Mom's turn: A very merry Christmas, indeed!

Someone’s been a good girl this year - MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! My super family always gets the best gifts for me. My DD found a fancy wine opener from Brookstone for me, the Connoisseur’s Compact Wine Opener in the color merlot. She had no idea how perfect it was as I had just been oogling one at my friend’s Christmas party! What a surprise to have my very own now! Then my HH…what can I say about him!?!?! He is always full of surprises…this year it was the Electra Townie. YAY!!!!! For those of you that know me well you might think another bike is the last thing I needed…but this is absolutely perfect and I have been yammering about wanting one for over a year!!! Although I never thought I would actually get one because he’s thoroughly enjoyed giving me a hard time, something about “needing another bike like a hole in the head.” But I really DID need it :-D In pink, too!!!!!!!!!! It’s perfect for riding around the neighborhood…it makes me feel like I’m 12 years old again! I LOVE IT!!!!!! And it’s the perfect bike for Samson and O’Malley’s trailer; now we can hop in and go to the new dog park they just opened!!!!!!!!!! They don’t mind riding behind a pink bike!!! She’s beautiful…all pearly and iridescent! I can’t wait to get my stickers, bell and basket for that customized touch…and maybe later we’ll even go for the fenders!!!

Mom's turn: A White Elephants

Literally :-D My FIL wanted to do a white elephant gift exchange game for our family lunch on Christmas. I thought I would be crafty and make the wrapping paper and labels for that personal touch since the gifts were supposed to be funny. With my fabulous baby bug, a Cricut, I was able to cut out an elephant, hat and "JOY" and then decorate them with sparkles to make it special!!! I did one for each of our packages…and somehow everyone guessed they were from me!!!!!! Think the elephant gave it away? :-D

holiday tradition.

Each year around the holidays we have a tradition of making persimmon bread. It is delicious! My grandpa has a tree, and since he doesn’t eat them, we have a ton! Well this year mean old hurricane Gustavo knocked ALL the persimmons off the tree so we could not have any bread! We just could not stand not having bread for breakfast and snacks though, so my mom made pumpkin bread! It is equally as delicious as the persimmon bread, so I think next year we will be very confused on which one to make.

Mom's turn: The perfect tree...AGAIN?

One particularly lovely tradition that we started a few years ago is to recycle our Christmas tree into a yard ornament for the birds. My hubby digs a hole and gets it out for us and my DD and I make all sorts of bird treat ornaments for the tree.

Stringing the garland

a pinecone covered in peanut butter and then rolled in fruitflavored bird food

some leftover bird treats we had in the pantry

Can't forget the tree-topper...an apple core. Birds love fresh fruit

Then for the next several months we get to watch the different wild life visit the yard and try to get pictures. Hmmm…I can see we need to try harder!

who's the photographer anyway?!?!?!?!

HEY - maybe she could use lessons...what a great Mother's Day present *hint hint*

For some reason the birds aren't sticking around much this year. AH HA! I found the culprit...he lays on the porch and waits for them to land before chasing them out of his yard!

That's a very inocent look you have there, Samson!

The Nutcracker

The nutcracker is always beautiful, but if you have someone you know performing in it that makes it ten times more enjoyable to watch! This year I got to go see my friend Brenna! She was a Bon Bon. The bon bons were little candies with red cute doll cheeks that came out of mother ginger!

Brenna’s goal is one day to be the Arabian girl! I think she is quit capable! Here is a video of the Arabian dance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKzcFo8Xn7U&feature=related

There are many parts in the nutcracker. My 3 favorite are Arabian, Snow, and Doll

Snow- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG5MXgj1gJ4&feature=related

Doll- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q3k8P918s8

Dressed and ready...

a friend, Brenna - she's so cute with her stage make-up, and me

Mom's turn: The ULTIMATE Christmas surprise!

Sharing the incredible joy my husband brought me this year! He outdid himself and everyone kept the secret until Christmas morning. I'm so loved!!! For some reason the video loaded at 10minutes...it's actually a little less than 3 min, sorry for being so illiterate on Blogger's editing. Blogger also cut the pixles, so the quality isn't fantastic...but you'll get the general idea :-D

Mom's turn: Christmas Crafts

Christmas is a time of joy and love and not shopping. I think the world has gotten away from this concept with the commercialism and “consumer” mentality that strives in the US today. As a mom, it’s more important to me now than ever to share my beliefs and hope some simple traditions carry on in my daughter’s heart as she grows and comes to find the meaning of Christmas for herself. One of the main things I try to do is make gifts – as old-fashioned as this concept is, surprisingly many people still cherish it. What a truly meaningful way to show you love someone by spending several hours putting your heart into a gift made by your hands instead of purchasing something quickly. A few I did this year are the Swedish weave towels, Christmas tree ornaments (the one shown was for a specific gift…my favorite were the snowmen I made),a paper tree,

Adding the finishing touches

personalized gift boxes for tiny treasures,Christmas music CDs, and some acrylic Post-it note holders with matching pen.Thankfully, my daughter already seems to enjoy this tradition. Her personal contribution to the annual gifts has been her famous persimmon bread from the fruit she harvests every year from her grandfather’s tree. Hers seems to be the favorite of the recipients, as they generally start asking about it around September!!

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ‘till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” – Dr. Seuss

Mom's turn:At last...in the Christmas spirit

The most exciting thing this year, aside from finally finding all of our Christmas decorations after the move, is to have a mantel to decorate and hang our stockings from! Now I am still waiting for our weather to get cold enough to use the fireplace again...the woas of living in a Southern state. But with the Christmas music in the background and the a/c down to 65 degrees - it's getting easier to pretend...as long as you don't go outside!!! heehee

Notice Santa's little helper sitting in the chair wondering where his stocking is!

The diligence of searching for the perfect tree paid off - look how beautiful...with one loan present underneath. SOMEONE's been good this year :-D

And it just wouldn't be complete without a visit to Santa Paws at PetCo!!! Procedes for the photos were used to help homeless pets.

O Tannenbaum - O Christmas Tree

My belief is Christmas is just not Christmas with out a real tree! We have only had one Christmas without a real tree. I was quite mad.

Last night we went tree shopping. Let me tell you there were not a lot of good choices, especially with my dad. He is the pickiest tree shopper you will ever meet. This is probably because he studied landscape architect. My mom liked all the skinny ones, my dad liked all the shorter ones and I liked the fat and tall ones. So we all disagreed on each others trees. But in the end we got an 8’ tree that was a happy medium between fat and skinny.

We are going to go light on the decorations this year mainly because we don’t quite know where all our stuff is from the move. The theme is going to be purple. It will be an awesome tree for our first Christmas in our new house

The perfect tree