Home After Christmas

I am getting back to daily life after our typically well traveled Christmas. For us it means all the weeks leading up to Christmas we try to squeeze as much work, friend time, local family events and spiritual balance into them as possible so that we can spend time our sons if they are available...they live out of town so we are the travelers. 

We spent the week with our younger son and family arriving in time for the youngest granddaughters 5th birthday. The kiddos grow up so fast-we're so glad we are able to spend moments where we can.

The party was themed around teddy bears this birthday with lots of fun balloons, gifts and Lauren made yummy cupcakes too! 

Teddy Bear Balloons

Presents piled high!

 

Waiting to open presents

I pick this one first.

Making cupcakes :)

Here are a few of our shared moments...

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The balloons lasted all the way through Christmas!

Part of the time the family shared the sickie bug...what a thing to share! 

So far Tom & I have avoided it, we'll see. 

And So This Is Christmas

And so this is Christmas... as John Lennon sings. Yes this is nearly Christmas and I am busy making Christmas cards, preparing for a visit to celebrate my granddaughters 5th birthday and trying to finalize shopping for a few Christmas gifts but the one thing I love to do during this season is hand make a few gifts. 

Here were a few of my Christmas cards before we got them addressed and out the door.

Just before heading out for Christmas at Nate's house we had a surprise birthday party for my niece. I had a fun idea for her gift since through the summer she and her family do quite a bit of camping. I had seen this camp bucket idea the year before and in fact had made one design for my DIL for her birthday. They also like to camp during the summer months. Hers turned out cute and I was excited to do this one for my sweet niece.

A fun project I created for my grandson Leo who is so-ooo into BLACK PANTHER anything right now... I made a cute design for a long sleeve red shirt. 

I made up this Lavender Poppyseed Sugar Scrub for a few friends and business partners that was inspired by some I had purchased at an event here in the fall. It was so delightful I decided to give my version a go. It turned out so nice.

So this is my view out the window as I am finishing up all my last minute projects....I love this view! 

I did finally get to make some fun foods. We made Snickerdoodle Christmas cookies while we were at Nate's and I made some of my 

Breakfast French Toast Casserole. I also made Scalloped Potatoes and Nate cooked some Prime Rib from a recipe he found on the web. Everything tasted yummy.

December Bye-Bye

Wow this year has been a crazy one, huh?

Although I hate to say goodbye to Christmas I will not be sad to see this year close. Please COVID go AWAY!

I want to not be concerned to travel, to gather with friends and family, gather with church family, attend concerts, mingle with crowds, hug, shake hands, get close and so much more! 

Like many of you, our normal was to do all of those things frequently but this year we have not been able to without evaluation over who might be at risk, minimal contact, small groups, whether we should or should not connect, then comes the masks, hand sanitizer, disinfectant, Agh! Well each of us has had people in our lives and moments we remember because of this pandemic whether because we lost someone or lost something. We watched folks find new ways to work, get schooled, graduate, host gonline gatherings and more. 

One thing I've noted:WE ARE RESILIENT PEOPLE. 

I started the year with a focus on One Word, Resilient. Who'd have guessed it was such a key descriptive for this year.

Day After Christmas

My Day After Christmas

Do you enjoy the day after Christmas? I do. What do you enjoy doing?

Even though I am unusually exhausted from all the previous shopping, my mind is busy thinking about those special gifts I received. I am like a kid in a candy store, I want to play with my new toys AND yours too! 

This morning even before I came down for my first cup of tea I was enjoying my new Amope Pedi Perfect. Thanks Sweetie, that was a very thoughtful gift! I wondered if I was going to see good results removing those thick layers of dry skin (you know., those callouses formed because of all the long shopping hours, crazy cooking in the kitchen and charging up and down the stairs). Although I did not take a lot of time on the rough stuff, I was happy with my first use of this gift. 

After enjoying my tea I was thinking about that really cool Keurig that Tom received from our dear friends the Sibsons. (Thank You both!- such a thoughtful gift) Tom got it all set up while I watched supervised. He really enjoyed his first cup! 

Now that our feet are soft and we're feeling toasty from the yummy beverage I noted I had not taken time to make a batch of the Butternut Squash Pear Soup even though I had shopped for the ingredients a few days ago. 

H-mmmm so maybe I could put that together while making us some Eggs & Bacon since the soup also used bacon, clever logic, right? Well 1 1/2 hours later we finally sat down to our breakfast, I'll tell you a secret...I earned it, whew! 

We had to take a break after that party in the kitchen but I'll tell you another secret, (that soup was so-ooo worth the effort.)

Oh, did I mention , my friend Greta shared the recipe with me several years ago and I am so glad she did. Thank You Greta!

After my snooze  I finally pulled out another cool fun toy. It is the Anna Griffin MINC Foil Laminator. 

My friend Diane (who is ALWAYS in the know about the funnest trends for stamp crafting gifted me this cool toy.)I can't wait to have a craft play date with you my friend!)

I had a blast pulling out all the fun goodies and then watching the videos I found on Youtube. It was really amazing how many folks have shared their experiences using theirs and I can't wait to try it out- but ahhh that must wait for another day...my day has run away -even though I have lots more to share.But alas It will have to wait for another post.

How Many Rabbit Trails?

It's funny how the mind can can head down a rabbit trail. My good friend often said this  about herself when she started on one topic and it wove here and there finally came to rest at a completely different topic. The title of my post...How Many Rabbit Trails  was a moment where I paused to ask myself (then had to Google) How many days until 2017? 

In case you are curious too, we have seen  286 days pass and we are now just 80 days away from the New Year according to Easysurf. 

Talking about rabbit trails, as I thought for a moment about the speed at which the year has passed it caused me to wonder just how many weeks I have left in this year. WeeksUntil.com/ is a cool little widget that  tells me there are just 11 weeks until December 31st, that's 79 days and OH my... that means there is just 73 days Christmas.  

All this thinking about countdowns reminds me of one really looming countdown in my country. Our USA Presidential Elections are just 26 days away so hopefully you are not still on the fence, <sigh>.

Neighbor Christmas Treat Bags

Each year as the holidays approach I am on the lookout for clever ideas to create a gift to share with my neighbors and friends. I love Christmas and giftgiving but it can be physically taxing to get all of my preparations and shopping done. Each year I look to getting my tasks done earlier so I can spend time doing fun activities, hanging with family and friends. In July I saw a wonderful little hand made container...so-ooo perfect for those special homemade cookies, candies and other created surprises. I decided right then I needed to try it out then get my thoughts recorded so when the holidays came I would be ready with the idea. I'm a visual learner and I was so grateful to the folks at Cosmocricket for their How to Fold a Treat Bag Video Tutorial. And....Ta-da!!! I've found the perfect treat for my neighbors I though but when it came time to work on the treats I changed my mind and went with a chocolate dipped mini pretzel because of all the fun possibilities in decorating and flavoring them. I can't wait to hear what my neighbors think of them :)

Here are my results...Isn't it cute!!

Countdown To a CRAFTY CHRISTMAS *DAY 1*

Beginning in December I wanted to share a craft idea each day as we count down to CHRISTMAS. One of my favorite ways to share ideas this past year has been with Pinterest, a website designed for the social sharing of things YOU and I are interested in. Here on my blog over the next 25 days as we COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS I wan to share with you 25 crafty ideas to make.

*DECEMBER 1*

Christmas and Family

We're in sunny Arizona to enjoy our children and grandchildren over the Christmas holidays.The weather has been mostly cooperative,it rained buckets as we drove from Utah to Arizona and we did have a bit of rain but mostly we've had sun and fun!
Christmas Day has been a blast...We enjoyed watching our spending time with son Nathan, his wife Lauren with thier family. Youngest grandson Luke (just 9 months) open his presents with the help of his big sister Fiona. All the grownups had been up til 3 AM helping Santa assemble Fiona's Majestic Mansion Dollhouse and Lukes new Laugh & Learn Learning Farm...quite the experience :)
After all the o-ooohh and ah-ing with exchanging gifties and unwrapping and a few minutes of play we were off across town to enjoy another round with our son Aaron, Maria & thier family. Lots of wrapping paper later everyone was trying out Evans new spring loaded pistol using the target Aaron had created, helping with Bumbleloom instructions and generally having lots of fun! One of Megans fav items was a full sized Justin Beiber!! She calls him her "husband". This was the first Christmas I can rememer that Tyler wasn't there but we'll see him and celebrate Sunday.
Many of the grownups were busy in the kitchen making ready for the dinner we would all enjoy later...it was delicious!! Prime rib, ham, chicken, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and corn, rolls , and a jello salad. Lauren made some zuchini bread, a pumpkin ginger cake and an apple pie too...YUM. Many thanks to all the cooks :) We had a wonderful time and it was hard to say goodby but we had so-ooo much fun!
I love my family, and since not all of us were able to be together Christmas celebrating will go on into the New Year ha-ha! Until then....Merry Christmas to ALL!

Simply Kids Christmas Crafts

One of the most fun things about Christmas is sharing the experience of handmaking Christmas decorations with children or in this case a child teaching me how to make a super simple but fun project...Simply delightful!

Get Ready, Get Set.....

The holiday season is fully upon us. We put up our Christmas tree last night and decided our tree still needs to have a few more touches before we are satisfied with it so I will be visiting a few stores to find just the right ornaments to set off the tree. Where do you find just the right decor to add to your holiday decorations? I love to visit Tai Pan Trading and Cost Plus World Market during the holidays, I find amazing finds there! Another favorite is my local Roberts Crafts, Hobby Lobby and Michaels Crafts.

I look forward to putting on some finishing touches to the tree very soon...We'll invite over some friends, have some yummy dessert and eggnog, and enjoy some favorite Christmas music.  

In the meantime I wanted to share a simple handmade Christmas Chains idea I found at 300dpi.com, a digital scrapping site I like to visit. All you need is a stack of your favorite holiday print and solid papers cut to 6" x 1" pieces and advesive to glue the chains together. Look how cute!