Friday, December 25, 2009 at 11:26AM Just FYI. 3427 new lego pieces in the house right now. Really. (No, I did not count each one...I just added the numbers on the 23 new lego sets the boys have so far...I say "so far" because we're not done completely yet.) Oy.
How's your Christmas going? ;)
Thursday, December 24, 2009 at 10:26PM Okay. I've been waiting and waiting to share our holiday card but didn't want to spoil the surprise for those who will receive one in the mail. But. I'm impatient...and I think they're all delivered...and it's Christmas Eve. :) So, here's the card we sent out with our somewhat annual year-in-review letter:
;)
(Did these digitally in PhotoShop and then printed them as 4x6 photos...just trimmed to fit the envelopes...much more economical than the photo greeting card options.)
Aren't the boys' letters awesome?! We had a lot of fun with this...did the whole alphabet for kicks. I was inspired by the cool letter art I've seen others doing with pictures taken in nature (using like the bend in a tree branch for a "y" and so forth). As mentioned previously, though, I'm impatient and trying to find all the letters in nature took too long. ;) So. Boys in the family room it was. Fortunately, the open floor plan of our home meant that I could take these pictures from almost directly above the boys (who were laying on a sheet on the floor). Pretty pleased with how they turned out. Oh, and you have to see the "Y" because it's just adorable:
These actually started out quite colorful before I converted everything to black and white. (I didn't have a black sheet and the boys didn't all have matching outfits in any solid color so we used last year's Christmas pjs.)
Ta da! :)
Well, boys are in bed uncharacteristically early (gee I wonder why, LOL!)...going to finish up a few things before heading to bed myself. ;) Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 11:54AM Merry Christmas Eve Eve to you! We're going to have a beautiful white Christmas here (yes, it's snowing again) which adds an air of perfection to the whole holiday, methinks. How's your holiday shaping up? We've been truly enjoying it and even spreading a little cheer ourselves (you can read more about at least one aspect of that in the middle of this post). In the spirit of the season, then, here are some fun ideas that I just loved and thought I'd share. Even if you can't make use of them for this year, still fun stuff. :)
1. Check out this awesome (and free!) downloadable calendar for 2010. If you need a last minute gift, this could very well be it! (And, if you're like me, you might just want one for yourself, lol.)
2. If you need a few tags for gifts still, check out this free tag! (While you're there, check out the other recent posts...lots of fun holiday stuff!)
3. If you have little ones on your list, why not make some of these? (I'm totally thinking we'll do this soon!)
4. I'm always on the lookout for ornament ideas and totally love both these snowflakes and these balls! Very, very cool.
5. I haven't tried this myself (yet) but, man, it sounds heavenly!
6. If you love fonts like me, here's one that's free (and cute) right now! Also, my pal Arleigh has some free ones on her blog right now, too (hope she doesn't mind me sharing!).
Okay, I should stop and go finish wrapping those last few gifts now. :) Gonna do that while watching "Miracle on 34th Street" and the snow out the window. A perfect afternoon!
Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 10:34AM We're down to less than a week until Christmas (or so the boys insist on telling me each day, lol). I'm feeling *almost* ready for it. ;) Boys have seen Santa. Tree is up. All teacher gifts were delivered. All 12 boxes of packages are in the mail as of Friday (woohoo! though they're not guaranteed to get there in time, I think that's a record for me). All 100 holiday cards (with the exception of a few that will be hand delivered) are on their way...earlier than usual. All gifts have been hiding nicely for awhile now...just need to wrap the last few of them. Eight dozen cookies for neighbors are made and packaged...will deliver them this afternoon. Whew. Now I'm tired again. :)
Need to tackle a couple more house projects today and will concentrate on finishing those last few holiday things in the next day or two. In the meantime, my layouts are up over at the Good Grief Blog today...about Christmas gifts and my dad. Go see.
And, because I just like them, here are a couple of recent pictures. This first is "Elfie"...the little elf that graces our home every December. There's a story book that goes with him and tells of how he watches over our home and reports back to Santa every night...reappearing in a different place each day. The boys delight in trying to find him each morning and know that anything they tell him goes directly to the big man.
;)
And this second picture is of the boys just after seeing Santa up in Old Town last week. They still had the fountain running for some reason and it had frozen over in most places. Cool. :) The boys wanted a picture to show Nathan when we got home. I love how happy they are:
;)
(Yes, they're wearing sandals and mostly refused to keep their jackets on, having refused coats altogether. Apparently, so long as we're not in single digits, they consider it warm. Lucky them, lol.)
Well, back to those projects and all now. Hope you're having a fabulous (and productive) weekend and are staying warm!
Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 06:19PM It's actually been pretty white for weeks now, so we've got the looking like Christmas part covered. Now, finally, it's starting to feel like it, too. :) Over the weekend, we finally got our tree, brought it home and decorated it. It's a subalpine fir this year and one of the tallest we've had yet...probably about 12 feet:
;)
Delivered little teacher and friend gifts Monday (having spent much of the weekend getting to that point, lol). Tuesday, as a reward for getting those other gifts distributed, the boys and I went to see a 12 foot (ish) gingerbread house:
;)
For those who are local, it was cool...definitely remarkable in the sheer numbers of ingredients. (700 hours, 1700 bricks of homemade gingerbread, 2300 sugar cookies, etc.) It's in the lobby of the Embassy Suites next to the Budweiser Event Center.
Other than that, been wrapping and finishing gifts this week and finally made it to see Santa today:
;)
We visited the Santa up in Old Town this year, having not done that before, and were quite happy. I'm pretty sure Santa was impressed with the boys' lists, as he was at a bit of a loss for words after both Micah and Noah. ;)
Okay, off to do some more wrapping! Hoping to get everything in the mail tomorrow!
