Christmas Pinspiration

First of all that I have to start off by saying that my heart is still breaking for the families of the victims of the shooting in CT on Friday.  I can't imagine the pain that they must be feeling right now.  I would be lying if I didn't say that I literally think about it all the time, and I have given my sweet pea more kisses and hugs in the past 3 days than I can count.  I will never be able to understand how someone could be so selfish to take the life of another, let alone an innocent child, and it makes me sick to my stomach every time I see those children's faces on the news or facebook.  I just pray for peace for the families, especially this time of the year, and hope that they know that the LORD is taking great care of their loved ones until they get to meet again.

On a lighter note, I wanted to share a few fun projects that I copied from pinterest this Christmas season.  I am sure most of you have seen the felt tree that is floating around pinterest and I knew the second that I saw it, that I wanted to make one for sweet pea.  I purchased the felt for the tree in the fabric section of Hobby Lobby and the felt for everything else came from there as well.  I first cut the shape for my tree and hung it on the door to sweet's playroom using some sticky dots.  Then I cut various sizes of presents, ornaments and lights out of the other felt.  Since felt sticks to felt I just stuck it all on until it looked right.  I did this at night, so when sweet pea woke up the next day she was so excited and literally started playing with it right away.  It was definitely a big hit and will be making a return appearance for years to come.

(P.S. this project cost me less than $10)

The next fun thing that we have been doing is also another popular pinterest activity.  I collected all kinds of books that had to do with winter and Christmas (most coming from the half price bookstore and some from scholastic at school) to wrap up, and sweet pea has gotten to open one every night since December 1st.  Its kind of like an advent of sorts.  She literally gets so excited every time she gets to pick one and when she opens it she always has the biggest smile and says "thank you thank you mommy"!  Melts my heart every time and was well worth the time and effort of finding the books.  She will get to open one until the 24th and on that night we will read "Twas the night before Christmas" which has been a tradition since I was little.

The third and final project is a wall advent calendar.  This large frame was already hanging on the wall in her bedroom with something else inside, but I took it down for the month of December and it got replaced with this advent calendar.  I got the idea to make the napkin pockets from Carmel over at Our Fifth House.  All I did to make the pockets was fold the napkins (cocktail that I already had) then taped them closed leaving only an opening at the top.  I found some cute Christmas stickers in the dollar bin at Joann fabrics and used them to decorate each pocket.  I then wrote the numbers on with a magic marker.  I attached some string to the frame using my trusty staple gun and then hung each pocket with mini clothespins.  I filled the pockets with assorted candy.

This is literally the first thing that sweet pea asks to do as soon as her eyes open in the morning.  She says "mom I need to get my candy".  It's probably not the best idea to give your child sweets as soon as they wake up in the morning, but hey it is Christmas so why not!

It turned out way cuter than I thought it would, so I think I will definitely have another go at it next year.  I just had to share this shot because that sweet little vintage reindeer used to belong to my grandmother who passed away this summer, and it makes me smile to be able to share her things with sweet pea.  Two of it's friends made it home as well and reside in other parts of the house.

As you can see pinterest has some amazing holiday projects circulating and has really gotten my creative juices flowing.  I just hope that I can continue these fun holiday tradition for years to come.  Well it's getting late so, until next time, BYE!

Christmas Kick-Off

Last Sunday sweet pea and I kicked off the Christmas season with a tree lighting celebration in my parents neighborhood.  It was the first year for the event, but they ended up having a pretty decent turn out.  It was freezing that night so we made sure to bundle up, and were very glad that they were serving hot apple cider.  Sweet pea seemed to enjoy it and all the homemade cookies!

Before they lit the tree we all sang Christmas carols led by a local church choir.  Sweet pea clapped at the end of each song and even danced a little.

Once the carols were over we counted down from 10 and then they lit up the big tree.  Sweets kept reliving the moment in the car the whole way home, it was real cute!  I tried to get a good picture of my parents with her, but she was too distracted to look at the camera.  Oh well, what can you expect from a 2 year old!

The tree looks beautiful and we have since driven by it a few times.  Whenever we are in the car at night and she spots Christmas lights she says, "Look it's Christmas time"!  It makes me smile, and I am looking forward to taking her for a drive to look at lights once it gets a little closer to Christmas.

We also kicked off a few new Christmas traditions as well today, but I will be back another time to tell you about those.  Well, my favorite Christmas movie "Elf" is on, so I am gonna say goodnight for now, but I will see ya next time, BYE!

Thanksgiving 2012 Recap

This year we had Thanksgiving with hubby's family, and I have to say that it was a very relaxing day.  Sweet pea and I got up and made breakfast while daddy slept in a bit.  Can you tell she was excited about Turkey Day! :)

My favorite part about Thanksgiving morning since I was little is watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, so that is exactly what we did after breakfast.  One of sweet pea's favorite parts was when the cast of Cinderella the musical was on.  She is rather in to the Disney princesses right now.

After breakfast I whipped up some green bean casserole and sweet potatoes and we all got ready and headed over to my sister in laws house.  I had to get a picture of sweet pea and her cousin in their Indian head dresses.  Aren't they just precious!

We dined on 2 different types of turkey and all the fixins and let me tell you it was DELICIOUS!  I ate so much that I couldn't even make it back for seconds.  That didn't stop me from having some pumpkin pie later in the day though :)  Sis in law really outdid herself this year and I was glad that we got to be there to enjoy it!

Once we were able to peel ourselves off of the couch, we headed home just in time to catch Charlie Browns Thanksgiving before bedtime.  I have to say, thanks to the turkey induced coma I slept very well that night and was refreshed enough to do a little black Friday shopping, but not until that evening.  (I was not about to get up at the crack of dawn to stand in the freezing cold for anything!)

Well now that Thanksgiving has wrapped up the countdown is on for Christmas.  I got a bunch of shopping done while sweet pea was at school today, and I hope to be finished by next week, but we shall see.  Most of the Christmas decor has been put out, but we are hoping to get our tree up and lights on the house this weekend.  I am gonna try to snap some pictures to share once everything is complete.  Until then I hope you all have a wonderful night and I will see you next time, BYE!

Thankful Tree

This post is a little late, but I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family and tons of food and fun!  I wanted to make sure that I shared this little project that we did this November before its over tomorrow.  I have always wanted to do a Thankful Tree and thought since sweet pea is getting older now would be a good time to start.  Originally I had wanted to make one that would hang on the door to her playroom, but never got around to it, so I opted for the alternative.

I already had the leaves on hand from last year (purchased at the Dollar Tree) and the branches I found in my mom's yard.  Every day we would write what we were thankful for on a leaf and then tie it to one of the branches.

The tree sat on a table in the living room so everyday I would walk by it several times and be reminded of how fortunate we are to have so many things to be thankful for.

This is definitely a tradition that I can't wait to continue and pass on to my kids to do with their kids one day. It really reminds you to stop and think how fortunate most of us are, and that we really need to quit stressing the small things in life and be thankful for what we do have.

Hope you enjoyed, I will be back a little later tonight with a recap from our Thanksgiving this year.  Until then, BYE!

Halloween 2012

Well yesterday was the big day which brought an end to our Countdown to Halloween adventure.  I am really glad that I started this tradition with sweet pea because it encouraged me to slow down and spend more time with her (since I often get caught up in things that don't matter as much like housework), and it also helped me to keep my creative juices flowing.  I am pretty sure she enjoyed everything that we did, so hopefully we can continue this tradition next year with some new and fun ideas.

Sweet pea unfortunately came down with the stomach flu the night before Halloween, so she wasn't feeling the best yesterday, but in true trooper form she still rallied on and put on the sweetest smile ever!  We went over to my sis-in-laws house for dinner and then I took sweets out with my nephews.  Since it was cold and she wasn't feeling well we didn't go far, but she still managed to get TONS of candy.  She seemed to perk up once she saw all her loot, but I didn't let her have any since her belly had been sick :(  

Is she not the cutest little Strawberry Shortcake that you've ever seen!!

The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown was on when we got home, so I let her stay up to watch it before heading to bed.  She loved it and got upset when it would go to commercial.  She kept saying "bring that show back mommy!"

I did cave in once we got home and let her have a few licks off one of her suckers, after all it was Halloween!

My sweet aunt heard sweet pea wasn't feeling well, so she dropped this book off for her and we read it before she went to bed.  Thanks Aunt Trish your the best!

Sweet pea is still a little under the weather today, so hopefully she will start feeling better soon.  I just hate it when she is sick and there is nothing I can do!  Now that Halloween is over I think sweets and I will be putting away the spooky decorations today and bringing out the Turkeys and Pilgrims.  

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween 2012, see ya next time!

More Countdown Fun!

I've been a big slacker at getting this post up, but I had been dealing with A LOT of sinus issues the past couple weeks and I am just now feeling like my old self again.  I have also not done as well with the list the past 2 weeks, but we still managed to do some fun things.  I also improvised a couple days, so we aren't actually going to finish the entire 31 days but we gave it a good try!  The BIG day is tomorrow, but it will require a whole post in itself.  Here is what we have accomplished the past 2 weeks.

October 15: Auntie's Birthday
We celebrated my sis-in-laws (aka Auntie Leah) birthday at our favorite local Mexican restaurant and then followed it up with ice cream cake at her house.  It was delish!

October 16: Nothing

October 17: Class Treat
Sweet pea and I put together these cute little treat bags for the kids in her mother's day out class for their Halloween party.

October 18: Rice Krispie Treats
Instead of making cookies, I decided to make rice krispie treats instead.  I found some cute little Halloween sprinkles in the dollar section at Target that sweet pea helped me add to the treats.  I can't remember the last time I made these, but they were very yummy!

October 19&20: Nada

October 21: Donuts
When I woke up this particular Sunday morning hubby and sweet pea surprised me with yummy donuts from Krispy Kreme.  I am pretty sure I ate like 3 that day, but they were just so darn delicious!  Hubby got sweet pea her special sprinkle donut which was all decked out for Halloween.

October 22: Happy Meal/Pajama Day
They are giving out special Scooby Doo Happy Meal buckets the month of October at Mickey D's, so sweet pea and I stopped in for some lunch this day.  We also deemed this day as pajama day and wore our comfy wear all day. (And yes we even wore them to McDonald's, but we went through the drive-thru)

October 23-28: I pretty much slacked off the rest of last week, but am trying to make up for it this week.

October 29: Paint Pumpkins
We have had these fake pumpkins laying around that my mom gave sweet pea, and since the weather here yesterday was pretty cold and windy, I thought a project was in order.  I had some paints leftover from a previous project so I gave them to sweets and let her go to town.  It kept her occupied for quite some time, but I had to eventually step in once she started mixing all the colors together to make a lovely shade of grey.  The finished projects are interesting to say the least, but I know she is proud of them and that makes me proud!

October 30: School Spirit Day/Class Party
Today was the Halloween party at sweet pea's school and she received quite a bit of loot, that she says she is going to share with her daddy, but we shall see.  It was also school spirit day so she got to wear her school t-shirt and everyone in the school got pizza, yum!  Since my mom works at the school she also had her spirit duds on, so I had to get a picture of the two of them together. (Yes, that is candy corn in my child's mouth!)

We also carved our pumpkin tonight.  I thought sweet pea would be interested in helping her daddy, but instead she just kept saying "that's grossy" and didn't want to have much to do with it.

She decided she wanted a spooky pumpkin, so this is what I came up with.  I know it's generic but oh well it's spooky enough for a 2 year old.

Tomorrow is the big day so I will have plenty more pictures to share.  Sweet pea is super excited to go Trick or Treating with her cousins, and can't wait until tomorrow night.  Are you ready for the big night??

Until next time, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

The Countdown Continues

Well due to some sickness in our household this post is a few days late, but everyone is on the ups at the moment so I hope we are 100% better by the weekend.  Last week our countdown to Halloween continued with a bang, so here it goes.

October 8: Pumpkin Patch

On Monday myself, sweet pea, mom, sister and nephew all traveled to the local pumpkin patch.  It's actually in Indiana, but is only 30 mins. from Louisville so it's super easy to get to.  We have been traveling to Huber's Farm since I was a child so it's fun for sister and I to finally get to take our own children.  They had a blast and were very tired once we got home!

October 9: Make Costume
This year I decided to make sweet peas costume, so I enlisted the help of my mother in law who is a superb seamstress.  I am hoping to learn everything she knows one day, but it may take a loooong time!  Thanks Belinda for all your help!!

October 10: this was the night of my monthly get together with my girl friends, so nothing on the list got accomplished.

October 11: Play Outside
Hubby is trying a new workout regimen, and got this old tractor tire to flip around in the backyard.  My sister in law and nephew came over this day, so of course the kids wanted to take a turn flipping the tire.  Sweet pea sure is strong!! :)

October 12: Trick of Treat at the ZOO
My MIL and I got the costume finished, so here is little sweet pea all decked out as Strawberry Shortcake.  The Zoo here in town hosts the world's largest Halloween party, so mother, sister and I took the kids to trick or treat.  They were both under the weather with ear infections but were troopers anyways and had lots of fun.  Sweet pea even trick or treated without help from mommy which made me so proud :)

October 13: OU vs TX Football Game
Saturday was the big rivalry football game between the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns.  We had hubby's family over for some homemade corn dogs (since the game is held during the TX State Fair) and OU pulled out a big win, which made my hubby one happy man!

October 14: Spooky Supper
Sunday we had a spooky supper that consisted of mummy dogs, blueberry eyeballs, and mac n cheese. It was delish and literally gone in like 10 minutes!

Watch a Halloween Show
Since we skipped an activity on Wednesday we decided to do two on Sunday.  We were being lazy this night since we were under the weather so we decided to opt out of the princess tea party and watched the Halloween episode of our favorite show Doc McStuffins instead.  It was really cute and nice to get some snuggle time in before bed.

I"ll be back next week with a wrap up of what's been happening this week, so stay tuned, Goodbye!

Linking to: Savvy Southern Style