A time of giving, hope and joy...
A thrifted find on my son's very first Christmas two years ago...this year he understands the magic.
It's simply perfect, sweet and warms the heart.
At night we take an evening walk...the fairy lights are twinkling, we light little candles and listen to carols as we play. A little Santa bell hangs by his bed...sometimes the Santa bell joins us on our walks.
Christmas is a time for giving, hope and joy.
Christmas is the time above all others, when peace may visit earth and find a dwelling place in every heart.
Let's hope so anyway!
ps. Find a copy if you can... the author is Joan Walsh Anglund
and i am back from a bloggy rest...and delighted to be back.
x
Show it Like it Is Challenge... O Christmas Tree!
Everyone knows it's illegal to mount your Christmas tree til December 1 (unless you are a department store -- in which case you have licence to do it in - oh - June ;). But I just had a baby and last Christmas Fern was still too young to understand what Christmas was, so we didn't make too big a deal of it. This Christmas? We're going all out. In truth, I'd barely scoffed the last of my Easter eggs when ours went up (well, maybe a slight exaggeration) and there are even presents under it!!
Which just goes to show how much motherhood has changed me, because in the past I had no qualms leaving my shopping til Christmas eve and wrapping the pressies late into the night... this year, I want to be super super organised and only leave SOME of my shopping til the last second. This year, I want to make gingerbread men. Have my photo taken with Santa. Leave carrots out for Rudolf. String lights around the outside of the house (ooops, already done). Make a Christmas cake. Play dodgy Bing Crosby carols. Watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (for the billionth time, that one never gets old). This year, I'm celebrating Christmas like I've never celebrated it before. Because this time, I've got my little family to celebrate it with, and its gonna be a cracker.
Anyway. So this year, my Christmas tree looks like this:
Read More...
Which just goes to show how much motherhood has changed me, because in the past I had no qualms leaving my shopping til Christmas eve and wrapping the pressies late into the night... this year, I want to be super super organised and only leave SOME of my shopping til the last second. This year, I want to make gingerbread men. Have my photo taken with Santa. Leave carrots out for Rudolf. String lights around the outside of the house (ooops, already done). Make a Christmas cake. Play dodgy Bing Crosby carols. Watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (for the billionth time, that one never gets old). This year, I'm celebrating Christmas like I've never celebrated it before. Because this time, I've got my little family to celebrate it with, and its gonna be a cracker.
Anyway. So this year, my Christmas tree looks like this:
Tee hee. Yeah right!
My Christmas Tree this year has never looked messier. Or as garish. It's got no colour theme. It's plastic. And it isn't surrounded by snow. But I've never loved it more. Fern and I spent a good hour shopping together for some new decorations because suddenly my sophisticated collection of European silver glass seemed awfully inappropriate. Glass? Nope. Sparkly gold faux handbag? YOU BETCHA!
Here's our tree in all its glory:
Felt stars; sparkly balls; clip-on butterflies, little birds and some twinkly lights (hard to see in pic)... Yep, she's a beauty all right! Our picks for 2010:
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| Fern's choice... |
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| ... and mine! Now it's YOUR turn!! Would your tree make Santa jealous or is it a mish-mash of colourful kitch like mine? Do share, do! Mclinky provided below to share your joy. Oh, and please have a look at everybody elses trees and leave a comment, it really does a little extra Xmas cheer! x |
Wednesday Wishlist - Uberkate
Ok here it is - my absolute top item on my wishlist this Christmas - a piece of Uberkate Jewelry.
I have admired this beautiful jewelry for many years and just this year have had the absolute pleasure to get to know the gorgeous Uberkate herself.
Kate is a school mum and our girls classrooms are next to each other so we see each other throughout the week in the playground! This has however proven to be a dangerous meeting for my husband! Not only is Kate one of the most stylish mums in the playground, she has been so encouraging of my new business venture and full of great advice and to top it off she also has a different piece of her jewelry on each day meaning that my wishlist keeps getting longer.
I believe I have however convinced Mr A to order my very first piece of Uberkate Jewelry as my Christmas Gift.
I cannot tell you how special this piece will be for me as it will be my way of keeping my four girls close to my heart - as the mum of a stillborn daughter it is sometimes hard to portray that Laura is as important to me as my three living children - with an Uberkate necklace I am able to have a circle for all of my girls - Laura will have equal billing with the others - her existence will be shown to be as important as the others - something she rarely gets on the outside world.
Thank you Kate - this necklace will be treasured.
Make sure you pop over the Kate's brand new website here - she has even joined the blog world so drop in and say Hi - of course tell her I sent you!
wordless Wednesday
please feel free to add your wordless blog post to the link up below & may you have a happy wednesday ♥ wherever you are
The Badoo and the Possums
Recently The Badoo's independent, cheeky streak has come in very, very handy.
She was in the baby room (the Joeys) at her daycare and she wanted to move up to the big kid room (the Possums). The Possums is for 3 - 4 year olds, but The Badoo doesn't believe in age appropriateness. She wanted out of the baby room and in with those Possums.
For a while now we've had the potty in the lounge room - proudly being referred to as the 'place where big girls who don't wear nappies go'. The Badoo was glancing over at the potty with a 'yeah, whatever' shrug for a week or so.
Then one Saturday she grabbed me by the hand and took me over to the potty. Proudly she gestured to the wee in the bowl. She beamed her Badoo smile and said "I'm a big girl, I need undies". We were beyond proud. Especially when she didn't miss a beat the entire weekend without nappies. Numbers 1 and 2 were dutifully deposited into the potty without any reminder (to be honest it all happened so suddenly that LOML and I kept forgetting that she was in the middle of toilet training). It was like magic.
So, Monday she fronts up to daycare and announces that she'll be going into the Possums room thank you very much. "Look!" she said to the Possum teacher, lifting up her skirt. "No nappies! I'm ready to be a Possum." The Possum teacher must have hesitated slightly. "The toilets are in the Possum room," The Badoo said pointedly. "I need to be a Possum."
What can you say to that? The Badoo is now proudly mixing it up with the Possums and flashing her undies at every opportunity. Ah, that Badoo. She's a little bit mental, she's a little bit grumpy but she's a whole lotta clever.
Have your children ever surprised you beyond words with their ability to adapt and conquer? Are you afraid, very afraid?
White leaves
On Sunday I showed you the collection of "Winter Woodland" decorations I have bought so far to hang on my Christmas Tree. Today, I am sharing you with my hand painted white leaves.
I bought a few cheap acrylic leaves, painted them white and threaded bakers twine through the holes I left unpainted.
Voila! Snowy white leaves to hang on my tree!
Have a sweet day!
From Turkey to Lights
Well Thanksgiving has come and gone. It was a very good one. The food was scrumptious, the four days of relaxation and quality time with Hubby was amazing, and being with family was joyous. Thanksgiving morning I woke up and began baking. I made corn casserole (my favorite) and peanut butter pie (a new recipe I tried that turned out so delicious). My very first pie I've ever made!
Then we headed to my sisters to have a whole feast.
Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole.. it was all there.
Sleepy Bailey!
Olivia giving Bailey kisses.
Handsome Hayden cheesing...I think I bribed him with something for this shot ;)
Friday was a full on shopping day in the madness. As I've said, I love Black Friday. I really do. It's the only day of the year I will wake up before 8am and embrace chaos with open arms. I got so much of my list done. Friday evening I went back out with Hubby to search for our perfect Christmas tree. Our ceiling is a weird height so we decided we wanted a 7ft. tree with clear lights. Yeah, nearly impossible. Every single tree was either 6.5 or 7.5! After going to six stores we called it a night. We went home and watched 3:10 to Yuma, a really great western movie- I recommend seeing it. Saturday morning we tried two more stores, and failed again! So we went back to Sears, where the prettiest 6.5ft tree stood, and made the purchase!
And decorating was what we did the rest of the day, well I did.. Hub pitched in here and there while watching college football. And of course I had to take a few pictures of Roxy by the tree..
Hehe, probably too many pictures. But hey I don't have a kid yet. Though I'll probably still take as many pictures of her then :)
That night we cozied up on the couch, turned on the tree and lighted garland on the fireplace, put on the Poinsetta Pine Scentsy bar, and watched 2012 (I do not recommend- one of the worst movies I've seen lately). But it was a nice evening.
Sunday we had friends over to watch the Redskins game. Another loss. Boo. They're now 5-6, I had much higher hopes for them this year. But we made chili, rotel, and baked reindeer cookies. That made it better :)
I so enjoyed every minute of this Holiday time off, I can not wait for Christmas!!
I feel behind on blogging, with a lot to catch up on!
some blue for you
Just cause it's my signature blog colour....
Flickr images L-R courtesy of: jagosaurus, colourdodge, aimee ray, memake.
Flickr images L-R courtesy of: jagosaurus, colourdodge, aimee ray, memake.
Dipped in Chocolate
I was on a mission last week to see if I could produce a cake pop!
My mission failed - big time - capital F type failure
I jumped on facebook and mentioned my failure and my lovely party friends came back at me with lots of suggestions - add copha, use Wilton melts, add some oil, keep melting the chocolate!
Alas it was too late for my cake pops, so girls I have collected all your tips and will be better prepared next time!
I did however have a variety of "sticks" on hand as I also wanted to make pretty chocolate dipped sticks - pretzel sticks, wafter sticks, bread sticks - any sticks I could find really. So please enjoy some time with me (and my sticks) in my kitchen...
Can't believe I am showing you this but here is my poor excuse for a cake pop!
Mr A said it tasted good - as long as you closed your eyes!
With these lovely gold and silver sprinkles on them I was pleased with how my sticks and pretzels turned out - they would be perfect for a christmas dessert table!
Any further tips on making the perfect cake pop! Please - pretty please?
Winter Woodland dessert table ideas
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This week on Scrapbook Dreams, I continue my theme of a "Winter Woodland Christmas" with these gorgeous images of inspirational ideas for my Winter Woodland themed dessert table. I have most of my Winter Woodland candy with which to fill my Christmas candy jars, and I am now preparing to make a gingerbread bird house, Christmas cake, cookies, mince pies, chocolates and more...
Have a sweet day!
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