Crazy busy, crazy fun weekend.

We packed so much fun into the weekend that when I was writing it all in my planner I started to wonder if I am truly going nuts. The jury is still out. Okay, not really, I think we all know the answer to that question, ha! Harper was back at the doctor last week with brochiolitis where the awesome word hospitalization was brought up, but thankfully (THANKFULLY!!!) the breathing treatments started working better and her lungs improved before we got to that point. Friday we were able to keep our plans. We loaded up and headed to a Christmas tree farm nearby so we could cut down our own tree. Rick and I go back and forth between artificial and real trees. We both love the idea of real ones; the amazing smell of pine, the experience of picking one out, and the natural beauty of them. However, they are messy and a fire hazard and not really cost effective, so instead of going that route for our main tree we decided to go get a real baby-sized tree for the kids to put our advent ornaments on.

We had SUCH a fun time! I remember going with my dad and uncle and cousins to cut down our tree when I was a little kid and I thought it would be fun for the kids to do as well. They weren't super excited about walking around in fields of trees (Harrison kept asking where the toy section was, ha) but the overall experience was awesome. They had free hot cocoa and apple cider, a hayride wagon that took you to and from the different tree fields, and even a playground for the kiddos.

And a funny story about this next picture:  Rick had to give Harrison a spanking for running away and not listening when we called for him to come back (read: he looked at us and ran in the opposite direction {looking for the toy section, aka playground} and Rick had to chase him down). He came running back crying and Harper went up to him and gave him a big hug to comfort him. Seriously, how sweet is this?

After the tree farm, we headed to a Christmas party at the kids' school. We stayed for approximately 8 minutes because a certain little boy was not behaving very well. But we did get to see Santa at least. Harper was not too keen on the idea of sitting on his lap, but Harrison jumped right up and quickly informed him that he would love to have a guitar and a microphone and a rocket.

Santa = woo hooooo!

He tried to bribe her with a candy cane but no luck.

And then after their Christmas party I headed to another one. I'm a party animal, I'm telling ya. This one was an ornament exchange for the advent ornaments I mentioned up there. I'm so glad I was able to participate because I think this will bless our family for years to come. My friend Jaime coordinated 24 ladies to each make 24 of the same ornament that she assigned to us, and then we got together at this party to exchange them so we all left with 24 different ornaments. The name of the devotional we are using is A Meaningful Christmas and each night beginning December 1 through Christmas Eve there is a passage to read from the Bible that relates to that night's ornament. Some days Harrison is really interested...but if I'm keeping it real I'll admit that one day I found myself scolding both of them to be quiet and sit still and focus because for the love of God I am trying to teach you about Jesus!!!!  Which resulted in both of them crying because I yelled at them and in that moment I officially won my badge for Awesome Mom of the Year. Ha! But as they grow up I know that this will be an awesome tradition that helps reinforce that Jesus is truly the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Here are our ornaments. I made the the donkey in the middle row.

Saturday was full of parties as well. We headed over to Zion's birthday party in the morning and then Harrison had his birthday party that afternoon. I will have to dedicate a separate post to his party since there were approximately 286 photos taken, but I will say that according to Harrison, it was a dashing success. He got his much coveted "gee-tar without eyes" (the guitar he had before was a plastic baby guitar that looks like a puppy, hence the "eyes" comment) and "a microphone with a holder." He is in heaven, let me tell you.

He was also in heaven when he got these beaters in his hands. He told me, "You are such a nice mommy for letting me bake cake with you!" :)

Sunday was Harrison's actual birthday. As his birthday tradition, I let him pick out his own outfit head to toe completely by himself. Which causes a lot of twitching on my part, but since it was his birthday I let it go. He wanted to go to Whataburger (shocking) for breakfast before church and then for lunch we treated him to Chuck E Cheese. It was even more fun since Joel and Ashley were with us!

Birthday boy!

I'm three!

Breakfast of champions

Happiness.

Such a daddy's girl

When we got back from Chuck-E-Cheese, the birthday boy was very excited to discover that our elf arrived from the North Pole and had decorated the living room while we were gone! We read the book and I threw out about 10 names that I liked for the elf...but my son is a control freak too and shot them all down. Then he firmly declared that our elf's name is Chip. I assumed it was because the elf in the movie is named "Chippy" but he informed me that it was because he really likes to eat chips. Ha! He even gave Chip a last name. And all I can say is I am so proud of my son. Are you ready? His name is officially "Chip Chesney." Ha ha!

He proceeded to serenade Chip

We left that afternoon for Santa's Wonderland outside of College Station. We had never been before but it was really neat! They have TONS of Christmas light displays that you can take a hayride tour through as well as an old-timey town square with live Christmas carols, cute shops, a giant outdoor movie screen, and Santa's workshop. My favorite was the fake snow. I'm pretty sure it will be quite a while before my kids are able to see the real stuff so I'll take what I can get until then.

Sunday night as I was climbing into bed I remembered I was supposed to bring cupcakes to Harrison's school the next morning. So I stayed up entirely too late baking them...and then the next morning I didn't realize the seat warmer was on in my car and all of the icing melted and slid off the cupcakes into a giant heaping mess. And then Harrison grabbed them and turned the container upside down so they were in even worse shape. I'm sure his teachers really appreciated me dropping those disasters off! Oh well, what are you gonna do? Lesson learned.

Proof that they one time looked presentable.

It was a super busy and fun weekend but we are being forced to slow down today. Harrison woke up at 5am and then proceeded to throw up every 15 minutes for the next several hours. He is so lethargic and pale and not acting like himself at all...every time he's been sick in the past it barely fazes him. He wouldn't even look up at me or talk to me but when he started crying and saying "my heart is going bump-bump" and "my face won't stop bleeding" (it wasn't) I started to get worried. His heart rate was up to 130 so I called his doctor, especially since we were just there yesterday for his well-visit and flu shot and I thought that maybe it could be a bad reaction to that. They told me to bring him in and thankfully by the time we got there his heart rate was back down to 90-100. I guess it's just a really bad stomach bug that's hitting him exceptionally hard. I'm praying that he feels better soon and that nobody else catches it...December is too busy for all this sickness. Good thing I'm not keeping track because if I was I'd know that we've paid 5 doctor copays in SEVEN DAYS as well as one pharmacy visit totaling $400.66. But good thing I'm not keeping track.

Visiting their home away from home yesterday.

What a difference a day makes. My poor baby.