Christmas 2013

I really enjoyed Christmas this year as did the rest of my little family. We carried on the tradition of a advent calender. I made this one last year and inside each envelope is a scripture about Christ and telling of his birth.

This year we also put up a Christmas tree in the girls bedroom, saying they loved it is an understatement. It was one of the main highlights of Christmas for them, they're going to be devastated when I take it down next week.

I had our tree up the day before Thanksgiving but it took me forever to finally decorate it. I decided to make a popcorn and cranberry garland for the tree and I loved it.

We had some colder weather every once and awhile so the girls could occasionally wear some of their winter gear. I love this hat of Savannah's, I wish I had one.

The girls brought home some awesome holiday crafts this year too. Savannah made this adorable card one day. When she realized one of the eyes was missing she said it was a Pirate Santa.

This ornament Olivia made was by far my favorite! I mean come on its hilarious and totally fantastic!

At church the Sunday before Christmas the primary put of a nativity during sharing time and Savannah's class were the angles, she just thought it was great.

Christmas Eve was such a great day! Jacob ended up having it off and we spent the day relaxing and baking, and just spending time together. Abby had so tummy time.

The girls and I made sugar cookies for Santa like we do every year.

Jacob got Abby down for a nap and followed her example by taking one himself.

I made homemade marshmallows using this recipe and I was really happy with how they turned out. We were suppose to put them in our homemade hot chocolate that I made which did not turn out the way I expected.

That night before the girls went to bed Jacob read the girls The Night Before Christmas which is something we do every Christmas as well. Jacob's dad would read this to his kids on Christmas Eve as well.

The girls were beyond thrilled and excited when they woke up Christmas morning and they loved all their gifts. Savannah is sporting her new shirt, skirt, fairy wings,and guns she got for Christmas.

The big present the girls got this year was a Barbie house from my parents, they've been playing with it everyday since they got it which is awesome.

Later that afternoon we had some good friends of ours come over for Christmas dinner where we ate tons of food. I actually ate all day long from all the snacks we had laying around like artichoke dip, cheese and crackers and these amazing little smokies, and muddy buddies to the amazing dinner I made. Yes I'm bragging about the dinner I made. This year we had turkey, rolls, mashed potatoes, corn, brussels sprouts, stuffing, this jello salad, Jacob's killer beans, and this amazing cranberry orange relish from Trader Joes. For dessert we had rolo cookies, the sugar cookies we had made earlier, and homemade apple pie. I know tons of food people and it was all amazing! By the end of the night I was exhausted from all the baking and all the fun we'd had. It ended up being a great Christmas spent with some of my most favorite people.

Countdown

So poor Savannah is having a hard time grasping when Christmas actually is, I mean she's only 4 so its to be expected. In an attempt to help her out a bit and to throw in something I wanted to do this holiday season anyway we made a paper chain. Now our paper chain isn't your usual run of the mill paper chain, it has service ideas on it. Now not every link has an act of service to do but we have about 16 total to do before Christmas. Savannah is already so excited and as soon as she woke up this morning she asked if she could take a link off the chain and asked what nice thing we were doing today. I got my ideas for service from this BLOG. I'm sure you can think of your own but I liked this list because it had some ideas I'd never thought of or considered before. I obviously didn't use all of her ideas because she has 50 to choose from but I picked ones that would be easy and fun for a 2 and 4 year old and that I knew we could fit into our day. I was really excited for this because I want the girls to learn how fun it is to do things for other people and realize the joys of giving not only receiving. I know that some of my happiest memories are those when I've been serving others and not thinking of my own needs/wants.

UPDATE: So yesterday was a huge success doing our first act of service. We took candy canes to random employees at the mall and Costco. A lot of people thought Savannah was just showing them a candy cane she had gotten but once they realized that she was giving it to them they got an instant smile and happily accepted their treat. One lady was so thankful she gave each of the girls a free stuffed animal from her store. It brought tears to my eyes when she gave them a present back and the girls couldn't have been happier. Savannah loved giving out the candy canes and saying happy holiday's, when we were all done she asked if we could go get more to hand out to people. I'm thinking this really was a great idea and I can't wait to keep doing it threw Christmas and for future years as well.

In Love

Its true I'm in love with ceramic things, it doesn't matter what it is; bowls, animals, any kitchen wear, I love it!!!So when I was perusing a near by thrift store and laid eyes on this beauty I had to snatch it up and make it part of my ceramic collection. It now resides next to my kitchen sink to hold all my accessories when I'm cooking or cleaning dishes. I love it.

BOO!

 Well its that time of year and here at our house we're getting ready for Halloween! I actually have mixed feelings about the holiday itself but I do like decorating for it, its more the candy I could do without. It has become my tradition to mod podge a saying of some sort onto our pumpkins. I think its super cute and this way I don't end up with a nasty rotting pumpkin on my front porch. Savannah and I did decide to put a face on of our pumpkins this year which was perfectly fine with me. The girls love to look at them and touch them whenever we leave or come into the house. The mod podge holds up well too, I've had them rained on in previous years. Overall I'm quite pleased with the final result.

 

The mod podge holds up well and I've had them rained on in previous years. Overall I'm quite pleased with the final result.

Bookcase

This is my most favorite project I've ever completed I think. Once again I have now before pictures to offer because I'm horrible at remembering to do that but just think of a light wood colored cheap laminate bookcase. That's what this used to look like and now it looks FABULOUS! I once again started by priming the entire bookcase. I took off the back first because I knew I was going to add fabric to it because I was way to lazy to paint a chevron print on the back. Once the bookcase was primed I decided to spray paint the bookcase white. I was sick of painting with a brush so spray paint was a good choice for me. When I went to attach the fabric to the back of the bookcase I used spray adhesive. It worked really well and is still holding strong 2 weeks later. Then I just reassembled it and put it in its place in the kitchen and started filling up the shelves. Our kitchen isn't huge so this is a nice place to put things that we have that I think are too pretty to put in a cupboard minus the blender of course. Although its kind of cute in its own way. Also this project was pretty inexpensive, I used 2 yards of fabric which I got on sale from Hobby Lobby so I think it totaled around $9.00 give or take a little. I still had primer left over from previous projects and I always have spray paint on hand, you never know when you'll get the whim to change something up. We already had most of the things I put on the bookcase, the cake stand is new and was also purchased on sale which makes it even more perfect.

Computer Desk

So you know those boring generic laminate desks you can get at Shopko or Walmart? Well that's what this desk used to look like. It was an imitation dark brown wood armoire that looked fine but honestly I'd been toying with the idea of painting it for quite some time. We just happened to have some yellow paint from when we had painted our kitchen years ago and I knew it would be the perfect color for this project. My first step was to take off all the hardware on the desk and set it aside so I didn't lose any pieces I mean it would pretty much suck if I couldn't put the thing back together after working so hard on it. My next step was to prime the entire thing inside and out. Now I'll be honest, when I first started this project I only did the outside but after I had that all done I realized how much I wished I had taken the extra time to paint the inside as well so I went ahead and did it. If I were smarter I would have done it all at once. After my primer was all dry ( I only waited 1 day but I should have waited 2 just to be on the safe side.) I started applying my color. This part was so satisfying, I loved the results and I was so excited. I once again only waited a day to let it dry and I should have waited longer but I have no self control and couldn't wait to use it and get it back together. On the inside I stuck with white just because it feels really clean to me and also because I didn't have enough yellow to even consider using it. For another fun touch I cut down some cork boards I already had and hot glued them to the inside of one of our doors. This way we can hang up things that usually ended up cluttering our work space which isn't that big to begin with. I also added the small baskets on the top shelf to hid extra cords we have which I also already had around the house. In total I think this project took 3 days and cost me $0.00 because I already had primer, paint, cork boards, and baskets. Oh and you get a small glimpse of some of my Halloween/Thanksgiving decorations that I put up, lucky you.

Our Kitchen

Have I mentioned before how I hate the lighting in our new house? Its nice for us but for picture taking purposes and wanting to use natural light its a nightmare. Well I know some people have been curious as to what our new place actually looks like so I thought I'd start with our kitchen because it was the cleanest room the day I decided to take pictures. Its nothing spectacular by any means but I like it and it serves its purpose which is the most important thing after all. Also in each picture you get a glimpse of a project I've done since we've been here. You can see the new cover I made for our ottoman, how I repainted our bookcase, and our repainted computer desk. I'll cover all those more in future posts so get excited! Actually don't because I didn't take before or after shots or anything because I was just too stinking excited to get the projects done!