So how many of us know Phineas and Ferb?  I do! I do! I do!

Actually I may like the show as much if not more than the boys do. It reminds me of the awesome cartoons that I used  to watch as a kid. BTW, total disney freak. Loved Darkwing Duck, Duck Tales, Tale Spin, Chip  & Dale Rescue Rangers, TMNT (the original cartoon series), GI Joe, etc.....

So when these new cartoons started coming on, well, I just couldn't stand them. Until Phineas and Ferb. I love Candace and I actually really love Dr. D and all the songs.

Harrison and  Dev decided  that they both wanted Phineas and Ferb birthday parties, but definitely not the same party. So Harrison had  Phineas and Ferb, Devlin had an Agent P party, but being as I decided to have his party 3 days before Christmas, I did not go all out like I usually do. I did make some pretty awesome birthday invites, and we had cookies for our goodie bags, and a neopolitan birthday cake. :)

I googled some birthday invite ideas and this is what I came up with:
It was pretty simple and I could fit 2 of these invites on a 4x6 photo, so it was pretty cost effective to print out as well.

Then it was time to make the cookies for the goodie bags.
 I used a box sugar cookie mix and just made a whole bunch of circle sugar cookies that I then decorated with royal icing. I think they turned out pretty well. :)
The cake was another matter. Dev wanted neopolitan cupcakes for his class when I brought in cupcakes, well I had enough batter left over from those that I was able to get a cake out of it as well.
I know that it says, Happy Dev, but when we brought out the cake at the party, we had a candle that said 7, so it really said Happy 7, Dev!  Hey, it works in a half-ass kind of way.

The  cake was gobbled up and really that's all that matters.

Here are some pictures of things we saw on Dev's actual birthday. The boy wanted to head back to the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian, so that where we spent the day.
 These are butterflies from the live butterfly exhibit in the insect wing.
 that's a big mammoth from the ice age exhibit
There's Dana with the boys in front of a triceratops skeleton!

I'll be back with more stuff that we did on Christmas break later!

PHEW!!!!!!!

Christmas took a whole bunch out of me. I got a crap ton of things made and I will be sharing, but first - I kind of need photos of everything I made, durn it! I knew I forgot something.

Then New Year's. Oh lord did New Year's take a toll on the family. We're finally recovering from a nasty cold that hit the family New Year's Day. So much fun.

Then there were the round of appointments. Eye doctors. Nutritionist and our GP. Luckily, everyone has a clean bill of health, even if the boys were angry most of yesterday evening at me, because  I opted to have them get flu shots. You'd have thought I was killing them - for over 2 hours - yesterday with all the racket and complaining they did.

So I'm going to share stats on my guys, cause I can. I'm their  mom and its my blog and I can gloat and brag a little if I want to. :) My big guy turned 7 on the 27th and I just can't believe  it. He's 7!!! Where the heck  has time gone??? Anyways, so here are the stats.

Harrison is a whopping 41" tall and finally weighing in at 32.2 pounds. He's 91% for height, but had been 17% for weight, and the nutritionist visitor. We can't get him to gain weight. He weighs what he did at 2. He's grown, a lot, but he's just getting skinnier. I can see that he's starting to chunk out in places which is good, but we've got to stay on him about getting the good fatty calories in him.

Devlin, on the other hand, is still huge. He came into the world huge and he's still  that way. Although, I don't have an accurate height measurement on him because he won't stand up straight when it comes time to get measured. We had his cardiologist appointment back in the middle of December, and all checked out. He's got a murmur back, but the Doc said that it was an innocent one. It was just turbulence in his heart because its still growing. The membrane is still stretched across his left atrium, right above the mytrial valve, but its only about the width of floss. So nothing to do about it, but still monitor it. So he's weighing in at 67 pounds, but at the card. appointment he was 51" and yesterday at his well child he was 52". I seriously doubt he grew a full inch in 3 weeks, and we'd have a better number for his height if he'd had his heels against the wall and was standing up straight. So he's 94% for weight and 97% for height. We're finally not off the charts!

Here are the boys and Dana at the Natural History Museum on Dev's birthday. Love the whole bunch of them!!!!

Wow, funny how time flies when you have a GAgillion things to do. Luckily, I am now on the home stretch. I've only got 2 gifts left to make up and they're not hard. I have a dress to make for myself, because all the girls decided that this Xmas Eve we're getting gussied up! So really, I have whittled away at my plate of things to do, and now its time to show off the trees of the house!

I'll start with the kids tree. Its up on our balcony and shines through the top most center window of the house.
 This year, I put the kids' ornaments all on the white tree, and I love how colorful and bright this baby is!
 These are some vintage ornaments that Mom gave me from family down in FL. I love how pretty they are. I don't like how delicate they are, but the boys know not to touch Mommy's trees!
 Here are the melted crayon ornaments that the kids and I made earlier this year. I really love how fun they were to make.
 
 These are a a couple more ornaments I made. The green one is just beaded garland that I glued to a styrafoam ball and the sequin one was easy to do, but long on time to complete. Never making the sequin one again......

Now lets take a quick stop in the boys' room to show off their two little trees. Harrison so very kindly took this picture for me.
Not much changed this year on those trees. The boys have gone to sleep for the past month looking at them though. :)

Now down to the dining room. Have I mentioned lately how much I love the purple in this room? I love the red accents, and I love the new silver and gold scheme for the Christmas decor!
I went for streamlined with the stuff on the buffet. I haven't decided if I'm going to use it for Christmas Eve dinner, so I figured I better not clutter it up!
 The chandy needed some love this year too. Love shatterproof ornaments!
So there's the tree with lights and the flash on. She's all silver, gold and white, and I am in love with her!

 Here are some of the ornaments from last year. Still love them!

 Here's my helper, at least one of them. I can't pull out the camera without him wanting his picture taken. Such a ham!
 Here's the tree all lit up at night. I love the soft glow she produces (she could use a few more lights though!)

On to the family room tree! Love this room!!! This year has been different than past years, because I actually edited and threw away ornaments. Change is good!

 The paper pinecone was a freebie from Silhouette awhile back, and the paper stars from an earlier post.

 Here's the tree in all her glowing glory. She got new lights this year. Big circle bulbs that are amazingly bright!

Here's the mantle. Love the simplicity of the mantle this year! I'm also super excited about stuffing those stockings!

 Here's the sofa table. Still nice and simple. Oh and some new chalkboard art. I had a lot of fun making all of chalkboard art.



 And our message center all decked out with a tinsel wreath, some cards, the advent calendar and some art from the big guy. Kind of chaotic, just like we usually are. :)

Don't worry guys we're almost at the end of this picture-laden post. There's only one more tree to showcase.
The Big Guy!
For some reason this tree looks not quite right. I even added ornaments. I think it needs a bigger garland. Oh well, I always need projects for next year.

 The other side of the room has got the stockings and some small decor stuff. The room is not very big, so cramming all of this stuff plus the extra furniture takes some doing.

 This is another vintage ornament from the stash my mom gave me. Love the patina on it!

I almost forgot! There is one more tree!
I hung one of my small trees upside down from the kitchen chandy! Love!!!!!

Ok so that's the house, and I am now going to bid all of you adieu until sometime after Christmas. I'll be sharing the big guy's birthday party! And some of the things I created for gifts!

See you guys later!