Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a blessed and joyful Christmas, I know we did even though hubby was sick with the stomach flu. Luckily he got sick on Christmas Eve and was feeling somewhat better on Christmas. The kids enjoyed all their new toys from Santa, they were especially happy with their new Wii. Let me tell you we have some Wii hogs in this house. Mom even got a Wii fit, so hopefully this will motivate me to get in shape.

I have major cleaning to do, all my kiddos are gone for the day except Bitsy and she's sleeping so I have some time to get my house looking half-ways decent. I'll be back next week to share some photos and crafty things I made for Christmas gifts.

Hugs
*a*

Day 17

How many more days until Christmas????

Stain Fighting

With 4 kids, we are not without stains in our house. Even I am notorious for spilling mustard on my new white shirt. I have tried all those stain fighters, and yes alot of them work but I still have that stubborn stain that doesn't want to come out. My solution,a bar of Ivory soap, it really works. Earlier in the week my hubby was working on his jeep and got black mud all over his good coat. This mud is horrible, it never comes out. So I took his coat and got it wet and scrubbed it with a bar of ivory soap and washed and waalaa all the mud came out. I wish I would have taken pictures but I didn't.

Ivory soap as a stain treater, it just works for me. For more ideas go to Rocks in my Dryer, I am telling you these ladies have some good ideas.

Day 16

We got our real tree, last year we just stuck with the fake tree. Fake trees are nice, they don't lose their needles, no watering and you can just put it away with the lights on, but you don't have that real tree smell. And I like the idea of having 2 trees. I wanted to get a picture of us picking it out and hubby cutting it down, but you know things don't always go as planned. We had an ice storm over the weekend so we couldn't get the tree when the kids were home from school. So it was just him and I and it was raining, so we had a pick a tree fast. Tonight we are going to decorate it. Fun times!!!!

Day 15

My little lady....

Day 14

First place, baby!!!!!!

Day 13

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas.....

Day 12

Does something look wrong with our tree??? It's called a 13 month old terror....

Day 11

Hunting season was last week and my hubby bagged a buck....

December Daily (continued)

Day 10

Me and my girlies....

Day 9

it's not Chrismasy nor fun, but it's a job that has to be done.....

Day 8

a little Christmas craftiness, this ornament is made from an old CD and I whipped it together in about 10 minutes, so easy and really cute. So don't throw away all those old CD's, alter them.

For more photos go here....

Day 7

Lazy Sunday afternoon, I got a picture of my hubby sleeping but I didn't think he would be too happy if I posted it on my blog. I really wanted to take a nap too, but there were coupons to cut and file, so no nap for me.

Day 6

Baking cookies, oh so yummy.....

I know I am behind with my December Daily, but on the positive side I am still taking pictures everyday, just not uploading them.

It's time for dessert!!!

I made a very yummy, simple, frugal, and low-fat dessert tonight, and it was thumbs up all around the table.



Don't they look oh so yummy!!! Okay for the simple, yummy and low-fat part.
These are carrot-pumpkin muffins and to make them it's 3 ingredients. I told you they were simple to make.

carrot cake mix
1 can pumpkin
1/2 cup water

mix together and then pour into a cake pan or muffin tin. That's it.

I came upon this recipe over the summer and used whip cream for the topping, but then Christy from the Southern Plate sent out an email that added a struesel topping. Okay it was fabulous, yes the whip cream was tasty, but the struesel even better. You definitely need to try this. They are so moist and since your don't use any oil it is healthy too.

Now for the frugal part, right now there is a coupon for $1 off decandent carrot cake, my store sells this for 2.09 and also doubles coupons up to and including a 1 so I get it for .09 and before Thanksgiving they had pumpkin on sale for .98 and the water is free. I also had everything to make the struesel topping in my cupboards. So for 1.05, I got 27 muffins and everyone loved it.

happy cooking
*a*

Day 5

First Christmas card this season (it's from my little sister, thanks girl)

Day 4

I love nativities and this one is my favorite, because my mom made it. Thanks mom!!!!

Another Mini - I love this idea

I don't scrap Christmas pictures, it's not that I don't like Christmas supplies. I love them, so many great papers out there and embellishments and don't get me started on the kits. Way too many awesome Christmas kits. So no matter how many Christmas papers, embellies and kits I have, I still hate to scrap Christmas pictures. I don't know if it's the 30 pictures of the kids opening presents, what do you journal about. So when I saw Ali Edwards blog and her post about a mini album just for the Christmas season. I knew this was the project for me. I don't have to make several layouts about Christmas, it's all in one book. I love it!!!! I made my book in advanced and just gathered up old supplies, I didn't buy a thing. So it saves me time, it makes me happy because I don't have all those Christmas pics to scrap and it's frugal, what more could you ask for.
Here's the cover:



On the inside cover, I made a calendar so I can write down everything we did and on the first, ironically enough, my christmas cards came, so I added one to the album.


Day 1 pictures and journaling


Pretty cool, huh. Now I just need to stick with it and get it finished.

Stay crafty
*a*

Day 3

Getting ready for a baking weekend.....

Being Thankful New Tradition - WFMW

Every year for Thanksgiving we all say what we are thankful for, well I wanted to take it one step further and make a mini album. So a new family tradition was born. Everyone will write down what they are thankful for that year, plus there would be pictures. Alot of the men groaned and complained about this, but in the end wrote down what they were thankful for. My grandmother was there and wrote was she was thankful for during the year and I couldn't help but think what she would have wrote down at my age. Now my grandkids and kids will know what I was thankful for at age 33, when they look at these albums.
I even went to the thrift store and found a small suitcase that I am going to alter and this will be where I will keep all my thankful albums.




I don't have any pictures in it yet, I ran out ink yesterday, so a trip to store is in order.
Thankful mini albums as a new tradition -- it just works for me.

For me WFMW go here.

Day 2

I love personalized ornaments, every year I either buy or make my kids a new one. But this teddy bear is my favorite, he is just so cute, plus I made him myself.

If you want to see more photos go here.

Hello December

Yes folks it's December, hard to believe, but in a little more that 3 weeks Christmas is here. Here's what I have done so far:
Christmas Gifts bought - check
House decorated - check
Gifts Wrapped - Half done
cookies made - not yet, but I did make my shopping list and I will go get the ingredients tomorrow and will make cookies this weekend.
Christmas dinner menu made - check

So far so good and I am on my way to enjoying this Christmas season with my family. I already feel alot more stress-free. I just need to remember to breath and if everything isn't perfect it's no big deal. You know nobody is going to notice anyway.

These past few months I have been a crafting fool, making Christmas gifts and ornaments. Now I can't show you my Christmas gifts until after I give them out but I can show you everything else I have been working on.


Okay so i love this... It's an advent calendar, I have seen these the past couple of years and thought they were awesome. So this year I decided to make my own. I think it turned out pretty good. Now I don't have it hanging yet. I didn't have enough circle magnets, so I used the strip magnets. Okay I will never buy the strip magnets again, they don't hold. So off to Wally World tomorrow to get some more circle magnets and then I can hang this up. Here is some close-ups of the calendar.


With all the magnets off.

I did mine in a Christmas theme, but you could make one to match your decor and change it for the different months. I think this would be cool. I'll be checking the thrift store for some old cookie sheets.

Keep checking back all this week, because I have been crafty.

Hugs
*a*

P.S. It's good to be back

December Photo Project

Sounds like fun doesn't it, if you want to sign up go here. I am also participating in Ali Edwards December Daily. Both of these challenges fit together perfectly. Just document your December through pictures. That simple. I also made an album to hold all my pictures, which I will share shortly.

Here's my picture for yesterday....



We put up our tree last night and did a little photo shot.