Tuesday, December 30, 2014

snowflake crayons

This year, like the day before little man's last day of preschool before winter break, we thought of the idea to make something for all of his little classmates. I remembered I had a few snowflake molds and asked Brayden what he thought of making snowflake crayons for everyone and he thought it was a great idea :) So off the 4 of us went to the store to gather some supplies.






This little gift was really very inexpensive and of course, super easy.  We headed to the dollar store for the crayons (because you need alot) then to Michaels for the gift bags and gift tags.  The most time consuming part of this little craft is peeling the paper off the crayons - I'm just lucky this is one of Brayden's favorite things to do.


Here are the things you will need:

  • lots of broken crayons - I made 18 snowflakes and used 3 1/2 boxes of crayons that had 48each in them
  • silicone mold

First peel the paper off all of your crayons, then break your crayons up (another one of my little guys favorite things to do!) Place them in the mold to about halfway.  Now most directions I read said to bake at 220 F for 10-15 minutes, but this did not work for me.  I'm not sure if it's because I used dollar store crayons, but I had to up my heat to 350 F and baked for almost 20 minutes.

Once they are melted, take out and let cool.  Once cooled, pop them out and wa-la - super cute and easy snowflake crayons!

My little guy stamped each one of the gift tags and wrote his name on 20 of them!! #proudmama




Monday, December 29, 2014

christmas recap

Good Morning and Happy Monday! I have thoroughly enjoyed these last 5 days and treated them as my "vacation" time - which means I actually slept in until 6am everyday! It was glorious!

I hope everyone had a great holiday, we sure did and I'm still trying to figure out where to put everything the kiddos got.

Christmas Eve morning we had a little North Pole breakfast in honor of our elf, Twinkles, leaving that night.  The kids were SO excited about this which made all of the effort I put into it completely worth it.  Brayden came downstairs and saw everything then ran up to wake up the hubby while screaming, "there's a North Pole breakfast Dad! There are donuts like snowmen and reindeer and hot chocolate and it is awesome!! Come downstairs now Dad!" 






Even Avery got to enjoy the ambiance of the breakfast - to think she will be joining them in eating it next year, so crazy!



The rest of the day we just relaxed and made some more cookies for Santa, then headed to my Aunt's house at night. 

 



Around 10 we headed home, got all of the kids in bed which was a miracle because Brayden and Ella were so hyped up from all of the cookies they were eating sneaking.  Then it was time for the hubs and I to bring everything up to put under the tree and collapse.

Christmas morning I was up early preparing our homemade cinnamon rolls that we have once a year on Christmas morning.  They are so worth the prep! (which isn't even that bad)


The kids finally got up and it was present time! Brayden's face was lit up when he came down and saw all of the presents and that the cookies were mostly eaten by Santa.  I just LOVE watching these moments through their eyes.  

This quote is so true!



Ella is still little but she definitely knew presents were for her and she enjoyed opening them, if it took her 4 times as long as her brother :)




This Elsa doll was by far Ella's favorite present! You lift her arm up and she sings Let it Go - so Ella must have lifted her arm 100 times that morning then would lift her arms up and start singing, it was so darn cute!



Like Father like daughter :) 




Avery was happy her big brother was there to help her open her presents




Santa brought the big castle he had been asking for!!





After we played with all the new stuff, we headed over to my Mom's house for more presents, then to my in laws later at night.  It was a fun filled Christmas this year and Brayden and Ella had the best time! We are so blessed and grateful to have spent another Christmas together with all our families.


Wednesday, December 24, 2014

merry christmas eve

Ahhh it's here! The day before Christmas! Having little kids sure does make me feel little again and I love it :)

Here's to wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas, from my family to yours!


Tuesday, December 23, 2014

My new favorite Christmas decoration

So I really love all of those pretty Christmas decorations - you know the ones that come straight from Pottery Barn or the like, but in my house, I would much rather put up cute little Christmas crafts from my kiddos. Yes, I'm that girl. Oh, and I also don't do white lights.

So this year we have been making tons of Christmas crafts and decorating our house with them. Along with the usual reindeer feet, Christmas tree made out of handprints, and a much more, I knew I wanted to make a Christmas plate that I could put up year after year and smile every time I looked at it.  

Of course I searched Pinterest for ideas but I actually ended up creating my own thing - shocking, I know.

Here is my new, absolutely FAVORITE Christmas decoration.  It hangs in my kitchen and will be brought back out every year



Oh my goodness, I just love looking at those sweet feet!! I hand painted all of the ornaments around the plate then it only took  50  a few times to get those feet perfect. 


Friday, December 19, 2014

Mama's Christmas wishlist

Since I've already shared Christmas ideas for the little ones, now I'm going to share what this Mama wants to find under her tree this year.


{ONE}

I am loving anything "fair isle" this year and these need to be added to my pj collection. So cute and so fun.




{TWO}

See, I wasn't joking when I said I'm loving everything fair isle! This price tag is way too much however so I'm really hoping the hubby jumped on this one before they sold out everywhere and people started selling them for ridiculous prices on Ebay and Amazon


{THREE}

This tee is adorable and can be dressed up or down and I need it in my closet, stat.
Megan Lee Designs Unisex Baseball Tee | Nordstrom
{FOUR}

I cannot stand taking off my gloves to check a message, send a message, make a call, etc. I live in Chicago so gloves are a must in winter.  It would be nice to have a pair to wear when out and about that will let me use my phone.  These have mixed reviews, but for the price, I'll give them a try


{FIVE}
Health & Happiness & The True Meaning of Christmas

I know I will sound like a total sap here, and that's perfectly OK with me, but more than anything this holiday season, (and all other times of the year) I want our families to continue to have health and happiness. There is truly nothing more important than family and I want all of my loved ones (myself included) to be able to enjoy this life together for a long, long time.




Even though the above wishlist is all material items, I would be perfectly happy to not receive any gifts and just spend the holiday with the ones I love most. 


Precious Christmas

So what's on your wish list? Can't wait to see what Santa puts under my tree!



linking up with:

The Good Life

Momfessionals

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Thursday, December 18, 2014

Little Mans Holiday Concert

Yesterday was Brayden's preschool holiday concert and he was so excited for it.  He had been singing all of the songs at home for weeks which surprised me because last year he never did that. This led me to believe that he may actually sing at the show... I was wrong.

We got there and he went to a different room to prepare with his class while we got our seats.  He walked out this year with so much confidence all I could think was how proud of him I was! He must have blown me 20 kisses from when he walked out to when he got to where he was suppose to stand.  My little ham!





Then the singing started, and while most kids were belting the songs out, my kid was up there acting goofy, lip singing the songs obnoxiously, he would open his mouth so wide when he was pretending to sing, it was all I could to hold in my laughter but at some points I let it out, because it was really so dang funny.  




At one point of one of the songs, all the kids were suppose to knelt to the ground, but not mine, he just stayed there standing.  Again, I couldn't contain my laughter! When he was done he was so excited to run up to us and we told him how proud we were of him! Even though he didn't actually sing or do any of the hand movements, this was 10 times better than how he did last year at his first performance.  Last year there were lots of tears and lots of covering his face, but not this year!! My little boy is growing up way too fast, but I'm so enjoying this ride.





Of course I think he was most excited about the punch and cookies they had afterwards :)






Avery was there but she stayed nice and quiet in her car set so we didn't want to go and disturb that...




It was so much fun and now my little guy is off school for 2 weeks, we need to plan some fun stuff to keep him entertained!

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I just love love love decorating for Christmas.  Although throughout the years I have definitely downsized the amount of the decorations I put up, it's still the one holiday I really spend the extra time putting everything up.

Here's a look into our home, I love the simplified look of all the decorations, there is just enough to make me feel all warm and fuzzy when I walk through our house.

First up is our family room - it's the most decorated room in our house. As always, I loved decorating our mantel.  This year looks the same as last except with the addition of my new chalkboard.  The chalkboard pretty much replicates this one and I'm so happy with how it looks.







My mom handmade all of our stockings - they are so special to me





                 


I made the Christmas trees a few years ago using styrofoam trees from the craft store. I covered them in mod podge and added glitter.  Surprisingly it wasn't as messy as you would think.




The handmade artwork is hands down my favorite part of the mantel.  I love displaying their artwork and everytime I look at it, I get so happy. I need to work on new reindeer feet this year with Avery




Here's a shot of our whole fireplace, my favorite part of this room :)




I added some of my snowmen to our bookshelf and of course the kids picture with Santa

             


And then there's our beautiful tree which is really hard to photograph and much prettier in person


One last shot of looking into the family room off the kitchen 



This wreath hangs on our downstairs powder room - my aunt gave this to me probably 7 years ago and it's still one of my favorites.




The playroom (aka our formal living room turned playroom) doesn't have much decorating going on, but the kids do have their own little tree full of their own ornaments either they made or were given.


 


In our front entryway, we have a shoe cabinet so I just tossed this on there - it's from Hobby Lobby if you were wondering :)



 I put up a new Christmas sign (also from Hobby Lobby) on this door and decided to hang some ribbon and put our Christmas cards there





And there you have it, our little Christmas tour this year - next year I want to add more decor to the kitchen.  I just love this time of year and adding decorations throughout the house just helps me feel in the spirit and the kids love it too!

Now, I need to get my butt in gear with wrapping - there are only 9 days until Christmas Eve!
 
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