Christmas Jammies

My kids are the kids that don't care what the temperature is outside, they will wear winter PJ's in the heat of the summer.  I mean the fleecy, footed kind.  They just don't care!  So I didn't debate buying them extra PJ's at Christmas time.  I just know they will wear them until they are too small, no matter the weather.  

I really had a hard time getting a cute picture of all of them together.  I wanted to get a shot where everyone had their eyes open, where you could actually see the front of their shirts, and I wanted a shot without this strange scary grin they've been giving the camera lately.  

Alex chose Santa, Abby chose a gingerbread baby, and I chose a reindeer for Aubrey.  My sweeties. 

Cute Cousins

Aren't they just the cutest 6 you've ever seen!  Grammy knit hats for them all.  

Christmas Crafts

I haven't really done too many crafts lately with the kids so since it is Christmas time, I figured it was a good time to do a couple.  The first thing we did was make salt dough ornaments.  It's something I'd done with my students in the past and thought it would be fun to do with my kids.  I also wanted something to remember how sweet and little their hands were.

1 C flour
1/2 C salt
1/2 C water

Mix it together with your hands until the dough forms.  I had to add just a tad more flour to get it to the right consistency.  Then just roll it out and press your hand into the dough.  Once I put the hand on the parchment paper on the cookie sheet, I used a straw to poke a hole at the top so that we can add a string to hang it from later.  Then bake in the oven for a couple hours at 250.  I started checking them after 2 hours to see if they were hard enough.  I think they actually baked for about 2 hours and 15-20 minutes.  We waited until the next day to paint them.  We just painted Santa for all three hands.  They turned out pretty cute!

The next thing we made was a canvas painting. Alex and Abby's hands made the tree and their thumbs made the ornaments.  Then each kiddo made a snowman using their foot.  I really love how this project turned out.

We also made some Christmas cookies.  I used a new recipe and thought the cookies turned out great.  They have cream cheese and almond extract to make them extra tasty.  They frosting turned out well, too.  I've never made frosting like this before, and I liked how it turned out.  You can see the recipe here.  Instead of painting with food coloring, like the recipe suggests, we just decorated with what we had on hand.  The kids were proud of their cookies!

Dishes

I have inherited my mom and grandma's love for dishes.  I have, but need more, Fiesta.  I registered for Fiesta for our wedding and chose a red and a purple color.  Over the years, different pieces have broken and for some reason, they stopped making the purple color.  I really would love to have several different colors.  I really like the mismatched look and it's just fun.  I really would like some of the peacock and ivory.  Maybe the lemongrass and sunflower, too.  OK, I just want it all!  :)

I have never bought any Christmas dishes because my grandma told me that someday her Nikko set will be passed down to me.  It's really a pretty set.

Brad and I were at Dillard's and their Christmas department is always so beautiful and fun to browse.  I don't let myself go there very often because I get ideas like this one in my head.  There was a set of dishes I had never seen before.  I fell in love!  Each piece has a different line from the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  I'm not sure how many different pieces you'd have to get to be able to read the whole poem, but what a fun set of China to have! 

One last thing I'd love to have is some more Polish pottery.  I have a couple of serving dishes and a couple of coffee mugs, but I'd really love some dinner plates and cereal bowls.  They are just beautiful, and like Fiesta, you mix and match them.  

Christmas in October

Alex was on Fall Break today and Abby's school was in session.  Brad and I decided to spend some one on one time with him while Abby was in school.  Mom was also on Fall Break so she kept Aubrey while Brad and I took Alex to the movies.  We saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.  It was cute! Then we picked up Abby from school and went to get Aubrey from Mom's.  When we got there she had her first Christmas tree up!  Brad could see my wheels turning and looked at me and said, "Nope, not happening."  ha!  He already knew I was going to ask him to start getting our Christmas stuff down from the attic.

This is a new tree that she didn't have last year.  It's a tree full of only her vacation ornaments.  I think it looks great and is a fun way to showcase all her special vacations!

Christmas in July

My good friend Melina and I love Pinot's Palette, a paint and sip art studio.  They are all over the country and we are lucky enough to have 2 in Tulsa!  I have been to a few painting classes and had such a great time at all of them.  Brad teases me that we are going to have to move just so I can have a place to hang all the fabulous original art I bring home.  ha!

Melina and I had a bright idea to have another private party at Pinot's and do a Christmas in July theme.  We painted a winter picture, had an ornament exchange, and served Christmas colored food.  We had guacamole chips and salsa, chocolate covered pretzels, cheesecake filled strawberries, red and green veggies with dip, snowball cupcakes, and reindeer poop (Nutter Butter balls).  It was delicious!

Not everyone participated in the ornament exchange, but it was fun to come home with a new ornament.  In fact, I think I got the best one!  It has swirls on it, just like our painting, and it has the date.  I'm a sucker for ornaments with dates! Isn't it cute?!

We painted Winter Wonderland, which was in my top 3 choices of paintings.  It's fun, different, and I can't wait to hang it up for Christmas!  25 people showed up to paint and I think everyone had a great time.  Here are some shots from the evening.

I love how Melina thought outside the box and painted hers red instead of blue.  It really looks great!  And if you look closely, you might be able to spot a hidden Mickey Mouse in both of our paintings!  (Thanks to Mariah for that idea!)

Here is the final group shot after we were all done.

And finally, some other masterpieces.  Thanks so much to all who came and made this such a fun event!  We'll have to do it again!

DIY Disney Christmas Tree

I love Christmas time!  I love the decorations, the lights, the music, the cookies, the food, the family and  friends.  I love it all!  Every time we visit somewhere new, we buy an ornament for our Christmas tree.  I love the flood of memories that return while unwrapping each special ornament.

While we were at Disney World last year, I had so much fun trying to find ornaments for the tree.  Then again when we went on our Disney Cruise, it was fun to pick out ornaments.  I've kept the key cards from each vacation that have our name on them and am going to string them together with a ribbon to hang on the tree, too.

I have a skinny tree that I put in my entryway and it is just decorated with lights and cheap colored balls.  While it looks okay, I've decided to make that my Disney tree.  I'm so excited!!!  I'm going to hang all of our key cards and ornaments we bought while on both Disney trips last year.  But that is not nearly enough to make a Disney tree!  While browsing Pinterest, I came across a girl that made her own Disney ornaments.  Genius!  She bought the play sets at the Disney store like these.

I knew exactly what she was talking about since my kids have some that they play with.  They run about $10 a piece.  She added little eye hooks and threaded the ornament hook through, and voila!  instant tree ornaments with Disney favorites!  Each little set comes with about 6-10 figurines in them and for $10 it's a steal!  I can't wait to make my Disney tree!  Now to wait on on the FedEx guy to deliver my goodies so I can start my next project!