Mommy Secrets

The kid is a great eater. He loves pretty much everything we give him. He loves it even more if it's mommy's food.
I know I'm not the only mommy sneaking food so baby doesn't steal it, right?
I mean hiding breakfast behind the cereal box is normal... Right? ;)

So what are your mommy secrets??

Gingerbread Superheroes

As I mentioned in my last post, we had Christmas with the Oklahoma crew this past weekend. It's always so fun to see them and I always leave them wishing we lived closer!

The kids always seem to have a good time as well. This year we had 'fancy' hot cocoa and decorated gingerbread men princesses, superheroes and pirates!







We attempted the annual cousins picture. I always try to get them matching or coordinating jammies and as they're growing into different size ranges, it's harder and harder to do. It's also getting more difficult to get a shot of everyone sitting and smiling at the same time but I'll keep trying every year! :)



And then SANTA came to visit!! It was a little like Buddy the elf in the fact that Mo and Madd were pretty sure they knew that Santa. :)




The Christmas celebrations continue this week and throughout the month. Hope you and your family are having a wonderful Christmas season!

Santa Babies

We're home from a jam packed weekend that I cant wait to share some photos from..... but with the jam packed week ahead I'm not sure when that will happen.... (maybe sometime in between getting caught up on laundry and caught up on sleep).

 In the meantime.... here's a quick one from our first of the family Christmas celebrations.

B and his cousin Hattie hanging out with Santa:

A Santa who Mo thought might be Uncle Doyle and Madd was SURE was a fake Santa. :)

Be Lazy tip #107

No time to iron and the wrinkle release isn't cutting it on your placket?
Use your flat iron for a quick fix.

You know, assuming you already have crazy straight hair like me and you're not sure why you own a flat iron so said flat iron has no hair spray/product gunk on it.

Disclaimer: No barely supervised toddlers were in any danger during this demo. However, one roll of toilet paper was sacrificed.

signed and sealed but not delivered

Do you do Christmas cards? We have tried to get one out each year since we've been married. A couple of years we got them printed then only handed them out to people we saw around that time of the year.

This year is starting to look a lot like Christmas' past.....



Last year I was on the ball. I had the envelopes addressed and stamped and the cards designed before B was even born. All that was left to do was insert a couple pictures and send them to the printer!



This year I had the best of intentions....


Isn't that the way it goes?

I had our cards designed months ago and just needed to insert the perfect picture (you know, after taking the perfect picture). Once we finally got around to getting a picture taken, my hard drive crashed and the pictures were gone. Bummer. We had kind of decided against cards at that point.

But then.

Beckett won a Halloween costume contest! We obviously think the kid is cute and apparently Pear Tree Greetings agreed (and gifted us $150 to use on Christmas cards to prove it).



So we had to redo a family mini-shoot (more on that later) then we (okay, I) picked out some super cute cards on Pear Tree and ordered $150 worth.



If you're thinking that looks like a lot of work, you'd be correct. We were only slightly scrooges by the end of the process. It's amazing what hot chocolate and some Christmas movies can do for the mood.

We're sending out a few versions of the Hicks family Christmas card this year but I'll post my favorite version if it ever makes it out in the mail once it makes it out in the mail. Which will hopefully be soon!

Don't you love checking the mailbox this time of year? :)


PS- Have you checked out postable? It's a great online address book. If you haven't already done it for me, could you update your contact info? THANKS MUCH!  https://www.postable.com/heidihicks

Hi, there!

Hi, there! Welcome back to the Hickstionary! (And just 'WELCOME' in case you're new here!)

I know I locked you all out awhile back and I'm real sorry about that. (Really, I am!) I hope since you came back that means you forgave me? :)


Just a couple little changes around here-



The hickstionary 365 link is back! My goal is to do another one in 2013 so hopefully that will start being updated in January again. (Hold me to it, okay?)

And see those pretty little social media icons? I'm all sorts of (not as anti-)social now.
The Hickstionary is actually on Facebook. I know, I know, it's about time. This little old blog has been around since 2008 and it's just now venturing over into the Facebook world. It's scary having a Facebook page for your blog. (What if no one likes it, ya know?) So if you like the Hickstionary (or if you just feel sorry for me and want to click over there to make us feel better), be sure to connect with us on Facebook.

It's real handy in case you don't follow on bloglovin or rss feed or by email; you can catch all the updates over on the Hickstionary Facebook page. We can also socialize over there if you're the chatty type. Or feel free to comment here too. I've changed the commenting settings so hopefully it's a little easier to leave some blog love for those of you like me who check all your favorite blogs from your phone or on the go.

If you like to follow blogs from the blog roll, I've linked to some of my favorites over there on the right. >>>>   Do you blog? Leave me a comment below with a link to yours so I can check it out and add you to my blog roll!

And seriously, THANKS for coming back! I'm so glad you're here! :)

Our Local Celebrity

We always say that B is a celebrity every where he goes. More people recognize him (through the {cb}h blog or school) than know us. About a month after he was born, R & I lost our first names and started becoming known as 'B's mom' or 'B's dad.' So he's always been our little celebrity but today my friend posted on my Facebook wall that he was on kcci.com. We're talking about the front page you guys. ;)

Click here to check out B's story.

Our local news channel has a section of Ulocal where you post your pictures then they choose some to post on the air. A few years back, Dakota made his tv debut with his ulocal picture of him jumping through the snow so this year was B's turn. Of course we've been recording the news to see it on there but we were so surprised to see the little article on the front page. Cute stuff.

Ho Ho Ho

Last weekend (and last minute) we made a(n unplanned) trip to Bass Pro to see Santa. It was getting late so by the time we arrived the next pass available was for 7pm (bedtime). We took a pass and headed to Applebee's for dinner with a plan to wait and see how B did. (After a quick ride on the carousel of course.) By 6:30, he was fading fast so we went back to Bass Pro in hopes of someone returning a 6:30 pass they decided not to use. No luck on that but the kind elf informed us that Santa was ahead of schedule and that the 7:30 passes were already being called so we could just head right up to the front of the line. Well okie dokie don't mind the dirty looks of the families that have been waiting for an hour with their toddlers but to the front of the line we went. We were in and out in 10 minutes. Can't beat that!

B wasn't real impressed with the not so jolly old man but he didn't cry either so we're chalking it up as a win.

Seriously though. Where's the jolly Santa? Judging by the pink pacifier (see Santa's right arm?) that (I'm assuming) was accidentally left behind by a screaming child (that seems like a legitimate story, right?) he was having a not so great night. Poor Santa.

B had a great night though! And we have another free Santa picture to add to the collection.

Not So Silent Night

Do you do Advent? We haven't in the past but we got a free reading plan in our mailbox so decided this was a great year to start. We started on day one (yesterday) and plan to do the readings throughout the advent season but a lot of the activities that came with the plan are for kids older than B so we came up with our own list. Here are some fun Christmas things we hope to do this month! (And many we'll do more than once!)

1. Visit Santa (we went to Bass Pro again)

2. Pick out a new Christmas book (we used gift cards from his birthday- thanks, Mal!)

3. Find Elf (B got a gift card for Elf on the Shelf. I had planned to just stick him on the shelf and forget about him until it was time to put the decorations away. That plan might get changed because every time B has went past the elf today he points to him and claps and claps.)

4. Make paper snowflakes and snowballs (B loves wadding up paper so we'll let him make some 'snowballs' and I'll make a couple snowflakes to put up with them so hopefully it wont look like we just hung garbage up in the window) ;)

5. Choose a friend from the local angel tree to shop for

6. Wrap presents (we might do this one after bedtime... or let him 'help' by wadding up paper again)

7. Christmas movie night (with popcorn and green & red M&Ms)

8. Christmas with the OK family (make gingerbread men!)

9. Make reindeer feet

10. Choose something from the 'serving friends' list to complete

11. Decorate cookies/make Christmas treats

12. Caroling (with cookies but maybe not so much singing)

13. Take a meal to someone

14. Sock snowball fight

15. Jolly Holiday Lights

16. Go out for breakfast

17. 'mistletoe' feet

18. Hot cocoa by the fire (straight from the 'north pole hot cocoa bar' of course)

19. Take Christmas pictures

20. Visit the library to read Christmas books

21. Take a treat to a neighbor we haven't met

22. Christmas at the cabins

23. Make Christmas ornaments

24. Read the Christmas story

25. 'camp out' under the Christmas tree (sleep in the living room)



We've gotten a start on #19... cant show you all of them because I don't want to give away the Christmas card pictures but here's a little sneak peek...


Silent night?? Maybe not. :)

And next year R (and apparently B) want to add a trip to the Christmas tree farm and chop down our tree to the list of Christmas festivities. B might need a bigger car though!

Christmas Craft Day 2012

We had another round of Craft Day today! Craft Days are some of my favorite days of the year! 

This time around we had a few snacks and a BYOUFCM* hot cocoa bar (complete with Redi Whip which isn't pictured here but should be!). ;)  

*bring your own ugly festive christmas mug

I think it may have been my most successful craft day yet- I finished ALL of the projects. And I was actually happy with the way all of them turned out. Can you believe it?! :)
Four is the new number for projects in a day (remind me of that next time please!).

Projects:
-Gratitude Journals
-Chicken Wire Frames & fancy clothes pins
-Tile Coasters
-Tea Towels

Thanks a ton, ladies! It's alway fun to see you!
And for those of you that have asked in the past about craft day- we now have a Facebook group for it. Be sure to let us know if you want an invite to the group!



Updated: Pictures of completed crafts-