Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! 

Christmas crafts!

I can't believe that I never showed my Christmas subway art that I did.  My friend Janna showed this idea on her blog for the fall and I loved it!  I did one for fall and then I made another one for Christmas.  I painted a canvas and then I added different scrapbook letter stickers and modge podged it.  Then I added some ribbon and hung it up! 

I also made this super easy craft that I saw on another blog. I added scrapbook paper to a frame and then hot glued an ornament on the glass.  It turned out super cute!  I am going to leave this up all winter.

Tonight we're off to a Christmas party!  Enjoy this special time with your family and friends!  This really is my favorite time of the year!  Happy Thursday. 

Christmas Trees!

For the last few year's Brock and Ava have had trees in their rooms.  This year I have been looking for red, blue, silver, gold and sports themed ornaments for Brock's tree and pink, turqouise, lime green and purple ornaments for Ava's tree.  Target had a lot of cute ornaments this year. I think they look so sweet lit up in their rooms.  To be honest Brock HATES his tree but he tolerates it because he knows that I like decorating it-ha ha!  Ava always helps me decorate her tree.

Ava's tree!  The flower on top is the flower she wore in her hair at  her First Communion.

Brock's tree!

Happy Wednesday!!  We are getting excited for Christmas!  We are going to go to Grandma Jan's on Christmas Eve and then we will be at our house for Christmas morning!  

Easy Christmas gifts

I made these Mason Jar cookies a few weeks ago to give as gifts to our neighbors and as little teacher gifts.  They were super easy to make I just added the burlap and the ribbon and added the directions on how to make the cookies.

Here is a link on how to make them. I made four of them in about an hour!

Here's the tag that I made

I also like giving Bath and Body works candles!  Last week they were 2 for $20!  I love when I find good deals like that!  I also LOVE that they wrap them up for you so they are ready to give!

Tonight Brock had his last basketball game of the year it's always fun to watch him play and I can tell that Graig is SO proud of him!  Brock and Ava have two more days of school and I have two more days of work until we're off for Christmas break!  I can't wait!



Christmas Recipes!

Over the weekend I made a few new recipes that I thought I would share.  Yesterday afternoon I made this corn and potato chowder for dinner.  It was delish!  Brock (who is the most picky eater ever) loved it!  He wants me to make it again this week!

Corn and Potato chowder
1 can fat-free evaporated milk
1 can chicken stock
3 potatoes cut into chunks
1 cup chopped ham
1 can corn (drained)
pour the chicken stock and evaporated milk in a pan add the potatoes and cook on medium heat until the potatoes are tender (about 15-20 minutes)  add the ham and corn and turn on low until warm.  Serves 5
It is such an easy recipe!

My Dad makes the best fudge ever so I tried his recipe and made some chocolate fudge for Christmas today. It is SO good!

The best Chocolate Fudge Ever!
3 cups sugar

3/4 cup butter or margarine (or 1-1/2 sticks)
1 small can (5 oz) evaporated milk (2/3 cup)
1-1/2 pkg. (12 squares) BAKER’s semi-sweet baking chocolate, chopped ( I used a bag of semi sweet chocolate chips)
1 jar(7 oz) JET PUFFED marshmallow creme
1 cup chopped walnuts ( I didn't add these but my Dad usually does and it's so good!  My family wouldn't eat it if I added walnuts)
1 tsp vanilla

Heat sugar, butter and evaporated milk to full rolling boil in 3 quart heavy saucepan on medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil on medium heat until candy thermometer reaches 234 degrees F, stirring constantly to prevent scorching, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat.
Stir in chocolate and marshmallow creme until melted; stir in vanilla and walnuts.

Spread immediately in foil-lined 9 inch square pan. Cool at room temperature at least 4 hours; cut into 1 inch squares. Store in airtight container.

Makes 3 lbs. or 40 2 square servings

Saturday I made Chex Mix, it's SO good! 

Chex Mix-The recipe can be found here or on any box of Chex cereal.  I left out the nuts.  I got some tins at the Dollar store and I am going to give some of this away as little gifts!

I still want to make a few other things this week for Christmas.  Brock, Ava and I are going to make sugar cookies and I am going to get together with my friend Sabrina on Wednesday night and we are going to make cookies and peanut butter fudge.

weekend wrap up!

This weekend wasn't too exciting around our house. I am still recovering from having my tonsils out.
 We did go to Sunday School and Church this morning and tonight we went to look at Christmas lights and that was fun!  I love looking at lights before Christmas.  Ava loves lights too so we try to go a few times during December.

At Sunday school we all stayed downstairs in our gym instead of going to our classrooms.  All the kids made ornaments which was fun to do.  Here are Ava's ornaments. 

Ava also had practice for a dance that she is going to do with some other girls on Christmas eve at our Church service.  She is an Angel.  She is going to wear her hair curled so we practiced today because I am not so good with hair-ha ha!  I did it with a curling iron and it took an hour but I think she looks adorable. 

Here she is with her friend our neighbor Sarah.

Here is the back of her hair, it's SO thick!

I hope you had a good weekend!



The cutest download!

There are lots of downloads for Christmas out in blogland. Tatertots and Jello did a great post on all the free downloads out there.   I love printing out these prints and putting them in our house for the holidays.  I found one that I absolutely LOVE here at the eighteen25 blog. It uses my favorite colors for Christmas red, lime and turqouise!  As soon as I saw it I knew that I had to print it out and put it up in our living room to celebrate the Christmas season!

I printed it out on photo paper and put it in a white frame that we already had.  Sorry for my weird flash in these pictures :(

Happy Wednesday!

Christmas Tour 2010

Today I am doing the Christmas Tour with the Nester today!! I have done this for the past two years and it was so much fun to see how everyone decorates for Christmas!  Its also fun to look back and see how I decorated because I like to change it up every year.  I LOVE decorating our house, I put up our decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving because I love having them out. I think they make our house look so warm and welcoming, I like to have them out as long as I can! 

Ok let the tour begin!  We will start in our living room because that's where I have the most decorations.  Here is our mantle.  I LOVE putting lights on our mantle.  I prefer colored lights and Brock and Ava like them more so that's what I use on our mantle!

I LOVE this printable!  I got it from the eighteen25 blog

Our heater is another little area in our living room that I like to decorate.  I made the ribbon tree this year. 

I also have a little table in our living room that I like to decorate

A yarn ball wreath I made this year with my two favorite Christmas colors Red and Lime Green

A  festive NOEL printable.

 



Moving on to our dining room and kitchen.

This small tree is in our office which is right next to our dining room.

I always like decorating the hutch in our dining room for the seasons!

I also just got my first cloche!  I filled it with ornaments for the Christmas season!

Some Christmas vases and bowls

Snowflakes hanging from our chandelier

I made this photo hanger to hang up our Christmas cards.  I  love going to the mailbox and  getting Christmas cards in December!

I made these joy blocks from a craft kit that I got on Etsy.  It was a fun project to put together!

 This is the area on top of our fridge.  I LOVE this plate I got it at HomeGoods a few years ago!

Ava and I made this little tray this year.  I love the teal and red together. 

I hope you enjoyed looking at our Christmas home!  I can't wait to sit and go through all the homes on the tour.  I love looking at other people's houses and how they decorate especially at Christmas! 

Merry Christmas

Christmas arrangements

The Garden Club in our town always has an Open House where they make  Christmas arrangements and wreaths and sell them.  All of their arrangements are beautiful and reasonably priced!    I have gone for the past couple of years and now I know to get there early.  Here is my post from the sale last year.     So last Friday I went and stood in line and was there when the doors opened at 9:30am!  I got a couple of beautiful arrangements for our home for Christmas!

I love this one with the ornament in it.  I knew that I had to get it as soon as I saw this ornament.    This only cost $8!

I got a huge bag of boxwood for $2. I made this little arrangement with the boxwood.  I love using boxwood at Christmas time!  I really liked the limes in this arrangement but they didn't last long.  I took them out after a couple of days because they were getting gross. 

This was my FAVORITE arrangement.  As soon as I saw this one I knew I had to have it.  Another girl was eyeing it too but I grabbed it first-ha ha!  This one was only $8 too!

My favorite part about this arrangement was the container.  I love this toile container and I can use it throughout the year!

Since I am still recovering we aren't really doing anything today just hanging around the house and watching movies. It is raining/snowing outside so it's a good day to stay inside and relax!

Happy Sunday!

Ava's cookie party!!

Last Saturday night Ava had her 3rd annual Cookie Party with her friends from school.  She had 12 of her friends over for the party.  I am SO thankful that my friend Allison came over to help me with the party. Here are some pictures from that fun night!


Here are all of our decorating supplies before the party started.  I put them all on our lazy susan so the girls could just spin them around.  I picked up SO many dropped sprinkles!  I think next year I will just keep them in their shakers instead of putting them in bowls.  Some years I make my own frosting this year I just bought frosting at the store and colored it with food coloring. 

Here are Ava and her friends decorating cookies!  I gave them each 6 to decorate and they had a great time putting frosting and sprinkles on them.  They were SO creative!  As you can tell they were having a great time!

My sister Shelby had one of these fruit bouquets at her Baby Shower.  Ava wanted us to make one for her party.  I'm glad I took pictures of this before the party the girls LOVED it and it was gone in about 10 minutes-ha ha!

Ava and some of her friends holding Marty.  Marty is the daughter of our good friends Dan and Jenn.  Ava calls Marty her "cousin."  I'm glad she was able to come to the party!

I bought this drink server last summer and this was the first time I used it.  The girls loved this cherry limeade punch!  And it was red and green which went along with our Christmas theme.

This is the craft table that Allison ran.  The girls made ornaments and decorated little Christmas trees. 

Here are Ava's finished cookies! I think her Peace Sign cookie is my favorite.  Ava loves anything and everything with a peace sign right now!

The party was crazy but fun!  I think it's a tradition that we will continue every year! 

In other  news I got my tonsils out last Wednesday :(  My throat still really hurts and the doctor said it will take about 2 weeks for me to fully recover so I am taking it easy.  I haven't done anything really except watch tv and movies and drink water and ice chips. 

Hope you are having a good weekend!