Merry Christmas From the Mueller Family!

A very Merry Christmas from the Mueller Family!

This is our card that we sent out this year (Aussie friends, yours will be on their way soon :). I just loved how it turned out!

We will be traveling today so I'm posting this early. We'll be home on Christmas day to open our Santa presents here but I know how busy the boys will be keeping us :).

Lots of love to you all!

Christmas Ornaments For Caroline ~ 2011

Last year I did a post about ornaments that I had started to collect for our sweet Caroline. That one simple post took me all day to write and I swear I cried buckets of tears. Looking back now at that post and re-reading it I realized how therapeutic it was. I needed to go out and find those ornaments, hang them on our tree, take the pictures, and post the words that my mothers heart told me to. All of it stung. All of it still felt like I was living in a nightmare. But, I still needed to do it. I'm soo thankful that I did. I was able to start a little something that is special just for her.

This year as it neared my Caroline's birthday (October 15th) I began to get that anxious, panic-y feel. On one particularly bad day I asked Graham if he was up for a little retail therapy (thank God my boy loves to shop!) and we headed out to Hobby Lobby. Despite the earliness of the season, I knew that Hobby Lobby would have most of their ornaments already out. I was right!

Graham and I went up and down each isle picking out ornaments for each family member. I loved the one above and picked one out for each of us. I ended up the crazy lady at the check-out with 3 identical "G" ones :). Of course Caroline had to have one to match ours. I was delighted to discover that out of all they had there they only had 1 "C" one and I got it!!

While Graham was picking out ones for himself and his little brothers I noticed an entire section of nothing but pink ornaments. For a brief moment I was drawn to those but then just couldn't do it. I could feel myself starting to get really choked up and I couldn't look at them with out really embarrassing myself and Graham. In that moment I realized that I wasn't quite ready yet to take that step. Funny how just one color can mean soo much.

Walking down the next isle I was drawn to the above ornament. It was perfect! It was brightly colored and had my favorite word on it!! This would be Caroline's other ornament for the year!  This shimmery ornament with the bright lime green ribbon just had to be for her. I decided then that every year I would get her several ornaments special just to her and that at least one of them would have to say "HOPE". It will forever be my word to remind me of just how lucky I am to be Caroline's Momma. It also reminds me of just how powerful our God is and the promise that he holds for each one of us.

A School Party, A Christmas Program, Dry Ice and Frozen Meat

(And a partridge in a pear tree...) :)

We have just had soo much stuff going on around here!

Poor Griffin just sounds soo horrible at night now. He coughs and gags and just generally sounds like he's having a very hard time breathing. It is still pretty much only during the night though. I seriously can't figure that out... Last night I tried several times to suction out his nose with one of those bulb-y things and nothing. What the heck?? Its there and I can hear it. Why won't it come out so my poor child will feel better! I plan on catching what it sounds like on my phone when I take him to the doctor in a couple of days so she can hear it too and tell me what the heck is going on. I ended up elevating his pack-n-play in the middle of the night last night per my SIL Melanie's suggestion. It did help some!

Graham had the funnest school Christmas play the other day! It was just for the 3rd graders and it was super cute. It was called The Reindeer Whisperer. The music teacher had simple little costumes for the kids to wear and they all did a great job!

My nephew Colton and Graham. They both did a really great job! Colton was Herbie the elf and got to keep saying "I want to be a dentist" which cracked everyone up!

The other day Bobby got a large box in the mail. I was super curious and he said that I could go ahead and open it for him. Guess what I found inside... his Christmas bonus!



Cash would have been better but I'll take free steak any day of the week!

It came packaged in this stuff...

Once I told the boys what it was and what we could do with it they were over the moon!

We didn't get too crazy with it though. I warned them like 400 times that dry ice was pretty dangerous despite the fun sounding name. We put the dry ice into a bowl of water and watched it bubble and fill part of the kitchen with "smoke". :) The boys were pretty impressed and we were all entertained for a while!

On Friday Graham had his class Christmas party and book exchange. The kids all got to eat pizza in their classroom and then decorate a cookie. I was pretty excited to be able to run up there and see Graham. We both had a lot of fun together.

Graham is front and center right in the middle. :)

Time for the book exchange!

Graham's super sweet teacher reading to the kids. Every time she said "Santa" while she read the book the kids had to pass the wrapped book in their hands to the kid on the right. She said "Santa" soo many times that it had the kids just about rolling on the floor with laughter! We are soo thankful for this wonderful lady!

Graham has off this week and next from school. I can't wait to see what all trouble fun we can get ourselves into!

Born Natural

Thank God he does this with some crazy ease so Momma can get dinner on the table!! I can not wait to see him as a Daddy!

Adventures in Mommahood

• Lefty is still killing me. This morning I was sooo tired and in pain that I would take a sip of my hot coffee and then press the side of the hot coffee mug up against Lefty to get a little relief... gross but true. Why oh why must one clogged gland make me feel like I have the flu!!

• Griffin (I think) is getting his first cold. Last night he woke up at 12:30, 2:30, and 4:30 crying and choking on what I'm guessing is mucous. I could hear it in his throat when I went to pick him up out of bed. Poor little guy he sounds miserable. It was a blessing in disguise I guess because I was able to nurse him on Lefty every time he woke up instead of him (and me) going all night without a feeding.





Sleeping on Daddy is just the best! He's so warm and soft! I sleep pretty dang good next to him too :).


• Graham has a school play tonight and I'm super excited! Bobby is actually taking off of work early to make it in time and we all can't wait for that! He will be elf in it and I can't wait to do a blog post to show off my boy!





Graham is the best baby holder! Also, I have to mention just for my own memories sake, the outfit that Griffin is wearing in this picture used to be Grahams! I love it!


• Speaking of Graham (and something that I've never divulged here before), his school testing is almost complete to find out if he has learning disabilities! We are 99.9 % sure that he does just not which ones. Any readers out there that have a kiddo with LD please leave me a comment! Even you lurkers... :) Oddly enough, this is also something that we are excited about because we have been begging his school district to test him since Kinder. GRRR...





Griffin says "Thanks for my soft, comfy outfit Kerry!"


• Griffin has learned how to bounce himself in his bouncy seat!! He finally figured out that if he kicked his legs up and down then it gets him bouncing. He loves it and entertains him soo well. My dishwasher that got unloaded thanks him. :)



And yet another random picture...my middle "baby" Grady. We had such a fun time the other day cutting snowflakes! (also another post coming up soon)



My Breast Friend

Good old lefty. She was always there when I needed her. She was the best producer of the two and I could always count on her to supply enough for my little ones whenever they were hungry. I was soo proud!

Not so much anymore.

Last night around 1 AM Lefty let me down in the most horrible way possible. Lefty got plugged up and then Lefty proceeded to get an infection. I went from waking up at 1 AM in a little bit of pain to getting into a hot hot shower by 2 AM, then onto the living room to try and pump (Griffin was sacked out cold and there was no way in HECK I was going to purposely wake him up). By 2:30 ish I was in pain past the point of me baring it. I took my temperature and it was 99.7. I knew that there was something bad going on in my chest. I woke Bobby up when I started shivering and sweating uncontrollably. When he took my temperature at 3 AM it was 102.1. Crap.

We decided that it was time to call my OB's office and see if we should head to the ER or wait it out for the next morning and call for an appointment. Thanks be to God that it was my OB, Dr. Womack, that was on call! She called me right back and I told her what was going on. She said that it was up to us as to if we should wait for an appointment or head to the ER. She pretty much said what I knew all along. Pump and breastfeed as.much.as.possible. She also asked if we had any leftover antibiotics from any family member floating around our house. Sadly we didn't so I couldn't start on anything earlier rather than later.

Bobby and I barely survived the rest of the night. My fever spiked at 103.2 around 4 AM. I was just soo shocked that I went to bed just fine and hours later I felt like death warmed over.

My sweet hubby took Griffin and myself to my OB's office for a quick check and a prescription for antibiotics. Ugg. I'm feeling a little bit better now. I still feel like I'm fighting the flu though. I can't wait for my hubby to get home tonight so I can head back off to bed!

Christmas Home Tour ~ 2011

 Welcome to the Mueller Family Christmas home tour!

This is my AB-solutely favorite time of year! With more time and more money I don't think that I would stop decorating until well after Christmas and maybe past New Years even! :)

I love to put decorations on anything that will stand still and I'm trying to slowly but surely build up a Christmas collection of all my favorite things!

I am in LOVE with collecting blue ornaments! Every year I try to buy 4 or 5 more to add to my collection. I hope that one day I can have a solid blue tree. Right now though, it is still a bit mish-mashy. I have 2 little helpers that love to decorate too so my "dream tree" plans are put on hold for just a few more years... :).

My other favorite thing to collect are Jim Shore Santa's. They are a bit on the pricey side so I only add 1 each year.



These are 4 of the 5 that I have so far. Isn't he a handsome gentleman? :)



We also love to keep little tubs of books around for the kids to grab and read. We must read one Christmas story or another 15 times a day now! That's ok though, I'm pretty in love with the magic of the season myself!

The only thing that I miss doing is having a lighted tree in our front window that can be enjoyed by others as they drive by. The way that our house is situated our dining room is the front room of the house and we don't like to keep our tree in there. We usually keep our tree in our family room area where it can be enjoyed the most. I'm thinking that this year I may need to make a run to Hobby Lobby after Christmas to see if I can pick up an artificial one for my dining room!



Our Family Room!



The front door and other little nooks and crannies I found to decorate!



This is one of the most precious places in our house to me! Its on the right hand side of our mantle. In the middle is our precious angel Caroline's little urn. I was super excited to find a pink "M" picture frame holder that I put my 3 boys Christmas picture in. I like to think that I have at least one place where all my babies are together!





Our downstairs bathroom was not safe from me either. Funnily enough, there is soo much more in this little tiny bathroom but I couldn't capture all of it with one camera shot!

Our dining room buffet area. I love to look at my Santas when I walk in the door!

Our dining room table. I found the Christmas tree centerpiece this year and love it but I still feel like the table needs more but can't figure out what!

I hope that you all enjoyed this year's Christmas time tour!