Christmas Fun.......

What a busy, fun, happy weekend!!

After lots of Christmas Eve baking and dinner made by hubby, we had a special Christmas Eve snack....yummy vanilla ice cream with pieces of peppermint candy we crushed ourselves....a wonderful idea from Heidi at Blue Eyed Blessings!

We put out our cookies and milk for Santa and carrots and reindeer food for the reindeer and soon, all the children were nestled all snug in their beds and fast asleep-except the baby, who didn't feel too well on Christmas, he had a tough Christmas Eve night.

(yes, I know the reindeer food is in the house, my husband and I obviously didn't think that one through when we did it the first time with my oldest and then couldn't change it the following year, newbie mistake)

Since then, it's been lots of opening, eating, visiting, eating, playing, eating........the kids are having a ball and I'm in chocolate heaven!

Rocking out with the Barbie guitar my two youngest girls got from their cousins.

Love these paper dolls-I ordered them for my mom to give to my 6 year old-great present!

My 12 year old's favorite gift-this was a tough one for us but she loves it and while I'm in chocolate heaven, she's in texting heaven!

Trucks-need I say more.......

Not a present but she loved the wrapping paper-she was easy to shop for!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Merry Christmas....

Merry Christmas!

Many wishes for a peaceful Merry Christmas!

Enjoy!

Teachers' Gifts...check, check, check, check, check

2 days until Christmas!!!

(as my girls keep reminding me and reminding me and reminding me.......)

I've been checking my list and checking it twice.......

and last night I finished the girls' teachers' gifts-

and then packed up my sewing machine for a few days because unfortunately the dining room is for dining and we need to eat on Christmas Day!

I made each of the girls' teachers a fabric notebook cover from Skip To My Lou.

I had the fabric on hand and they were quick and easy to put together.

I'm going to make them some chocolate/peanut candy to go with each one and for the aides and send them to school tomorrow. My girls have to go to school all day tomorrow which they think is horrible!

(I, on the other hand, think of it as a blessing and my last 2 free hours to get some stuff done before Christmas!)

Off to cross some more things off my mega huge list of things to do-my week's been a bit crazy with an unplanned trip to the doctor yesterday-all my kids have colds and my 6 year old started complaining Saturday night of an ear ache....first ear infection of the winter. My 4 year old told me the other night her sniff was blocked up and then proceeded to demonstrate for me a few hundred times.

Have a great day!!

Hat Day

It's crunch time.....and I'm not talking Nestle Crunch!!

Just like all of you..... there's lots to do and there never seems to be enough time in the day.

Our school PTO is sponsoring a performance for the kids today-a wonderful singer who is great with the kids and brings tons of hats-he changes hats all the way through his performance. In honor of him, today was hat day at school.

I thought I had the girls convinced to wear Santa hats for the season.....but that would have been too easy. My 9 year old wanted to make a hat and as soon as my 6 year old saw her..........Santa hats weren't going to work.

My 9 year old started off with a black fleece hat. I suggested sewing small ornaments to it and then remembered we had a green hat. I sewed and she made a paper star to go on top. Very cute!!

Check-One happy child!

I then remembered seeing a cute tutorial for Easy Fairy Crowns over at 4 Crazy Kings this week and quickly suggested it to my 4 and 6 year olds. They loved the idea and we got started. I didn't have any headbands so I used some thin, pretty flexible wire my husband had in the cellar. I wrapped it around each child's head to measure and then looped it around 3-4 times. I cut and then taped the ends. I followed the rest of the tutorial and let the girls pick out the colors and ribbons they wanted. I sewed through the tulle and ribbon when I was done to make sure it wouldn't pull out-I forgot to tie a knot with the ribbon when I was done wrapping and just finished wrapping, put the tulle and ribbon in and then tied the knot. Note to self.....tie the knot next time! Very cute!

Check-Two Very Happy Twirly Children!

Quick, Easy, Yummy Baking......

or, at my house yesterday, Plan Number 3 due to lack of ingredients!

Due to a couple of recent Bake Sales, the tree lighting and my oldest daughter's huge paper mache project........

I was out of flour!!!!

The girls and I went to make snickerdoodles for another bake sale during the snow storm yesterday and I realized I had no flour. I usually don't go through a bag quite so fast and usually have another bag in the closet, but not yesterday.

I quickly moved on to Plan Number 2 and decided to make cupcakes. Can you believe-I had no cake mixes either!!! All I had were brownie mixes but I didn't want to make just plain brownies. I knew you could make cookies using cake mixes so I searched for cookies made out of brownie mix.

BINGO!

I found this recipe for Brownie Chip Cookies
All you need is 1/3 cup of oil, chocolate chips and 2 eggs-sigh....I had all the ingredients!

Quick, easy to mix up, yummy! My 4 year and I made another batch today because the girls loved them and only got 1 each yesterday.

So, if you're running short on flour or time, this is a great recipe. I think it also would be yummy with some m & m's thrown in..........

Now I just have to make sure I keep eggs in the house-I always seem to run out of those too!!

Merry Christmas.....

Merry Sitsmas!

From my home to yours........

My blog to yours........

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and all the best in 2010!

Make a Smilebox greeting

Winner, Winner......

We have a winner!!

I'm a little late on announcing the winner of my 100th post giveaway-it was a crazy weekend. I had our school PTO Santa Breakfast on Saturday-our scrambled egg production was a little slow because we were down a electric frypan but no major problems. On Sunday, I had our town tree lighting that I organized for my 9 yr old's Girl Scout Junior Troop. That was a bit stressful-I found out Saturday afternoon that there was no electricity outside-NO ELECTRICITY! -and they weren't sure where the problem was. But, after calming down and a couple of phone calls......with a few extension cords, we were able to light one tree and all went well!!

With all my modern technology (my coffee can and slips of papers with numbers on them), I am happy to announce the winner is number

which is Debbie who chose the Pizza Party Play Set.

Thank you to all who entered and thanks for all the good wishes you left me on my 100th post.

It's going to be hard........

being the brother of four older sisters!

Personal Advent Calendars.......

BRILLIANT!

Cute, easy, quick.....all my favorite words!

(well, chocolate isn't included and you know that's my favorite, but I had a brand new bag of peanut m & m's so all was well in my world!)

We have an advent calandar that my sister's mother-in-law made for me......years ago when we only had one child. The girls are pretty good at taking turns, but there are days when, let's see.......how can I put this nicely.......... they have trouble remembering whose turn it is and the Christmas Spirit ceases to exist. Yesterday, I saw the cutest idea to end the squabbles over whose turn it is.........

Personal Advent Calendars over at Make and Takes.

Once again, I say BRILLIANT and why didn't I think of it sooner!!

What sealed the deal was I already had the same package of stickers that were used-I picked them up last year, after Christmas, at the Dollar Store. Little did I know, I'd be ahead of the game. I didn't have the doilies and we don't have a Dollar Store nearby, so I cut Christmas trees out of construction paper.

The girls quickly got to work gluing their trees on and then decorating the backgrounds. They loved the idea of having their own calendar as much as I did.

The baby didn't make a calendar but he got right into the action coloring along-on paper for once, lately it's been my walls that are exhibiting his masterpieces.

After the girls decorated, my older ones decided to put the numbers 1-25 on their trees. This morning they covered the number 1 with their first sticker.

(please ignore all that laundry piled up on the couch-I have a huge mountain to fold-it feels like it's getting bigger instead of smaller!)

Here's all our personal calendars on our fridge-the girls are very excited!!

As I was taking this picture, I noticed the pink Build a Bear poodle also hanging there-why? I'm not sure, my girls think there should be something pink and fancy in every room plus they love to decorate the fridge! It kind of looks like one of those Halloween witches people hang on their house so it looks like the witch crashed into the wall.

Don't forget about my giveaway-it ends on Wednesday!!
Check it out and have a great day!