading this passage is the marvellous feeling of Christmas morning when we were children. Waking up full of excitement over a day that is unlike any other all year. Its a momentous feeling. I know my children are young enough that they're pretty impervious to time, days of the week, and even months. They only know what we tell them to prepare for and live blissfully in the moment, enjoying the security of routine yet finding the joy in the everyday. Chesterton reemphasizes the importance on saving all the presents, and secretly purchasing the needs of Christmas to make things special.To wake up and have a day so filled with magic, lights, and yes, presents, must seem amazingly out of the blue to them. What a great way of expressing the goal of our Advent preparation, even for us cynical adults who are inundated with Christmas "music" blaring in every store from the middle of November.

Although Chesterton was a brilliant man, he most definitely was not a mother in charge of the household celebrations and preparations for Christmas. In other words, although this advice is completely apt and insightful, it seems pretty far from reality to today's mom who has a huge list of preparations for the big day in order to make a magical Christmas for everyone. I think its a challenging part of life to be a mother and still cultivate an atmosphere in oneself that accommodates the true excitement and celebration of Christmas, while also cultivating the quiet Advent preparation for our Saviour's birth. It requires tough decisions to balance this truth. Saying no to too many Christmas parties before Christmas, too much shopping, too much noise, too many toys for the kids and maybe simplifying travel, cooking, and decorating. To be a mom and wake up on Christmas day surprised that such a miraculous day has sprung out the would be a modern day miracle, but cultivating a quiet during Advent in an effort to acknowledge the joy of Christmas can be more attainable in small steps and might bring us closer to that same moment of amazement. 

But as we should reign in pre-Christmas celebrating, Chesterton warns us to not go to far in the opposite extreme and disregard the essential Christmas traditions we love:

"Of course, all this secrecy about Christmas is merely sentimental and ceremonial; if you do not like what is sentimental and ceremonial, do not celebrate Christmas at all"

Now I don't believe Chesterton is saying that Christmas itself, the birth of Christ and the celebration of the Incarnation, is in any way sentimental, but the festivities and how we celebrate the occasion with all our favourite Christmas trappings is sentimental and ceremonial. I think today many people confuse the season by thinking the practice of Advent, or the secrecy, to be needless and sentimental in a religious way. But in shunning Advent they really shun the practices of Christmas. At the same time Chesterton chides the ever-present Scrooge's who say Christmas is just needless sentimental tradition   and that these people shouldn't celebrate Christmas at all.

Chesterton's greatest piece of advice however, comes in challenging our modern society in its eschewing of Christianity and Christ yet still maintaining the outward acknowledgement and pageantry of Christmas which in effect just makes Christmas boring by deriding it of any real meaning: 

"There is no mark of the immense weak-mindedness of modernity that is more striking than this general disposition to keep up old forms, but to keep them up informally and feebly. Why take something which was only meant to be respectful and preserve it disresepctfully? Why take something which you could easily abolish as a superstition and carefully perpetuate it as a bore?"

This was written about 100 years ago yet is completely visible in today's society. Isn't society without Christ, without faith, perpetuating Christmas to only make it boring? Doesn't our culture make Christmas just another excuse to shop, consume, entertain ourselves?  Our society has taken the good human inclination towards sentimentality and ceremony that should be properly placed at Christmas to a completely disordered place of needless buying, endless noise, and constant entertainment; all of which is done by a society that shuns the person of Christ, the real reason for the season. 

But do not be discouraged by our popular society and culture. Chesterton is never dire when issuing these warnings about modern thinking; he never leaves the mind hopeless. He is imploring us to simply not be indifferent to the Christmas season and Advent. We need to actively participate in the season, prepare our hearts, and order our lives towards the real meaning of Christmas, and to celebrate with joy. The proper celebration of Advent and Christmas will not only bring ourselves and families joy, but will also shine Christ's light in our modern culture.

What I Wore Sunday x4

Hi lovely readers of Fine Linen and Purple! Thanks for dropping in, and I hope everyones having a great Advent!

We had Mass on a Sunday! Totally throwing off our schedule, and making all the kids extra cranky and my hair extra not done. 

Without further ado heres the much ado about not so much outfit for this week:

Still holding on to the drape-y preggo camouflage as you can see. We woke to a toasty temperature of -29 so it was most definitely sweater weather. And this "sweater" is all crazy and roomy, I could hide all kinds of babies under this thing! 

But major downer-fully resorting to leggings for Mass. Which saddens me. I miss wearing skirts, and I feel pretty scandalous only wearing leggings, but such is preggo life! 

I don't know if its coincidence or not, but ever since I started posting on What I Wore Sunday its become progressively colder each weekend...I hope this isn't the key to our ridiculous weather or else this blog business is over.

My modelling skills have also gotten progressively worse as the weeks have gone on too.

And here's a closeup of my necklace:

Its a faux quartz/agate necklace from Etsy, a shop I'll have to track down. I like the looks, and its not heavy like a real one would be, but still hurts the baby enough to pass as legit. I know, I know, I should only be wearing teething friendly necklaces...yuck!

Well, that's it for me, I'm going to spend the rest of the day hibernating in the house and refusing to go out of doors yet again. Everyone pray I beat the husband in our fantasy football league or I'll never hear the end of it!