Christmas Decor and Traditions

I love Christmas. I love the lights, the music, the shopping, the baking, the present wrapping, the ornaments, the decorations, the traditions - I love it all. I especially love the real reason for Christmas.

We put up our tree last night. It was...an interesting kind of fun. Try decorating a tree with the "help" of a 3 year old and an almost 11 month old pulling on everything.

Unfortunately, the angel on top no longer lights up. Bummer. She's a bit heavy for our tree, though. I think it's time to get something that fits better. My vote is for a star. I'm a traditionalist when it comes to tree toppers.

But it's up and it looks awesome:



We've already had one ornament casualty.

Now the trick is keeping it down to the one.

My current "How to Keep the Baby Out of the Christmas Tree" setup:



Unfortunately, it has the side effect of "The 3 Year Old Can Now Reach the Top of the Tree." Which I think is how that ornament got broken in the first place...

What I really need is one of these:



I just added it to my Amazon wish list. I'm not really willing to shell out that kind of money for it right now. Maybe if we had more money. I should check out Craigslist, freecycle, and the like.

Or some wealthy benefactor could always buy it for me ;) *coughcoughparentscoughcough*

Just kidding.

Sort of...

Aaaanyway. I digress. We got some other decorations up now. I need to track down my pretty JOY letters I made 2 years ago. They're around somewhere...

Other decor:



I really want a Christmas village. I have such fond memories of putting one up every year. I've always loved that. I'm probably getting the Dollar Tree one for our anniversary :D

And the Nativity:



Emma keeps getting into it and running off with Baby Jesus.



Aaah, the fun of kids + Christmas decor. We're getting excited! I just love this time of year! It'll be SO fun to see the kids open their presents and get all excited.

I just wish it wasn't so insanely cold. I want to move back home, where it doesn't snow very often. And when it does, everyone freaks out and stays home. Now that's what I'm talking about. None of this 5-month winter garbage.

I'm looking forward to all the Christmas traditions. Some are from our families of origin, others we've adopted on our own.

Our traditions include a super yummy breakfast Christmas morning: cream cheese and chocolate chips rolled up into crescent rolls. Yum. And don't forget the holiday baking. Mmmm. Cookies, fudge, peppermint bark...

We also do the opening of one present - Christmas PJs - on Christmas Eve. My family always opened all the presents on Christmas Eve. I don't really know why. But we did. I don't want to do it that way, though. It kinda makes Christmas Day anti-climatic. John's family does the more traditional opening of gifts on Christmas. So, to sort of combine those, we adopted the one present PJ thing. At least for the kids. John and I don't really get enough to make opening one gift in advance worth it. But our gifts tend to be more pricey, like the 1 TB external hard drive I got last year.

We plan to take the kids to see Santa for the first time. Officially, that is. My dad looks a lot like him...;) I'm so signing my death warrant for that one. Uh...I've been good this year? :D Love you, Dad!

On the Santa note, both of us grew up in families where we always knew Santa wasn't real. We plan to teach our kids that Santa is just a fun thing for Christmas, but that gifts really come from people who love us, like parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. They'll know he's not "real," but they'll still get to enjoy the magic of Santa Claus. If that makes sense. That's how John's family did it, and we both really like that. In my family, we just knew it was fake and that's it. I feel we kind of missed out on the fun part of it in some ways. But I want my children to know it isn't real so that they don't ever feel like we lied to them about it. Because if we lied to them about Santa, how would they know we're telling the truth about more important things like the Savior?

On Christmas morning, we like to read the scriptural account of His birth. We usually do this while the chocolaty goodness bakes. Then we eat and open presents. We talk a lot about the real reason for Christmas all throughout the Christmas season. I don't want our family to get too caught up in the commercial - albeit fun - aspects that we forget about the true meaning of Christmas.

I also like to read George MacDonald's The Gifts of the Child Christ on Christmas Day, but I think that's one I'll have to read on my own or just with John. I doubt the kids have the attention span for that length of non-movie story.

Oh, and Christmas movies. Can't forget the watching of cute Christmas movies.

And of course, we do stockings. We put candy and a few small toys in them.

I grew up doing the chocolate advent calendars. You know, the ones you buy at the store. John's family had a homemade one. We haven't done anything like that with our own little family yet, but I'd like to. I'm not sure what we'll do yet. I saw some at the dollar store; maybe I'll pick some up next time I'm there (which should be this week, since I ran out of birthday wrapping paper and John's birthday is on Sunday).

We also like to decorate gingerbread houses. So fun. Sometimes we use a kit, sometimes we do the home-baked approach, and sometimes we build them out of graham crackers. However we do it, it's always lots of fun!

Another tradition is looking at Christmas lights. I always LOVED doing this as a child! We went several times each year because Lisa and I loved it so much. We even had a favorite neighborhood (one particular house where they went all out, really) and everything. We didn't end up going last year. Probably because I was too preoccupied with trying to go into labor.

Someday I'd love to have a family tradition of going Christmas caroling, but it isn't very practical at this time for us. The kids are still so small and it's SOOO cold outside. But Emma already knows some Christmas songs and sings them all day long. She'd love it, but I think this is one tradition that will have to wait until our family grows, our kids get older, and we move out of the arctic.

Which reminds me. One of the songs Emma sings is, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." She's got the chorus pretty much perfect - except for the end. Instead of "and a Happy New Year" she always sings, "and a Happy New You." SOOO cute! And in a way, it's very applicable, since most people make some sort of self-changing resolution at that time of year. I love it. I know I'll miss her singing it this way as she gets older.

I think I've covered all of our traditions, including the ones we want to add. I may have missed something. I probably did; I always do.

I'm always looking for more fun things for our family to do together. What are YOUR Christmas traditions?

Oh, and I made a new holiday themed desktop, using geniaBeana's Merry and Bright:



Yeah, so I pretty much stole my blog header for it. But I love it! I get to see it all month long :D

Gearing Up for Christmas!

Yeah! Now that we've pigged out on Thanksgiving food and birthday cake, it's time to get ready for Christmas!

Ok ok, so technically I had pretty much all of the kids' presents purchased before Halloween...

But that's beside the point.

When you have a late November birthday, an early December birthday, a 4-days-before-Christmas anniversary (I still don't know what we were thinking with that one...), and an early January birthday in your household, you gotta start early.

By the way, Emma had an awesome 3rd birthday. She plays with her new dollhouse ALL day. Well, other than when she's playing with Play Doh. And she watches Tinkerbell or the LeapFrog DVDs all day long.

We tried playing Candyland with her a couple times, but about 5 minutes in she just wanted to play with the pieces. Oh well. She'll be more interested in actually playing it later.

In the meantime, John and I can play...

Emma and I baked a cake together. I let her decorate after I frosted it. Oh. My. Goodness. I have never seen so many sprinkles on one cake. She literally dumped a whole container of sprinkles - and then some - on it.

See?


The birthday girl, proud of her creation. She's gonna give Aunt Rebecca a run for her money ;)


And guess who else liked the cake?


More birthday pics coming later.

Now, I get to decorate for Christmas! The tree and everything would be up now if I didn't have it all packed away in our storage unit. We've been meaning to get it out all week, but it just hasn't happened. Crazy snow and all. Hopefully we'll get it all out tomorrow (uh, today I guess). I want to set it up for our FHE activity.

In scrapping news, geniaBeana has an awesome new kit out. You may have noticed a blog LO change. I used her new kit, Merry and Bright. It's full of fun, bright, happy Christmas colors. Check it out (image links to her shop):



And here's what I did with it (shhh, it's our Christmas card this year...which we're probably just going to email to everyone).



I also used one of her new templates:



And, if you stop by geniaBeana's blog, you can get a Cyber Monday coupon for anything in her store. Everything's already on sale for Cyber Monday, but you can get an extra 20% off. Have fun with it!

As for me, I've got a busy day ahead, full of errand running and a 3 year well-child check up. Time for bed!

Happy 3rd Birthday Emma!

Wishing a very happy birthday to my favorite little girl. Emma has brought so much joy to our lives in her 3 short years. I know she'll continue to fill our lives with sunshine. She truly is a joy.

Emma, I love you SO much! You are the sweetest, cutest, smartest, most precious little girl. Happy birthday, sweetheart.

I'm a funny mix of excited and emotional. I vacillate between the two extremes. Sometimes I get super excited about all the fun birthday stuff. But sometimes, I get emotional. My baby is 3. Three years ago, I held my tiny 6 lb 11 oz baby in my arms. Now, she runs, talks, plays, knows all her letters and their sounds, and uses the potty. She's changed so much. It's hard to imagine her as that tiny, helpless baby she once was.

It's strange to think I've officially been a mother for 3 years.

At the moment, I'm excited. I'm excited for her to open her presents. I'm excited to see her face when she unwraps the dollhouse I made for her. She's seriously going to LOVE it. It's all set up with the furniture and everything. Progressive photos posted on Facebook. Here's the finished product:



And wrapped up, with the other presents on top:



She's also getting a Play Doh set, Candyland ($5!!), some clothes (thanks Mom!), a LeapFrog DVD set (Letter Factory, Talking Words Factory, etc), and Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue ($10 Black Friday find! And no, I'm not crazy enough to do the whole before-the-butt-crack-of-dawn Black Friday shopping thing. John works retail and since he was there anyway, he perused the movie selection...and got this).

Yeah, she'll love her presents. I can't wait to see it! Being a mom is SO fun. I just love getting fun things for my kids that I know they'll love. I love to watch them discover their new toys. Seriously, so fun.

We had her friend party last week. We figured most of her little friends would be out of town for Thanksgiving, so we threw the party a week early. It was so fun. Naturally, it was Tinkerbell themed.

First, we dug into the snacks while we waited for everyone to arrive. Then we played pin the wings on the fairy. I made a pinata out of card stock (why spend the $15 on the official Tink one when I can make one out of things I already have?).

It's funny how boys and girls are so different. The girls were very meticulous about putting the wings in the right place. The boys, however, just slapped them on wherever. The girls barely touched the pinata when they hit it. The boys...well, they still didn't hit very hard (after all, they're 2), but they definitely put more into their swings than the girls did.

Then Emma opened her presents. It was...interesting. The presents were all great. Don't get me wrong there. She loved all of them. But it was difficult to get photos because the other kids kept getting in front of me. And...we had some drama with other kids wanting her presents. But, again, it was a house full of 2 year olds. And some babies and a 1.5 year old. Sharing isn't exactly their strong point. They're old enough to know what presents are, but not necessarily old enough to understand that they're for another kid. Must be tough, being 2.

After presents came the cake. Of course. I got a Tinkerbell cupcake cake. Yum. It didn't look at all like the picture I ordered it from, though. Oh well. No big deal. It tasted good and it had Tinkerbell on it, so Emma was happy. I have no idea why they chose to use RED as the accent color...*shrug*

All in all, it was a fun, successful birthday party. And that night, when Emma was supposed to be falling asleep, she sang the birthday song to herself. Soooo cute.

As for actual birthday plans, we're opening presents first thing in the morning. John has to work at 11 and won't be home till around bedtime. So, presents in the morning, play all day, then dinner and cake in the evening. Emma requested pizza for dinner. I'm not sure what I'm doing for the cake quite yet. I'll let Emma pick which cake mix to use. I'll make it sometime during the day. Should be interesting.

Oh, and other plans include me going to bed sometime soon ;)

Happy birthday, Emma!

Happy {Belated} Thanksiving!

Happy {belated} Thanksgiving! I'm usually too busy enjoying a holiday to blog about it until after the fact. Thanksgiving was no exception.

We celebrated with Nathan and Jessica this year, over at their house.

And, of course, there was LOTS of good food. Mmmm. John and I were in charge of bringing rolls, cranberry sauce, gravy, sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli, jello salad, chocolate cheesecake, and homemade hot apple cider. Yum. Nathan and Jessica had the turkey, pumpkin pies, stuffing, and mashed potatoes.

For breakfast, we made orange sweet rolls. My family makes those for breakfast virtually every holiday . And any other random time we feel like eating them ;)

I got some cleaning in before I started cooking. Of course, that means I need to clean a bit again since I spilled sugar on the counter. Ah well. It happens.

Anyway, long story short, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The food was excellent, and the company was even better. It was small; just us and one other family, but it was really nice.

Emma had a blast playing with her cousin Noah. Oh my goodness those 2 are crazy when they get together. Both had multiple time outs. Hyrum and Anna crawled around a bunch. Getting Emma to eat was challenging. Hyrum, on the other hand, was absolutely obsessed with all the yummy Thanksgiving food. He loved it!

It was great spending Thanksgiving with Nathan, Jessica, and their adorable kids. I love that they only live 15 minutes away.

I am so grateful for the many blessings in my life. I am grateful for the gospel. I am grateful for my wonderful husband. I am grateful for my sweet adorable children. I am grateful for my friends and family. I am grateful for the freedoms I enjoy.

I am grateful to live in a day where I don't have to hike out into the snow in the middle of the night to the bathroom.

No really. I'm not kidding. I am so grateful to live now, where I have electricity, indoor plumbing, heat, refrigeration, dishwashers, washers and dryers, microwaves, electric stoves and ovens, KitchenAid mixers, food processors, computers, Adobe Photoshop, internet...

I have much to be grateful for. Despite being monetarily poor, I can't help but feel rich. We truly live a blessed life.

Happy {belated} Thanksgiving!

Nemo is Dead

Emma's goldfish, Nemo, died on Wednesday. I knew it was only a matter of time. After all, it's a goldfish.

And...well, we've been neglectful fish owners since having Hyrum. Poor fish only got fed every couple of days and...um...we didn't clean the tank at all since we got him. Like, 6 months ago.

So it's kind of our fault. We'll probably have an army of deceased goldfish come after us when we die.

It wasn't unexpected. I periodically check the tank for movement. Usually a couple of times a day. Just to make sure I don't have to do a fishy funeral that day.

But on Wednesday, I did.

I did my usual glance for movement...and saw nothing. It was early in the morning and Emma was still sleeping. I didn't want to deal with it yet, so...I left the fish where it was. I called John and left him a message about it.

And then, in my clean-for-tomorrow's-birthday-party frenzy, I forgot about it.

Until Emma saw her fish. Her dead fish, upside down in the tank.

I heard her say, "Nemo is...Nemo is..." And she didn't know how to describe it. Poor girl. All the other times we've lost goldfish, we quickly flushed it before she knew. She never saw them floating upside down like this.

I had to do a little more explaining this time. Last time, she noticed the fish was gone, but I think we'd already flushed it by that point. I explained that her fish went to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus, got a new one, and that was that.

This time, however, she saw the dead fish.

And I had to explain death to my almost 3 year old. At least a little bit, in terms a 3 year old can understand. I told her he died and went to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus.

She took it amazingly well. She didn't cry, she didn't get upset, or anything. She really seemed to understand.

Granted, you can't get as attached to a goldfish as you can to say, a dog or a cat. Or a person. But still, she took it way better than I anticipated.

She said, "Nemo's all gone. It means he's dead. He needs his mommy and his daddy and his brother. The boy one is all gone. Next time we get a girl one. He's with Heavenly Father and Jesus."

Anytime someone is upset, sad, etc, she says they need their mommy and their daddy, and sometimes she adds brother on there. She talks a lot about mommies, daddies, and brothers. I know it's because that's what her immediate family consists of.

She also said, "My fishy is dead" and "I flush my fish in the potty, in the big potty." I let her flush him down after I dumped him in the toilet. I think it was good closure for her.

At one point, she also said he was with Dory. Ah, the hazards of naming a pet after a movie character.

Now, she wants a a white "girl" fish. Haha, as if I can tell with goldfish. When she talked to John on the phone after, she said, "you get a new one, when you get home."

The plan was for John to pick up a replacement fish after school/meetings. He had to pick up her birthday cake for the party anyway.

Of course, the one day we need a new fish, Walmart is completely out of goldfish. Everything else they had requires a heater. I don't think a heater would work in our tiny 1 gallon tank...and they require a different kind of food. No, that just won't work for us.

So we have to wait until they have more goldfish. We hope to try today, but the roads are all icky and covered in snow (and it's still snowing), so we're playing it by ear. Hopefully they plow the roads soon. Not that likely, but I can still hope. I have some grocery shopping to do.

In any case, we'll be sure to get a white "girl" fish next. Hm, I wonder what Emma will name the next one? Dory? ;)

Cleaning: Is There Any Point?

I often feel like all my efforts to clean my house are in vain. As soon as I fill a bin full of toys, my son dumps it out. Or he'll do it mid-fill. On purpose, of course. He loves to empty things.

I seriously think he crawls around to mess up whatever I just cleaned.

Emma can be the same way. Of course, toys are more interesting once Mom puts them away, right? But at least Emma knows how to pick them up again. Not that I'm consistent with making sure that happens...which is why it rarely does unless I'm the one doing it.

And I don't do it as much as I should because it seems a pointless venture. Cleaning in general seems that way. The toys especially.

I spent ALL day Wednesday cleaning my house last week. ALL DAY. I swept, mopped, vacuumed, scrubbed the counters and stove, cleaned the toilet, picked up toys, tidied, etc. Basically everything but my bedroom and the tub. And I still haven't done them. They're kind of the last-to-be-cleaned places around here. But now, I need to do everything all over again. And it hasn't even been a week.

Why can't homes come with a self-cleaning button? You know, like some ovens do? Mine, of course, does not.

John and I joke about the self-cleaning button being on the money tree. If only we could find it.

I am not one of those must-clean-all-the-time people. I like having a clean house, sure, but I don't want to spend my life cleaning. I'd rather do other things like play with my kids. It'd be better if my house could just magically get clean and STAY clean.

So, my house was nice and clean on Wednesday. Guess what happened Thursday?

First, Hyrum made a HUGE mess with baby food. I let him have the bowl by himself. He scooped baby food into his mouth with his hand. Of course, he also got it ALL over himself and the table. Naturally, this necessitated a bath...

During said bath, Emma purposefully dumped a HUGE cup of bath water on my freshly mopped floor. Oh, I was MAD.

Then, I discovered that a garbage bag had leaked onto the floor. Yuck.

And THEN Hyrum got ahold of one of Emma's crackers at snack time in the 2 seconds I wasn't looking and started choking on it. He's fine. But he dislodged it by throwing up on my kitchen floor. Thankfully it was on the tile. But he got a little on the carpet where it's fraying.

Sidenote: I put in a maintenance order for the fraying carpet and the window latch in the kids' room that doesn't work properly. I put the order in a few weeks ago. They haven't come by to even LOOK at it, so last Monday I went down to the office to ask about it...and the managers moved. Like, the manager's apartment is completely empty. So...I can't help but wonder if/when my request will ever happen. I don't know when the new managers are moving in, but you better believe I'll pounce on them when they do.

Also, the people who built our apartment were either stupid or too cheap to care about fraying carpet. Or both. If they installed it right, it wouldn't fray like that...and Emma wouldn't have cut her big toe on the NAIL that was supposed to hold that stupid fraying carpet down.

Aaaanyway. I digress. Back to cleaning stuff.

On Friday, I let Hyrum hold the jar of baby food while I got the spoon out. You can see where this is going, can't you? Yeah...he dropped it. It shattered. Green beans and glass ALL over the kitchen floor.

Of course, this is all on top of the normal daily living messes like dishes and toys and such.

Emma's birthday party is this week. I need to clean for it, of course. But right now, there's not much point until the day before or the day of.

Maybe I should work on the not-so-immediate areas that get neglected. Like my bedroom. Our room always gets trashed. Everything we want to hide when company comes over goes in there. I have so many papers to sort through and organize. Some to file, some to throw out. I'm also hiding the kids' birthday and Christmas presents in our room, along with the supplies for Emma's party and all the wrapping paper and such.

*sigh* I should probably get working on that. Or maybe start on some dinner instead.

Digital Scrapbooking Day

Happy DSD everyone! I don't think I'll get much scrapping time this weekend, but that's kind of how life is right now. 2 young kids + husband in school/working part time = very little scrap time. I did get Emma's birthday party invitation done late last night. It turned out super cute.

Not to mention the fact that Christmas is right around the corner...and between Thanksgiving and Christmas we have 2 birthdays and our anniversary. And right after Christmas we have another birthday. Ah, fun stuff.

Thankfully, I'm DONE with the kids' Christmas and birthday shopping. Well, almost. I need to get Hyrum some PJs and other 18 month sized clothes. And candy for the stockings. But other than that, I'm done with their stuff.

Now to finish John's shopping...I have his birthday present and I have a couple things in mind for anniversary and Christmas gifts.

Aaaanyway. Back to digiscrapping stuff. geniaBeana has an absolutely gorgeous grab bag out for the DSD. It's full of all brand new stuff - a beautiful new kit, cardstocks, scatters, journal bits, and templates - all for only $4.99! SUCH a steal. Full retail value is over $19. Check it out (image linked to her store at Scrap Matters):



Isn't it gorgeous? If you click on the link, you'll be able to see previews of the individual pieces you'll get. I personally don't like to buy unless I know what I'm getting; with this one, you get to see it first :) But you gotta hurry; they'll only be bundled up like this for a week.

And here's the page I did:



Aw, aren't my kids the cutest ever? And no, I'm not at all biased ;)

And look, I made a template! Ironically, right after I announced I was taking a break from template making. I hadn't made any in months, either, so the irony is...well...ironic LOL. I decided to leave the shadows on this time. I think it looks better that way. Of course, feel free to change them to your own preferences. Out of curiosity, do you prefer templates with shadows or without?

Template 64 is a 12x12" template in PSD format. Here's the preview:


Click here to download. Enjoy!

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day!