Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

favorite link friday

We're looking for lots of fun things to do around this house lately. Here's a few that have entertained us.

*Edible play dough recipes - we did the peanut butter play dough with the powdered sugar. Delicious!

*Gumdrop garland - haven't attempted this yet, but it looks fun.

*This is the best peanut butter fudge recipe - and we've been making it ALOT. We don't add the pecans and we add a small layer of melted chocolate to the top.

*Glittering fairy ornaments - the girls would LOVE to do this. Too bad their mom has a fear of what could happen with glitter in the hands of little ones.

*I think I'm going to try these

Enjoy!

Bowling

What do you do when your husband doesn't have work for 3 weeks? Go bowling!

The girls have bowled on the Wii, but this was time for the real thing.

It was hilarious, especially since we went on a cheap Monday morning which also happened to be Senior morning. Good thing they thought our kids were cute.

My favorite pose of all time. She's looking like she owns the place.

Dave helping Lily throw the ball

Checking out how slow her ball could possibly go.

It was super fun. I highly suggest it to all looking for a fun family activity.

The Christmas Sing

Dave and I love it every year when the kids Christmas singing rolls around. It usually means lots of blank faces, off tune singing and tons of parents taking pictures. And we're always hoping that some kid will do something really hilarious, of course, we hope it's not ours.

Eloise had a meltdown first hour and didn't want to go into church. Lily followed suit b/c she saw her sister crying. Dave offered to sit on the stage with them to help ease the fears. Second hour rolled around and they were both fine.

Pictures to document the glorious event:

Waiting to go to church. This is so characteristic of their personalities. Lily isn't shy about much and Eloise is shy about everything, including her mother taking a picture.

Getting ready to sing second hour

Here's the final show! Enjoy.

favorite link friday

*chalkboard oilcloth, tablecloth. This looks great for kids!

*Cute wreath idea - let me know if someone attempts this.

*Snowflake Banners - I love hanging snowflakes around the house from the ceiling. Maybe I'll try this outside.

*cute Christmas countdown idea.

*Chocolate dipped marshmallows

*I love the Artisian bread in 5 minutes and this looks like a good alternative to the white bread version.

thoughts and ramblings

I'm hanging out here with this cute guy enjoying Pandora on my new computer that Dave got up at 3am to purchase on Black Friday. I L.O.V.E., love it!!

So I thought I would post few happenings around our house.

First, the family rules. It was a fun project and I spent alot of time just working my way through it. We have yet to go over it with the girls, but it's on the wall.


Christmas is in full swing in our house. I love decorating for this time of year. Here's a few pictures of my favorite ornaments and such.

my snowflakes are hung from the ceiling around the house

This little cute snowbaby was hanging in the sun today, so cute. We have several and the girls now call them snowfairies. (anything to remind them of Tinkerbell)

A pink sledding elephant. Who doesn't need one of these.

The advent calendar from last year is slowly becoming complete. I'd like to finish off the edges and a few other touches, but for the most part, it's done and the girls love it. I used a snowman cut out and put small messages, verses, activities, etc...on each one. Now we just have to tackle the arguing over who gets to pull out the snowman.

Dave is out of work for the month of December. It's just another adjustment in a year of being flexible. It teaches us to be patient and that God has been incredibly faithful many times over. We look forward to celebrating all of this with many friend and family gatherings.