I’m going on five straight days without a steady source of oxygen thanks to a very congested head, so if this sounds grammatically terrible (couldn’t resist), please forgive me.

This is usually the time of year when I have approximately three people on my ever-growing Christmas list shopped for, bought for or even an idea for. And a lot of the time, it’s the idea that shoots me before I even start. What should I get this person? How much should I spend? What is the true meaning of Christmas? What material is Linus’ blanket made out of because my gracious is he ever attached to it and maybe that’s the best Christmas gift for a child?

Anyways.

I present the Friday Favorites Gift Edition. Sort of like my normal (or irregular) Friday Favorites, only this time, I’m going to write down some of the things I’ve seen recently that I thought would make great gifts. And nope, I’m not making any kind of kickbacks or semi-salary or anything off of this. You may or may not agree with me on my picks. Which is why there is a comments section, so you can add YOUR great gift ideas. And may all your Christmases be white.

Puffs Plus Lotion and Simply Orange Juice

I’m only a little bit kidding. Mom brought both of these yesterday over to my house and I would have hugged her had I been less grateful, but as it was, I merely waved a contagious hand and croaked a “thank you”.

E-Z Charge Jump Start System

As a general rule, I am completely, totally, 100,000,000% against anything that looks, acts like, smells similar to or resembles an appliance for a Christmas gift. This, however, is pretty cool. And something that could really come in handy if you have a car who tends who have something of a little Grinchy personality this time of year. No need to raise the hoods? (This saves me an infinite amount of time looking for the hood popper lever dealie thing.) No need to worry about where to hook oversized tweezer looking things? (Again. Infinite amounts of time saved here.) To me, it is a great idea.

Perpetual Kid.com

Let’s say that you are on a plane and you own an iPhone. And you’re thinking, while on the plane, “hey! It would be great to watch a movie on my iPhone.” So, you get a movie going and while you’re sitting there holding your phone, your hand starts to cramp up. And you think, “sheesh! I really need like a mini plunger or something to hold my phone up!”

Well guys. Perpetualkid.com has mini plungers to prop up iPhones. Called iPlunge. And if they have iPlungers, they have a million other things. Honestly, this might be my one-stop shop for my brothers this year. 😉

Cedarmont Kids DVDs

I have talked about these before, but I really have a love/hate relationship with this DVD. On the one hand, it is THE ONLY THING that keeps Nathan completely entertained, as in, he’s not watching it for twenty-six seconds before coming to find me. That means I have actually been able to take complete showers during his awake time while this movie is on. The hate part comes in when you start hearing, “Who built the Ark? NOAH! NOAH!” when the DVD isn’t even playing. I keep telling myself the shower is worth it. And Nathan has started to mimic the kids on the screen. Which just makes me laugh. So, I’m clean and I’m laughing. This would be a great gift for toddlers with parents.

(That did not make very much sense. But I am coughing again and too lazy to go fix it.)

Woodwick Candles

I got a set of these last year for Christmas and guys, they are STILL burning to this day! (Not continuously. I am a responsible candle burner. But I do light them frequently.) If you’ve never seen or heard of Woodwick candles, go find a set. Not only do they keep their scent all the way to the end of the candle, they also make this amazing, ambiance-ish crackling sound like a little mini fire on your mantle. I am all about little mini fires that smell like cinnamon lattes. I have asked for another set this year for Christmas.

Magnetic Nail Polish

I heard about this on the radio before I actual saw it. Which sounds like I was listening to my favorite radio drama and filling out secret decoder spy messages sponsored by Ovaltine, but in all actuality, Jon was listening to a football game in the car and I happened to start paying attention when the commercials came on.

(It is terribly hard to pay attention to a football game on the radio when Nathan is sitting in the backseat holding his hands above his head and yelling “FUTE-BAWL!!” at the top of his voice every .04 seconds.)

But really, this stuff is very cool. And would make a really unique stocking stuffer.

Starbucks Via Ready Brew

DISCLAIMER: I have not actually tried these yet. However, I have it on good authority (my gorgeous barista sister), that these are actually very good and actually taste like freshly brewed coffee compared to normal instant coffee that actually tastes like something that could maybe be a very distant cousin from the coffee bean. And while I’m all about family around the holidays, very distant cousins tend to just cause more confusion than add real flavor to any conversation.

(There was a whole lot of actuallys, similes and awkwardness in that paragraph, but once again, I’m too lazy to fix it.)

Anyway. I could see these being a great way to get a little pick me up when you need a little boost after your child’s nap time is over. And is there really a better gift than coffee the second you want it?

Hallmark Recordable Storybooks

My grandmother did one of these for Nathan last Christmas and then my in-laws made another book for him for his birthday. And let me tell you – he LOVES them! He’s always walking in his room, plopping down on the floor and opening them up to be read to. It can be a little creepy though to be folding laundry in my room and suddenly hear, “HI NATHAN!” over the monitor.

Very creepy. But very cool. Especially if you’ve got family who lives out of town.

Photojojo Camera Mug

We gave this to my sister-in-law last year for Christmas and if her happy gasps and “NO WAY!” were any indication, I think she loved it. This site has a lot of fun, unique ideas for a photographer in your life. Or if you know someone who just likes cameras. Which would be weird if they weren’t a photographer.

Paper Coterie Recipe Book

These can get pricey quick, but if you have some family recipes and you’ve been wanting to find a neat gift idea for your mom or grandma or maybe even a new sister-in-law, I think this would be a really neat present. You can add in all your own pictures, change up all the layouts and the fonts and completely personalize it. And – word of the wise – they frequently offer discounts or great deals to the people who have signed up to receive their emails, so get on their list and get designing!

Roku Player

By this point in the list, you may be saying something like this: “Erynn, there are gifts for clueless drivers, thirsty photographers and bored children, but there isn’t one single idea for my dad!” Well, if your dad is anything like MY dad, he’s extremely hard to shop for.

I have the answer. Unless your dad already has this, in which case, I don’t have the answer. My parents gave us a Roku player a little while ago and since then, we canceled our cable, because we started watching the Roku WAY more than TV. Basically, the Roku can play Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Direct movies, etc. There’s even a Pandora channel, which is wonderful. Couple the Roku with a month of Netflix and you’ve got yourself a great gift. Couple yourself with a sibling or two and it’s even more decently priced. 🙂

Zoo Membership

This might depend on where you live and what your zoo is like, but Nathan and I LOVE our zoo and a few of my friends ask for memberships to it for Christmas. I think an annual membership to our zoo is $60, which to me was very reasonable considering we go there on a bi-weekly – sometimes weekly – basis in the spring, summer and fall. Gotta check up on Nathan’s little monkey friend, you know. 😉 Plus, it’s a great way to get outside and get some exercise while still keeping Nathan contained and entertained.

And I’m all about contained and entertained. This would be a great gift for a mom of young kids on your list.

Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Bar

You know how there’s always that neighbor/relative/friend/acquaintance/work friend of your husband’s who comes by around Christmas with a gift and you never have anything to give them back? Well, this year, I discovered my favorite thing in the whole wide world: Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Bars. Jon and I have eaten a very unhealthy number of these over the last eight months since I found them. I plan to keep a stash around just in case someone comes by who I wasn’t necessarily expecting to need a gift for.

The Jesus Storybook Bible

I have talked about this MANY times on this blog and I’ll say it again: BEST children’s story Bible on the market. The VERY best. And I’ve read a lot of them! It doesn’t rhyme, it clearly shows how the Old Testament always pointed straight to Jesus and I think it does the best job of laying out the gospel on every page. I love it, love it, love it. I’ve nearly memorized it, I’ve read it so often to Nathan. But I’ll keep reading it until he can read it himself. 🙂 Get this book. You won’t regret it.

Amazon Gift Card

When all else fails, Amazon has everything you could ever want, need or imagine. Throw in a subscription for a year of a Prime membership (free two-day shipping) and you’ll be the best loved person in the room. Promise. 😉

Okay! Those are my ideas! If I think of anymore, I’ll post them up next week. Til then, happy shopping, watch out for holiday traffic and do take some minutes to sit by the tree with your Bible open while the rest of the house is quiet. 🙂

What are your Christmas gift ideas?

Yesterday was Jon’s birthday and let me tell you – I felt bad for the poor man.

To start, both Nathan and I have bad colds this week. His started a little earlier than mine, so he’s doing okay now, but I’m still all congested, coughing and generally just NOT feeling well.

We are a pitiful mess.

So, Jon got home yesterday to a wife who won’t kiss him because she’s afraid to get him sick and a grouchy kid who didn’t nap well. We did have a few presents for him. Nathan had to help him unwrap. And since we weren’t feeling well, we decided to make dinner at home and go out for a birthday dinner sometime this weekend.

I honestly tried really hard to make it nice. I found a Bertolli frozen dinner that sounded up Jon’s alley so I wouldn’t be breathing all over something homemade, I sauteed asparagus in brown butter and garlic, I made a Pillsbury French bread loaf that I only touched after washing my hands and rubbing Purell all over them. I even had Jon’s favorite red wine and poured us glasses to go with dinner. You know – all fancy and Italian-like.

So, right as our dinner was ready, Jon reached in to get Tuesday night’s pizza box to reheat a slice up for Nathan and knocked the half-filled bottle of red wine all over the kitchen floor, shattering the bottle. It took us about fifteen minutes to get all the wine up and sweep up all the shards, maybe longer because it spilled right by the fridge, so we had to clean under there too. Meanwhile, Nathan was already in his highchair and he reached over (right as we finished cleaning, of course) and grabbed my placemat, sending my glass of wine and my glass of water all over the wall and the floor.

By this time, the bread was on the burned side, the asparagus (asparaguses? asparageese?) were pretty charred and Nathan was screaming.

Happy Birthday, Jon.

So, we finally ate dinner and we decided to do the cake part with Nathan. We (I) sang a croaky Happy Birthday, Jon blew out his candles and then Nathan had a slice of cake before bed. I lost my voice by about 8:30PM.

And I realized this morning that Jon never got a piece of cake.

🙁

Mark this year down as a fail. I’m so sorry, honey. We’ll make it up this weekend by going someplace REALLY nice.

On the plus side, Nathan and I watched Tangled yesterday while Jon was working and I was laying on the couch coughing. It is cute. I recommend it. I don’t recommend keeping red wine anywhere near a 16-month-old, however.

Both Nathan and I are sick today. He’s been fighting some bug since Thanksgiving and I think I caught something while out in California too.

So, we’ve been spending a lot of time in our jammies watching Christmas movies and drinking orange juice.

Today, though, he was just being a little spitfire and I decided we needed some sort of activity to make it to nap time. Ha! I’d seen these salt dough handprint ornaments on Pinterest and thought they were just adorable, so we mixed up a small batch today. Pardon the DISASTER my kitchen is in – I finally had a few minutes to clean up while he was eating lunch.

I cut the recipe down quite a bit, but this is what I came up with and it seemed to work great! We had a TON of dough leftover, so we made a few extra ornaments. Nathan was very excited to “help” me. 🙂

Salt Dough Ornaments:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
Water (I think I probably added a little over 1/3 cup – I just added until the consistency was right)

Knead for a few minutes and then roll out on a floured surface. Cut out ornaments, then bake at 300 degrees for 20ish minutes.

He had SO much fun! All I need to do now is go get some sealer so I can paint it and hang it up!

He’s at such a fun/exhausting age right now! A few things I want to remember:

* He has had a language EXPLOSION lately! He can say “Mommy” and “Dad” very well. He calls his paci his “Baba”. Kody’s new name is “Dodo”, but occasionally he’ll call him “Dody”. His favorite word is “FUT-BAWL!” and he yells it at the top of his lungs. He tries to say everything, he just doesn’t always quite get it right. 😉

* I couldn’t find what I was looking for at a store one day so we left and I said, “Well, bummer kid.” He looked at me, grinned and said, “Bum-mer.”

* His new favorite thing to do is “houlp” (help). He wants to do whatever we are doing, whether that’s dishes or writing. My laptop has taken a beating lately.

Hope you all are staying well and warm!

We had a wonderful time in California with Jon’s side of the family for Thanksgiving! And – MIRACLE OF ALL MIRACLES – Nathan was a complete ANGEL on the plane on the way out there (the way home was not quite as good, but hey, I’ll take what I can get!). We took Band-Aids, stickers, little grow-your-own-zoo-animal sponges, coloring books, disgusting sticky frogs among other things. I had an entire bag packed just with plane toys.

We flew out there Tuesday night after Jon got off work and spent the night in Los Angeles at a hotel – which was the perfect thing to do. Jon’s parents live two hours away from the airport and we landed at Nathan’s bedtime. He was starting to become quite the grouch by the time we got off the shuttle at the hotel. A bath seemed to help.

He did discover that night, though, that he can now unlock my phone and take pictures. A few of the best ones I found later on my phone:

Jon’s parents picked us up Wednesday morning and we spent the rest of the day making pies, playing with cousins, visiting with family and discovering a whole house filled with new toys. Ha! 🙂

Thanksgiving Day was so much fun – and there was SO MUCH going on! Nathan ended up taking an early nap and then was able to join us for our late lunch feast. Then we spent the rest of the day eating pie, playing games and visiting.

Since we spent Thanksgiving with Jon’s family, we will be spending Christmas at home, so we went ahead and did our little Christmas gift exchange Friday night. The kids went crazy. It was so fun!

We got home yesterday. Tired and a lot heavier! Ha! I am so blessed to have a wonderful inlaw family!

Today, we put up Christmas decorations (YAY!) and then went to go see Gammy and Pops for a little bit. It’s also a certain husband of mine’s birthday coming up on Wednesday, so we celebrated in California, we celebrated today and we’ll celebrate again this week. GOODNESS. 🙂

What did you do for Thanksgiving??

I am thankful for SO MANY THINGS, but when all is said and done, when all is quiet at the end of the day, when the dishes have been washed, the laundry has been folded, the house has been cleaned, the errands have been run and the writing has been completed for the day… the things I’m thankful for are not things at all.

I have been blessed beyond measure!

What are you thankful for?

We have had a fun, busy weekend!! I saw this idea on Pinterest a little while ago – glow sticks in the bathtub! Nathan was a fan. 🙂

I have been trying to find everything I can to keep Nathan preoccupied on the plane during our holiday vacation this year! So, we had to run by the dollar section at Target. I think we found a good assortment of stuff – we came back with a bag full!

We had a great weekend! Friday night, my parents watched Nathan for us overnight. It was the first night I’d ever spent away from him and as weird as it was, it was SO nice. Thank you, Mom and Dad!! We ate dinner on the patio, we watched a late movie, we slept in and went out to a late breakfast. It was a perfect day. 🙂

We set up an air mattress in the living room to watch a movie on this weekend and I SO need to remember this on days when it’s too cold to play outside. He went ballistic on the mattress! Rolling, jumping, doing somersaults – ha! It was SO funny to watch!

Y’all know that I tend to be a little nuts about Christmas. So, of course we had to go ahead and pull out a few of the decorations this past weekend – especially since we’ll be with family over Thanksgiving and not able to do our normal Saturday-after-Thanksgiving setup.

I think my favorite part of this picture is the strip of tape on his shoulder. Ha! Setting up the tree was an adventure this year!

Someone found the box for the tree more interesting than the actual setting up. 🙂

The finished product!

SO SO SO excited that it is this time of year!! Bring on the snow, the hot chocolate, the Christmas carols and the excitement! 🙂

What are your favorite Christmas movies/music??

We’ve been having teething issues this week. Come on through, little tooth!

This just makes my whole day:

Right back at you, kid (and Jon)! 🙂

This week has been busy but busy in the sense that we did a lot but I don’t really remember what all we did. Ha! 🙂

Mostly, we’ve been getting ready for Thanksgiving/Christmas with the O’Brien side. I’ve been trying to think of different ways to keep Nathan occupied on the airplane this time, seeing as how the last time was SO HORRENDOUS. If anyone has any tips, please, I’m begging you!

Wednesday, we met our friend Jamie and her kids, Joel and Julia, at the zoo. So much fun! We were about the only people there, so Nathan got to get out and walk around instead of having to stay in the stroller. He had a blast with his cute little friends. 🙂

Thursday, Nathan was crying and whining and just generally acting not his normal, happy-go-lucky self. So, I got him all ready for an early nap and then realized his forehead was burning up. He was running a 102.5 fever! I gave him Tylenol and checked on him throughout the nap. He had a rough rest of the afternoon and night. By yesterday morning, though, he was fine. I’m pretty sure it was teething. He’s cutting some back teeth and those have just been a doozy.

Poor baby. 🙁

So, this morning, since he was all back to normal, we decided to have a little family breakfast at Krispy Kreme. Nathan’s first Krispy Kreme doughnut!!

I think he was a fan.

Then he drank some orange juice and made a face from the sourness. We laughed so hard so then he kept doing it the rest of breakfast. Ha!

Such a silly! It’s nice to have my goofy boy back. 🙂

What have you guys been up to?

This is mostly just for my memories. Since I’ve been posting the Fall Fiction Frenzy, I didn’t get to update on my little Tot, who just had his second Halloween.

I don’t know how he got to be so old.

We pulled out the Christmas movies! Last year, my siblings got Nathan the Christmas Classics DVD set (one of the BEST gifts EVER!). So, we had to start watching those! We showed Nathan Rudolph one night after dinner and he had to go get his blanket, Wyatt and Lucky and sit in his little chair with them while watching the movie. At least, until it got tense. 🙂

We went back to the same Pumpkin Patch we did pictures at last year to get family pictures done again this year. Let me tell you – last year was WAY easier! Last year, we just kind of propped him up and got him to smile. This year, it was like a wrestling match to get him to sit still! We still got a few good ones though, I think. 🙂

Gammy and Pops came with us and got some grandparent pictures done! I need to frame Nathan with both sets of grandparents at the Patch.

After we got pictures, we let him run around and play with all the fun things they had to do there. I love his face with the duck races!!

And then Pops pushed him around on the tractor, since someone’s legs still don’t quite reach the pedals.

Y’all, I have to confess: Way, WAY before Jon and I even met, I always had this picture in my head of my little kid all dressed up for Halloween, sitting on the couch with a bunch of his or her friends also all dressed up.

And this year, I got my picture!! God is SO good, isn’t He? I love how He fulfills dreams – in His timing.

Aren’t their expressions hilarious?? They look like they’re all about to be sent to the chopping block! Ha! We had the Lunch Bunch over to my parents’ house for chili. Everyone brought a TON of food, so we just ate, laughed, took a million pictures of the kids and had a wonderful night! I hope it becomes a yearly tradition. 🙂

Last Friday night, Jon had to run get more grass seed to fill in a few spots on the lawn, so Nathan and I went with him. Nathan had the BEST time at Lowe’s! I’m debating about going there on days when I just need to get out of the house! Ha!

He loved riding the “dack-der!”. I think it’s so fun that he’s starting to say so many words! And that I can finally understand a lot of what he’s saying!

We were walking through the Christmas aisle and saw all the huge blow up Christmas displays for sale. Nathan saw this one:

And came to a dead stop and said “Mim-mey!” and started waving.

Ha! Someone’s a fan!