Just had to share...

Although Christmas is over (not officially over here until January 1st when we take down the decorations), I'm still finding inspiration for it everywhere. I found this awesome idea that I wish I had found before the season started, but I will save it on one of my Pinterest boards for next year to remind me. In a house with two small book lovers, this will be perfect!! A tree made out of stacked hardback books!

 

source: http://blog.blurb.com/

12 Days of Christmas books

Well, I did it! I love when I see a cute idea and say I'm going to do it...and then I actually do it!! Remember the 12 days of Christmas idea I told you about where one of my favorite bloggers said she wraps books and has her children open one each day. Well, I did that. And it was fun. But it didn't last 12 days. insert LOL here!

My kids couldn't wait to open just one each day, so it lasted about 4 days. Which is actually a little longer than I thought. Even though it didn't last the entire 12 days, they still had a lot of fun doing it and that was the whole point for me. Note to self, next year, don't put them under the tree; just bring one out each day to make the fun last longer.

Ok, I shared the idea picture with you, now here's mine. I told you it wouldn't be as cute, but it was still a lot of fun!

If you have any other traditions like this, please let me know. I'd love to hear about them!

Great 12 days of Christmas idea!

We have certain books we read all year long and then there are books we read only during certain seasons. For example, during fall, we read Halloween books and after Halloween, I put them away until the next year. We do the same for Christmas books as well. When we get them out, they really do feel like they're brand new again.

I found this idea on a major favorite blog I love to read One Charming Party. The idea is to wrap new and old books for the 12 days of Christmas (really as many days as you'd like) and have your child(ren) open one each day. I'm going to get our collection and start wrapping. I always have a lot of extra wrapping paper anyway and this takes care of that as well! I think my kids will really enjoy this!!

Great picture, isn't it? Maybe I'll take a picture of mine when I'm finished. It won't look this cute, but I can always try!


From onecharmingparty.com

All decorated for Christmas!

There's just something so warm and cozy about Christmas lights and being surrounded by items that have been in storage for almost a year! lol! It really is so much fun to drag out all the decorations that we put away last year and almost forgot all about until a few days ago!

I can't believe Christmas is only 2 weeks away! Where did the time go? I want the anticipation to last much longer than that!  My children are at the best ages! I want to extend the Christmas spirit as long as possible and savor all these special moments of family plans and togetherness as long as I can.

Something that I think will help me savor or at least remember is Ali Edwards' December Daily. I'm going to try so hard to do this. Making my list of things to include and taking the pictures is easy for me -- I just need to follow through with printing pictures and putting it all together. For story ideas and inspiration check this out Ali Edwards December Daily 2011. I get so inspired seeing people who really have their acts together. I spend so much of my free time acquiring inspiration that I'm so overwhelmed with the thought of picking just one thing to do and actually do it. BUT, I must do this. These special times are just too precious!

Picture from aliedwards.com


I'll leave you with a picture of one of our favorite ornaments. By the way, dolly has a couple "boo boos" that my daughter just had to take care of (notice the Scooby-doo bandages). I have the Rudolph characters hanging on a tree in the kids play/studyroom. It's a very skinny, happy tree!

Christmas decorating - card display

I really love this time of year. Actually, my favorite time of year starts on September first and runs through February 15th. It gets a little boring after that until summer. Don't get me wrong, I love spring and decorating for Easter, but there's just something about the coziness of fall and winter with all the delicious foods and decorating and wonderful holidays to celebrate that makes the rest of the year seem kind of, well, blah.

Here's our card display from last year. Maybe it will give you an idea if you're looking for that sort of thing. I like to see how other people display their cards so I thought I would share how I do.

I purchased the card holder from  Willow House. I'm not sure if they still offer it, it's a couple years old now, but last year, Christmas 2010, was my first year using it. I liked it so much, I'm using it again this year. Can't wait to start getting those Christmas cards!

That reminds me, I need to get started making ours! I handmake my cards every year. It's getting harder and harder to come up with ideas, but it's so much fun thinking how to top the year before! I may share some of them with all of you.

A little Christmas Cheer

I really wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving to start talking about Christmas -- even though it is on my mind all year long! I couldn't wait, though, after seeing some of my other favorite blogs talking about it. So let me start off the season by sharing a picture of my favorite sugar cookie cut-outs I made for my daughter's preschool class last year.

My daughter loves babies and anything tiny, so I knew I came up with a homerun with her when I made these.

Meet Gingerbread Mama and her baby (awwww...)

I used a large cookie cutter and a really tiny one that I found at Hobby Lobby. 

Ok, so she doesn't look entirely Christmas-y, but she does have on a green glitter dress and pink pearls. And pink is red at like 20%, right? It may be obvious that I'm not a baker, but my kids don't know any better yet and I want to keep it that way for a long time!! : ) The smiles on their faces when they saw these was absolutely priceless! I'm going to give them another try this year!