For the love of Red!

Merry Christmas!!!! I have found joy in many things this season so I would thought I would share a few that were the same festive color red!

This darling little girl isn't red, but her sweater certainly is. When I was pregnant for Vivi a friend from on online message board found this sweater and sent it to me. It was such a fantastic surprise, I remember how it brightened my day to open this unexpected package.

On the sweater is an adorable little penguin, which is the official mascot of the message board. It was such a beautiful gift, and so thoughtful of Susan. It fits Vivi well right now, and brings me a smile each time she wears it.

Another joy in the color red is the cinnamon hard candy that I made for gifts this year. It's a childhood favorite. You can read more about it HERE, along with the recipe.
And last but not least, this year I decorated my mother's closed in porch for her in all red lights. The garland is green and red. I just love the red. So warm and festive!

One of my various gift projects

Hello out there in blogland! Can you believe that there is just over a week until Christmas? I know. It's incredibly exciting! I'm not nearly as ready as I'd like because I have a ton of stuff going on. But I'm having fun, and I've committed to not stressing over anything.

Here is a little sneak peek at one of the gifts I've been working on. This was an easy one, it's an altered bottle of hand soap. On Black Friday I scored a great deal on Bath & Body hand soaps and sanitizers.

This particular bottle was used as part of a white elephant gift for Michael's work exchange. I removed the front B&B label and then used rub-ons to create a festive design on the front. The Holiday Happiness was stamped with Staz-On. Then I tied a pretty black ribbon and some beaded threads around it. I like how it turned out, and I love the colors.

There are other gifts in the works around here.. but I have to be careful not to give too much away because of the snoops who might see what their presents are.

Listmaking and Curiosities

GUESS WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????!!!!! It's snowing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, that was a bit obnoxious, sorry about that.

Because of our lovely new winter weather I've been inspired to make some good solid holiday lists. And I thought I'd share, because... well actually I have no good reason besides the fact that I am the hostess of this blog so if I want to post a list I can.. and I'll completely understand if you stop reading now.

Are you still here? whew. Good. I'm a little insecure at times. That's probably why I blog. See Michael doesn't share my affection for lists.. he thinks I'm slightly crazy. As if everyone doesn't have conversations with themselves on their blog. but I digress.

Here is a list of things I love about Christmas:

• Making goodies
• Giving gifts
• Decorating a tree
• Playing "Mama Santa & Aidan Santa" filling stockings
• Sleeping in on Christmas morning
• Watching The Christmas Story (you know, where Ralphie shoots his eye out)
• Knowing that it's as close as we really get to throwing a birthday party for my personal Savior Jesus Christ.

And Here is my Christmas (in no particular order) To-Do list:

• Make 6 batches of cocoa truffles
• Make 4 batches of fresh peppermint patties
• Make 2 batches of homemade marshmallows
• Make 6 batches of rollo pretzels
• Bake Snickerdoodles
• Bake Spice Cookies
• Bake 2 TBD kinds of cookies
• Make Cinnamon hard candy
• Make 2 batches of Oreo truffles
• Make 2 batches of Caramels
• Make 4 batches of Peanut Butter Fudge
• Package up 16 baskets of the above goodies as gifts for all the people we love.. and a few that we're just neighborly with, lol!
• Make 22 Christmas gifts (you didn't honestly think I was going to tell you WHAT the gifts were did you?)
• Put together a few small gift packages for Michael's co-workers
• Blog about some of these finished projects
• Buy a few more stocking stuffers
• Wrap gifts
• Attend 4 Christmas parties
• Figure out a way to get my house clean and a bunch of stuff packed up in between gift making.
• Take a Christmas picture of the kids
• Mail out some Christmas cards

And last but not least, here is a list of random things that I've noticed over the last week:

• When one has Cranberry Ginger Ale and Vanilla ice cream one can make a festive ice cream soda
• When one 30 year old dances with a 2 year old, said 2 year old giggles the most but said 30 year old gets the most joy from the experience.
• Peanut butter is not sacred in this house. I'm going to have to stock up multiple jars of it if I want to accomplish some of the stuff on the previous list before a certain someone decides to mix it with Maple Syrup and eat it by the spoonful.
• There are few things more heartwarming than listening to a not-quite-two year old pray for almost every single person that makes up her circle of friends and family... she can rattle off every member of our extended family, worship band and even some kids from story hour.
• It's come to my attention that we have one blanket that is indeed better than any other blanket in regards to cuddling on the couch. Taking a mental note to find more blankets like that one.
• It's come to my attention that people don't take kindly to hearing someone snapping pictures outside their dressing room door at the second hand shop, in fact they become just plain uncomfortable and paranoid about it.. regardless of all the perfectly bloggable pictures that could be taken at a second hand shop..
• And last but not least I realized that I have readers who have NEVER commented on my blog before. I know this because every so often I meet someone and they say "I know you, I read your blog!" (which I admit is a little creepy) or I see someone that I really do know and they say "I enjoy reading your blog!" and I think "Then why don't you ever comment?????".. so....

Who are you? Where are you? Have I ever met you in real life? What kind of blog posts do you enjoy? What's your favorite thing in the whole wide world?

Tell me something about you. Anything. Say hello. Say goodbye. Say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. In other words, leave me a comment you big chickens!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!

Ok so I lied. It's December and out my window is a whole lot of green and brown and no white. Not a single flake. There was a dusting on the ground this morning but it melted in the 38* weather.

That said, I'm not entirely disappointed in the weather. In fact.. well let's just say I'm not a fan of outdoor winter activities. I like to be warm. And dry.

But snowflakes are beautiful to look at.. they inspire me to get ready for my very favorite holiday.. and since there aren't any snowflakes to inspire me I'm left to inspire myself.

Curious as to how this is working out for me? Well blogworld never lets me down so I'll share some places I've browsed recently. (And NO I will not be giving away the secrets of my holiday gift giving ideas either so Michael if you're reading this don't even get your hopes up!)

As strange as it might sound I clicked back through my archives and found THIS POST about the difference between "Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays" and the twisted marketing genius behind Starbucks. And not only did that post make me want a peppermint mocha concoction.. It also amused me because I remember writing it and remember that I was quite struck by their strange clearance coffee sale.



Then I moved on to my list of gifts that I've kept bookmarked.. you know, the stuff I ALWAYS want to make for SOMEONE.. but I never really get around to it?


Well THIS is a link for a felt Mr. Potato head doll.. complete with velcro, etc. It could be used quietly in church, etc... and it's soooo cute. Not that I'll take the time to make it but.. well you know. It's cute.




Now as for one that I'm really going to use, HERE is a link on the same page for Cloth Baby Blocks. I think a set of these will make a darling gift and I already have my cloth picked out to make them with.



And then there's this cute little Christmas House in A Jar idea. I'm not even sure what to call it. It's just a house in a jar that is just too cute.




It makes me want to decorate. And all that glitter.. I love glitter. I think I have a jar I can use too. And I know I have little trees. Maybe I could steal a little house from Aidan's train table.. *gasp!* did I really just think that out loud. Of course I wouldn't do that. Michael, you didn't read that right.



And along the same lines of decor.. there are pillows being made at Edies's blog, Life in Grace. (see linky in my sidebar? yeah, she's one of my faves)

Aren't these pillows festive? I think they are. In fact, I really, really like them. If it was practical for me to decorate this year then I would make them. As slip covers. And then just cover my pillows seasonally.

And to throw one last link into the mix, I'll encourage you to stop by our recipe blog to check out our 12 Recipes of Christmas that are being posted throughout December. There will be some Christmas favorites and many of them can be used for pretty much any occasion so they are great to have on hand.

Let me be one of the first to wish you.... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!

A lunch date with Grampy

Aidan has a few favorite people and one of them is his Grampy. He also has a few favorite bedtime stories, and one of those stories is a tale about how one day Grampy lets Aidan and Ri drive one of his big trucks to town for lunch. Well.. it doesn't look like Aidan is going to be able to drive a truck to town any time soon (although he probably is physically capable and skilled enough to, lol!) but he did want to at least ride to lunch in the truck some day.

So Aidan took some money out of his bank and took Grampy out to lunch for a texas hot. I don't know a whole lot about their adventure...

Besides that they took the flat bed and Aidan seemed to feel pretty satisfied with their date. He's only let on to a few little hints about their time. He shared what he ordered to eat and that the waitress winked at him. But otherwise it's a big secret because it was a "boys lunch".