Merry Christmas

Its looking like Christmas...

Its beginning to look like Christmas in this house!  I am more excited than usual about decorating for Christmas because in this new house, we haven't had a lot of decoration going on.  Christmas was a great kick-start to getting out some of our decor and making the house feel festive and homey.

One of my favorite features of this old house is the buffet, or piano windows.  I made this pom pom garland with my friends, Mollie this fall.  It was an easy but time consuming project.  I will post a tutorial later!  I got the "Joy" letters at a country store in Northern Minnesota, but I've seen them all over since.  The mercury glass holders are a combination of Michaels, Target, and Crate & Barrel.

In the dining room, I created a display with items I dug out of boxes, etc:

My sister gave me the small apothecary jars and I filled them with whatever I had that was festive.  I also taped red ribbon to the topiary pots (I pulled the stem out of the topiaries for a new look).

I added my subway art for some height and for now, I like the look!

A little sparkly garland goes a long way to help make some ordinary look fun and seasonal!  We remind ourselves to look for "Zippy", our Elf on the Shelf.

 I love this colorful tree behind the kitchen sink and the little pots I just tied a ribbon and put some holly in the tie.

 Where is Zippy anyway?

This is our entryway for now...I had fun decorating and putting the boys' stocking up.  Where to put stockings without a fireplace?

The Christmas Countdown has been working beautifully...

the boys love running to the bin of wrapped books to open their books for the day!

How is your decor coming along?  Its a process...adding little bits along the way.  Holiday cards we receive and the kids artwork is another great way to add to any holiday decor!

(Un)Crafty - Christmas Countdown

Happy December!  Can you believe it?  The fall was beautiful and it went by so fast!  We are busy: still moving into our new house and preparing for our new baby who will join our family in just three short months!

Since today is the first day of December, it was the first day to put our Christmas Countdown, or Advent Calendar, to use!  The boys were so excited when they woke up!  Of course, they would love to go through each day this morning and enjoy all the fun and treats.  Waiting each day will be the hard part!

With our life circumstances feeling super crazy, this is an especially (un)crafty project!  I pulled out all the Christmas and winter-themed books (about 40 in total - whoa!) and wrote the titles on popsicle sticks.  The sticks fit well in the felt calendar I made a couple years ago.

 This project took over the dining room table for a couple days.  

 I wrote the titles on each stick, leaving room at the end for a treat!

 Then I wrapped up all the books in some wrapping paper from the Target $1 Spot.  I used 4 rolls to wrap all the books.  Each book is numbered so when the boys take the sticks out of the "December 3" pocket, they can find the books with a "3" in the basket under the tree.

Most days have two books, which is perfect for two kids.  They each get to pull out a stick, have a treat, and open a wrapped book.  Do you have any great advent calendar ideas?  You can find some seriously crafty calendars at Hi Sugarplum's link party.

Funky Feathered Turkeys

We made some fun feathered turkeys thanks to my cousin who sent the supplies in a care package.  My four year old really loved this project.  Our turkey family totals about TEN because we had such a great time creating!

Supplies:

construction paper, scissors, pencil, glue stick, feathers, puffs, pipe cleaners

Directions:

Trace hands and cut them out of construction paper.  Then glue feathers and other embellishments onto hands as you please!  Cut pipe cleaners for legs and tape to back of turkey.

from cousin Angie's blog

From Angie's blog

Turkey Family

Now that Halloween is over, the Thanksgiving decorations can come out.  We don't have much going on for holiday decor this fall, but I am determined to get the new house set for Christmas.  I thought this turkey family was so adorable on eighteen25.  Thanksgiving is such a great holiday to get our kids to understand, so this interactive activity is on my list!

Image & tutorial

For next year...

I'm bookmarking this craft for Halloween next year...so cute!

Halloween Lanterns from Mason Jars

Spider Crackers

We've been under the weather at this house.  And by "we", I mean "ME".  It just feels like when the mom is sick everyone is sick because life sorta stays on hold.  Actually, my husband (who has earned the title of All-time Superdad after the last week) did a great job holding our crazy schedule together, keeping the kids clean and fed, and giving me ample time to rest (like serious sleep: 15+hrs on Saturday night for this mama).


Amidst the sickness, I did manage to do a couple fun thing with the kids.  We made Spider Crackers one day for our morning snack!  It was a fun activity that the kids enjoyed doing...and eating!

Here's our supplies:

round crackers 

peanut butter (you could use cream cheese or other spread)

pretzel sticks

chocolate chips (or raisins)

frosting or more spread or whatever

knives for spreading

oh...and...a couple cuties.  :)

 This is the goal: a cute little cracker sandwich that looks like a spider!!

 Both my boys love spreading and getting to use a knife, so I got out the dull kiddie knives and let them spread-away.  It was messy!

 There was lots of eating...especially out of the chocolate chip bowl!

Just spread peanut butter (or chosen spread) between two crackers and add pretzel sticks for legs.  Then we used a little frosting to hold the chocolate chips on for eyes.  That's it!

 And yes, it was almost 11am, but we're still in pajamas.  I was sick, ok?

Proud of his yummy spider!

our {lucky} friends

Some of our lucky friends - very special people in our lives - are going to get these cute little goodies tomorrow (okay...that is one day early for St. Patrick's Day, but oh well)!  I spent much of nap time perfecting them today and it was a fun little project.  I first saw it here and the downloaded the tag here.

Supplies:

1.  Rainbow Twizzlers (found at Wal-Mart - after looking several places)

2. chocolate gold coins (found at 50/50 Party Supply - after looking many places)

3. tag

4. ribbon

5. scissors

6. treat sacks (Target, Michaels, etc.)

I gathered six Twizzlers together for each bag (one of each color) and cute about one inch off the bottoms of the Twizzlers.  Then I put them in the bag, added gold coins and tied with a ribbon.  So easy and what a cute little gift to make your friends feel special this week!  One bag of Twizzlers will make 5 treats and I added 4-5 coins to each, so plan accordingly if you are buying supplies.

My kids informed me that they "don't like those" so I will have to think of something else to make them feel special this week!

Hot Chocolate Bar

I love this idea from Mommyapolis!  A hot chocolate bar with lots of embellishments for everyone to create their own custom hot chocolate.

Mommyapolis.com

I think the next chance I get, I am going to incorporate this into our entertaining!  Its sure to be a hit!

Love, Hearts, and Cake Pops

Valentine's Day is a holiday we don't celebrate too much around this house.  I'm not a fan of the holiday because I feel that flowers are too expensive and the reason to express your love on a "Hallmark Holiday" shouldn't be more than any other day.  Then I saw this commercial while I was at the gym...it changed my mind, a little.

I had more fun decorating this year.  We had some hearts hanging around and a few other things to help us enjoy the "love" holiday.  I found some free printable typography and printed some of those, put them in frames around the house.  I have even more ideas for next year after browsing blogland.  Of course.

A few of the easy ways we celebrated Valentine's day this year:

Heart shaped pizzas for the kids, made my my fabulous friend, Mollie!

We had some fun this year with my son's Valentine's celebration at school.  I made a box for him to take to school for Valentine exchanges.  He wasn't interested in participating in my original idea, so I decided to take matter into my own hands and go for something a little more interesting...

Logan's Valentine Express

Original inspiration and tutorial from Tangled and True.  Easy.

Then since I am in charge of the class snack for the preschool Valentine party, I decided it was a good time to try to make Cake Pops.  My sister made some cute cake pops last year and I have been dying to try it, but a little scared, too.  If you have never visited Bakerella.com, I recommend checking it out!  Fun, inspirational, and sometimes easy baking ideas!

I learned that cake pops are not really too difficult, they just take some time and patience...

and a big mess!

I had about fourteen extra hands helping me with these cake pops, so I am not going to take much credit.  All our college aged friends came over to help with the process and they were Ah-Maze-Ing!  We used all peanut-free ingredients (school rules) and added sprinkles and tags for extra-festive-fun.  To see an informative video on how to make cake pops, click here.

We woke up today and the boys had a little scavenger hunt to find their silly present...

they loved finding their clues, following directions, and eating candy at 7am.  Ha!

Happy LOVE Day to you and ALL those you LOVE, mamas!

Two Finished Projects!

If you are like me, you probably have lots of started projects, not a lot of finished projects.  I think that is just the nature of being a mama.  I don't let it get me down...I just relish in the projects when they are finally finished!  Between Sunday and Monday this week, I was able to finish up the teacher valentine gifts and make the dish mat I've been coveting!

I found a set of six valentine-y pencils at Michaels for $1 and bought the cutest candy I could find: salt water taffy.  I bagged up the candy, added the pencils and a valentine card in the bag.  Then, I tied the bag with ribbon from the Target Dollar Spot and voila!  Finished product!  Cute, handmade-ish teacher gift that is sure to be somewhat original (I think) for only about $3 each.

As for the dish mat, I needed serious help from my crafty family.  I don't sew, but I think this is my biggest attempt at sewing so far.  I attempted pillows a while back, but I enlisted more help for those.  The dish mat was a lot of seaming and measuring.  In fact, it was kinda a lot of work for this non-sewer. It made me not want to sew...I thought I was ready to dive into sewing, but this project reminded me that I probably don't have the time or patience at this point.  But...

I do love the finished product!  My dish mat is about 24" x 16".  I would suggest making it a little smaller.  This size serves me well, but I have a large space on my counter.  I think a smaller size would serve any kitchen well!  I hope to make a couple more because I have more fabric.  I will definitely make them smaller and I think I will skip the piecing fabric and just make them cute fabric on one side and terrycloth on the other.  (I was going to use an old towel on the back side, but ended up cutting a piece of terrycloth to fit.)

For the tutorial, click here.  Hers looks so sophisticated with her cute bowl and glasses resting on it.  Mine speaks differently, but truthfully about my life: full of craziness and kidstuff!

New Year's Eve (for kids)!

If you're reading this and thinking that you haven't done anything for your little family to celebrate New Year's Eve...its not too late!  I made up a couple quick things for us to enjoy with our kids tonight before midnight, of course.  

I whipped up some cupcakes (total time: 30 minutes - 10 prep, 20 to bake), let them cool, frosted, and garnished with sprinkles (my kids' favorite!).

Find these quick to print cupcake toppers here!

I just taped a itty bitty fork from my cupboard onto the backs of these toppers.  The kids will help stick the rest of the toppers in the cupcakes when they wake up from their naps.

I made these celebration hats (total time: 10 minutes) for the kids to wear while we eat and party!  This idea is from Mommyapolis and the quick tutorial can be found here.  She made her hats for 4th of July last year, but I thought they were perfect for any celebration!  The kids decorated with stickers (well, mostly I did the stickers because they lost interest).

There you have it.  A super quick, thrown together little New Year's Eve for kids.  You can do it, too!  We'll add a little take-and-bake pizza and a dance party and the night will be loads of fun!

Happy New Year, Mamas!

Holiday Traditions

The beauty of the holidays are traditions.  Traditions make that magical feeling we all love so much about that wonderful time of year.  We have a few holiday traditions in the works.  We do not have family in town so sometimes we travel on holidays which doesn't always lend itself to creating many traditions at home.  Now that the boys are getting older and more into tradition, Hubby and I are too...

This year, we started a new tradition: "The Elf on the Shelf".  We love this adorable story that has created a great new tradition for us.  The book is wonderful and at the end there is a page to mark the date of the start of the tradition for your family and the name of your elf.

Image from potterybarn kids

The Elf on the Shelf

Each night your elf magically travels back to the North Pole to report back to Santa.  Then, the elf is in a few spot in the morning than the day before.  The boys love getting up and looking for...

Zippy.

That is what we named our elf.

This is our other tradition.  I'm still working out some kinks.  Last year, I made this felt advent calendar but the boys weren't really into it.  This year, I made a little Christmas tree out of tag board and got some felt stickers.  Each day, we take out the stickers and decorate the tree a little more.

I admit that I would like this tradition to be more centered around the real reason for Christmas.  Next year I hope to be a little more prepared with some nativity pieces, bible verses, and stories from the birth of Jesus.

What are your favorite holiday traditions, mamas?