Hung By The Chimney With Care

Just wanted to show ya'll what the Advent Envelopes look like when hung. I added some ornaments to dress it up a bit. Of course, fall stuff is still up, but it will start to blend in more as fall comes to a close and Christmas decor makes it's way to the mantle.



A close up of the middle swag...


From the side:


And a few people have asked what our activities are...so here is my list (like I said, a lot of them I just borrowed from the OP, but I changed a few to suit our family style and preferences)

1. Pick out a Christmas Tree
2. Trim the Tree
3.Make paper snowflakes and decorate the windows
4.Pick some puppets for a bedtime story and show
5.Bundle up and grab your flashlight...tonight we take a walk after dark!
6.Go shopping for some groceries for the church pantry. (the olders will be required to use some of their allowance to shop for this, btw.)
7.Get ready to get your groove on! Tonight, the living room becomes a dance floor to dance to our favorite Christmas tunes!
8.Make a paper chain for the tree
9.Make and mail Christmas cards for the grandparents
10.Make a list of 10 things you are thankful for and hang it where you can see it every day
11.Go shopping for a toy for Toys For Tots
12. Put on your jammies and lets go check out Christmas lights around town!(our paper publishes the best home decorations in our area and how to get to them)
13.Everyone gets a candle light bubble bath!
14.Put your best clothes on, it is fancy dress for dinner tonight!
15.Ready to play? It's family game night!
16.Bake gingerbread cookies (this is a HUGE deal for them, bcs they know I hate to make gingerbread men )
17.Polar Bear Swim Day!
18.Bake some cookies to share with friends.
19.Go back to bed...today is breakfast in bed day!
20.Watch a Christmas movie, theater style (so, for us, in the dark, on the big TV with popcorn and movie candy)
21. make and hang edible gifts for the birds (we are going to do PB/seed pinecones and popcorn strings)
22.Take a walk to see the storefronts downtown and stop for Starbucks hot chocolate on the way home.
23.Read the Christmas story from Luke
24.Open one present after dinner
25. It's Christmas day! Remember the best gift ever given to man today--Jesus!

The Envelope, Please!

Last year, someone at CMF posted a link to a very cool advent calender (countdown to Christmas day, whatever you want to call it. I am using the term "advent" because, well, it is easier to type. I *know* technically this isn't an advent calender. You don't need to email me.)

It was 25 little colorful envelopes that each contained a fun activity or event or charity-related purchase in order to count down the days to Christmas. I loved the idea, but it was posted after December 1st, so I didn't get to do it last year, but this year, I have been seeing the site I bookmarked pass by my cursor every time I log into Facebook, so I decided to bite the bullet and get my 25 envelopes made so that they would all be done in time for us to pop open that first envelope on December 1, 2009.


First I started by dragging my husband to Michael's on his day off (Happy Veteran's Day, honey!) and I got some Christmas themed scrapbook paper. They had all kinds, and I had a long debate between this pack and another one with less traditional, brighter colors. I ended up with this one, I think it will be more versatile when I have to use the leftovers.


So, I started by deconstructing a little notecard sized envelope I had here for a template to trace onto the backs of the scrapbook paper:


I got a pencil (it felt a little wrong to do my Christmas project with a Halloween pencil, but I got over it when I couldn't find any other single pencil in my house. I swear we have squirrels that steal stuff and hide it away...) and some scissors:



Then I traced 25 of these on different papers. I only had 18 styles, so I do have some repeats, but I will space them apart when I hang them. I didn't take a picture of me actually tracing them or cutting them. I don't want to bore you too terribly much...


Here is a single one. I didn't think about the carpet when I took this, so it is hard to see the outline, but trust me when I say it looks like a flat envelope.


If you are a regular paper crafter, you probably have a bone folder. I don't have one, so I used a ruler. I will just say, note to self, next time invest in a bone folder. Way less unwieldy...


Just fold up all four sides:


Then glue it together like a envelope would go. I used cheap old school gluestick. These aren't heirlooms.


Do 24 more:


You can print 25 numbers for the front. I didn't. Well, in reality I can't. Because I am too cheap to buy new ink for my printer. So I wrote mine:


Then do the inside cards. I did 24 green ones and 5 red ones, to let the kids know we were getting close in that last five days. I used a lot of her ideas, we replaced a few, like ice skating for a "Polar Bear Swim" day, where my husband and I will take the kids swimming at the indoor pool at the gym...


Here are the envelopes all stuffed; I still have to peek at the calendar to make sure that the activities for those days will gel with our schedules:



I will string some fab ribbon somewhere prominent, and use some clothespins to hang them across it. I am hoping to do this every year, so if you want to leave some ideas for activities in the comments section, please do! Enjoy!

The Random Family Album

Partly because I am pregnant, partly because I have ADD, partly because I seem to harbor dislike for complete orderliness, I don't keep our family pictures in any coherent manner. I take the pictures, they hang out on the camera for a while, sometimes I print one or two good ones. Then they hang in the file for a while. If I am super ambitious, I scrapbook them. (to let you know how ambitious I have been lately, the last time I actually got my stuff out to scrapbook, my youngest wasn't even conceived yet...)

So I think ya'll should feel particularly lucky that you get to witness some of my real life randomness from the past few months...

So, let's start with Wyatt's 4th Birthday. He asked for a jungle party. I asked for the weekend off. My husband has been doing some long distance training/classes for his job, and it takes me a while to recover from him being gone a whole week at a time. (Yep. I am a wimp when it comes to that. I admit it and am not ashamed of it.)

Therefore, when Wyatt asked for a jungle party, I decided to convince him that the zoo would be just as much fun. Lucky for me, he is still suggestible. So my suggestion of the National Zoo for the day and cake when we got home was taken with a hearty "YES!"

So here we are at the beginning. And when I say we, you will have to trust that I was there, because I don't get my picture taken. Ever.


Some random animals we saw; a funky bird with a multicolored head. These two birds, nesting and carefully guarding a nest. Except they were both female. Poor things. So confused. And, of course, no trip to National Zoo is complete without a Giant Panda sighting.



Here are the three olders, not tired at all, even after like an hour and half traipsing around...


Then it was back home for cake and ice cream. Actually, he had an ice cream cake. There is no cake in those. So the title is a tad misleading. We had ice cream. With chocolate crunchy thingies inside. It was really good.


Here is Mason, getting ready for cake. Apparently by practicing some "Saturday Night Fever" poses...

Truett, pretty happy about the prospect of cake too...

Getting ready to wish...

Please don't spit on the cake. Please. If you do, Mommy can't eat any.

Happily there was minimal spit.
And finally, the birthday boy, melancholy because his day was coming to a close:


Mason played flag football again. He always has a good time, and Daddy was coach again:


He played QB, which was, I guess a controversial thing. He is an ok QB, he throws well, but there was a mom who voiced her utter disgust with my husband's decision (late in the season, I might add. It wasn't as if he decided from practice one that our son was to be the QB, lol) and how it was clear that he was using this team to create his own little star, and went on to berate my son (who is 7 by the way!) on his performance. Good thing my son doesn't read emails. He has no idea he lost the last couple of games for his team. (read heavy sarcasm here, please)


Trust me, if this mom knew anything about my husband and I's parenting/kid's sports philosophy, she would know that we couldn't care less about making any of our kids stars in any sport. Our parenting goals are a lot more eternal.

Mason also did his first one mile run at his school. He was going to do his second one on Halloween, but it didn't work out this year. He was bummed, but he gets to do one on Thanksgiving, so he isn't too upset.

Anyhoo, back to his first run: he placed second. Which for someone who hasn't run a competitive race before and was wearing the complete wrong shoes for the event, was spectacular. Actually, he was in first place for almost the whole race, but he lost some ground at the very end, and another boy won.

Beginning of race, all smiles:

Waiting to start. Again with the pseudo "Saturday Night Fever" pose. Or maybe it is supposed to be "Power Rangers"? Who knows? He hasn't seen either, ever, so where he picked it up is beyond me!


My husband advised him to start slow, keep a steady pace. Apparently, Mason thought that meant "sprint for a mile" because here is his start:

Beginning:

Middle:

And end:

Then, the second place boy overtakes him (this was literally the last few steps of the race):

Can you see that look of disbelief and anguish in that last picture? Poor guy!
But he remained positive, and he got a medal!


You may be wondering at this point where the pictures of Elias are. He is in some of the group ones, but he has had a hard time adjusting to Kindergarten. (read: he has completely been misbehaving and has had a ton of privileges taken away.) So it isn't that we are ignoring him, but he hasn't gotten to do as many extra things as his brothers until he learns his behavior is what earns the good life.

For instance, you will notice that he is missing a Halloween costume later. Parenting sucks sometimes. It means you have to be a bad guy. A lot.

Ok, so here we are, finally at Halloween.

Truett was a bumblebee. He looked pretty cute walking around in that costume. So cute, a lot of people mistook him for a girl. I guess Daddy went as a guy who had 2 days off of work before Halloween night and decided not to shave for that time period...

Wyatt was an astronaut. I can't find a good picture of him, he was hiding the whole time.
Like I said, Elias lost his Halloween privilege, so he wasn't allowed to dress up. he came to help me at our church's Fall Festival. But he had the best Jack O'Lantern this year:

Mason was a skeleton:

Of course, it was raining on Halloween, so when he got home, he looked more like Robert Smith from The Cure.

And here are all my sweets before Trick Or Treating:


Hope you all are having a great Fall. It truly is my favorite time of year!

Let There Be (A) Light (Fixture)!

My friend, M, was giving this pretty light fixture away after replacing it with something more fabulous, so I volunteered to take it off her hands. It has a nice, basic toned down chandelier design, and I had been looking for something to replace the dining room light with.

You see, when we moved into this house, the light fixtures were a disaster. First off, every single room had a ceiling fan. Blech. They were all white, but yellowed from the 80 something grandma type with the 2 pack a day habit that lived here with her son. The second problem was that any fixture that didn't have a ceiling fan was a builder grade fixture from...1991. Double Blech.

The weekend we moved in, I made...ummmm...nicely asked...my husband to remove almost every single light fixture in our home and rewire some nice, updated, non fan lights for me. The only one that wasn't replaced that weekend was the foyer light, and that is because we have no way to reach it, due to the height of our foyer. Not to worry, I have big plans for that ugly sucker.

Of course, we had just moved from a townhouse that we had built from scratch. So it had all the lights we loved still there, making some other family feel warm and homey. Which was fine, we needed a single family home with a yard, we were still being fruitful, if you catch my drift, wink wink, nod nod. But there was one fixture that I dearly loved from the old house and I was (at the time) lucky enough to find the exact one to rehang in our new old house. Woo hoo!

But my woo hoo quickly turned into a boo hoo...

You see, that light fixture was pretty big. I however, didn't really realize HOW big it really was until we bought, paid and installed the darn thing in our new house that is smaller than our old one. Oops. Now I constantly hit my dang head on the thing, and when it is turned on, it is as if someone has flicked on the switch to a million suns. It is very, uh, bright. Even with those god-awful energy saving lights.


So much for dining ambiance. Every meal is like having a mid day picnic.

In July.

Anyhoo, back to M's generosity and her free light fixture.

I decided that I would have to paint it. Pretty much nothing in my house looks brand spanking modern and new. This fixture, having classic lines, had a brushed nickel finish. It wasn't going to fit right in immediately. It needed some, abus....uh, TLC to make it fit into our home a bit better.

So here it is, before (and this process will be a two-parter, because, well, I am not done with the light as I am writing this...)



See? It is a nice little light. M had some shades on it. Lovely shades, but I am going a slightly different direction, so they were donated to Goodwill. Someone will love them, they are very "in" right now.

But in order to satisfy my requirements, we are going to need some of this:


My plan is to give it a little basecoat in this cream color:


Then put a nice thick coat in this pretty apple green:


and then sand it lightly so that some of the cream and even the original nickel shows through in places. And if I hate that, I can always paint it all over again a solid color.

Stay tuned for the finished product :)

Shiny Punkins

It appears from my last several posts that I am on a creativity kick. So ya'll just have to suffer along with me. Ha! I realized after unpacking my "fall decorations" that I really don't have all that many. I thought I had amassed a vast array of orange, brown and yellow items to display the grandeur of my favorite season, but when I opened the bucket, alas, all I found was a sorry looking door swag and some old bunches of mini Indian corn. Hmmmm....so much for all that amassing.

I decided to make a couple of glittered pumpkins today, so I can really begin my amassing. I have seen Martha Stewart glitter everything from acorns to hats, so I was pretty sure that I could do a pumpkin. However, I had no freakin' clue how hard it was going to be to find a brown paper mache pumpkin to glitter. After two weeks of looking high and low, I finally found two different styles at Michael's. And that wasn't without beads of sweat forming on my brow, thinking I might never find the buggers. For some reason they had them hidden on some middle shelf, shoved way back. I guess not that many people are into glittering pumpkins. It is SO 2007.

So, let's get started. Here is our cast of characters: glitter in whatever color you want your pumpkins to be. I had originally chosen non traditional colors, but went with the orange and green anyways. I HIGHLY recommend Martha Stewart Crafts glitter, it is extra fine, and looks extra sparkly on this sort of project. It is pricey, but what is nice is that it covers a LOT. See that HUGE bottle of orange? I barely put a dent in the bottle, and I did two pumpkins. She also sells special glitter glue, but I opened it and smelled it and it smelled like Modge Podge, so I went with what I knew (and had on hand. I should own stock in MP really...) Also, a couple of paint brushes and some paper to glitter over--the excess falls off and you can return it to the bottle to reuse!--


And one or two or 20 paper mache pumpkins. Now if you were really creative, you could make your own pumpkins from scratch. I am creative, but I don't have a lot of time, so I used premade. The only "problem" with that is that you have to settle for the shapes they offer, but to me, not a big deal. I got this short, fat one and a taller one.


I started with the stem. Paint on some glue; you want it even, but sort of thick, because you want it to grab as much glitter as possible:


Then pour on the glitter, over paper, and turn the pumpkin so it goes on evenly:


Then you do the same with your main color. As you go with all the colors, you might need to tap the pumpkins gently to let any loose glitter drop away. Don't have a heart attack seeing all that precious, expensive glitter on that paper. 99.9% of that went nicely right back into the bottle.


I could do about half of each pumpkin before I had to set them down to dry a bit to do the other side... so here they are half done:


I gave it about an hour or so, they still weren't completely dry, but dry enough that I could lightly hold them to do the other side:


Voila! Done!

I wanted to do an elegant sort of last initial on the tall one, and I did it, but I am not sure I like how it turned out. So, if I put it on the mantle and hate it, the great thing is I can just turn it around and no one will know it's there, haha. To do that, I just waited all afternoon until they dried all the way, and used Aleene's Tacky Glue and drew our last initial on, then took black glitter and carefully poured and tapped the excess off a little at a time. The technique worked great, but the pumpkin is too "bumpy" for it to have the smooth, polished look I was going for. Oh well.


Remember to do each color over it's own sheet of paper so that you can make a chute with the paper and dump your excess back into the bottle. Do that, and this glitter is sure to last for.eva.

Happy Fall!

Let Them Eat Cake!

I belong to an awesome MOPS group, and we have some pretty swell outside events planners who come up with fun and interesting things for us moms to get out of the house, away from kiddos to do. Last night was no exception...we had a little cake decorating class. It was a blast and I actually learned some stuff that I can hopefully translate to some fun cakes of my own in the future!

Here is a part of our group, hanging in our hostess S's kitchen:


We are fortunate as a group to have a member who is a talented cake designer, and she owns her own home based cakery, called Fat Girl Cakes. Kristin is very cool, and although she says she named her cakery after herself, I think it is the best name eva, since you should never trust a skinny baker--ha! Anyhoo, she is the one who taught the class, and she did a great job...I am thinking of taking her Wilton class when life becomes less busy (it will, won't it?)


Our assignment was to learn enough to decorate two of these lovely, albeit nakey cupcakes:


So we started with the tools:


That is a parchment triangle, a coupler and two different frosting tips. They looked a bit intimidating sitting there like that.

Then we did a bit of origami, and made a little cone for the icing:


After installing the coupler (after some teeheeing about coupling and male and female parts--we moms know how to party), we added the star tip:


The star tip is the one that makes all the decorations that look "lined" for all you non decorators out there.

Then it was time to mix some colors into the icing. Here is my friend N, mixing some hot pink:


And my other friend H and I mixed some blue:


A third friend, A, mixed some red. Apparently red tastes bad if you add enough to make it actual bright red. So they settled for a slightly subdued red...


Next step is to fill those parchment bags with icing. Doesn't it look all nice and neat in there?


Then we practiced on paper plates. I scored well on dots and shells. I completely failed the rope. But I see that as a good excuse to make frosting and practice. Then eat it. Ignore my ugly writing, I was skimping on icing with the writing, I wanted to save it for the actual cupcakes. At least that is the reason I am giving for it looking so bad there on that plate. No one can prove otherwise.


So, after learning the basics, we got our hands on the goods...H decided to make baby carriages on hers, since she is preggers and due on the same date as me :)


Here is my friend V, she had some struggles with her parchment. Then with her bag. Then with her coupler and tips. Luckily she has a good sense of humor and pressed on. I think her designs turned out really well in the end, and she doesn't need the remedial cake decorating class:


I can't remember what N put on hers...a flower maybe?


A did a flower. Which turned out more like a pawprint that Magenta from "Blue's Clues" might have left behind. Happily, we were probably more concerned with taste than technique (at least I was, hehe):

Here are mine, I did a flower and my initial:


The flower used a couple of different techniques (I am kinda excited to say I know some cake decorating techniques. It sounds so official...) I used the round tip for the piping and the star tip for all those teeny stars:


And to prove my writing doesn't completely suck...


So, see, even I can learn to do this! I really am pretty excited :) And to top off an already fun evening, Kristin gave away a couple of prizes for attending her class and I won one! I never win anything, so I was really surprised. I can't wait to use these though, now that I know what to do with them...


And now to answer the million dollar question "But how did they taste?!" Well, for that answer, you would have to ask my husband. He ate both of them. Without sharing. Sigh.

International Baby Wearing Week (and a giveaway!)

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows I love to wear my babies. I am pretty much a fanatic. My stash is a little bit...ermmmm...large, although not as large as some ladies' I know!

Anyways, in honor of this week, Heather at Life Of A Modern Day Hippie is giving away a Comfy Joey/Sleeping Baby Productions Ring Sling! The SBP shoulder is one of the most comfy I have ever worn, and the sling is just gorgeous. Be sure to enter to win, then poke around Heather's blog, she takes spectacular pictures, and is just overall creative and fun to read about.

Happy Babywearing! :)