Christmas Decorations - the rest of the House

I'm not sure what happened but I've run out of days HA!  I had it in my head that I could post once a week and get through the house but . . .then I looked at my blogging calendar and guess what?  I can't.  Between Advent Posts and Homeschool Posts not to mention one little boys birthday that is coming up . . .well, I'm running out of days.  So this post will include the rest of the house :-)

If you missed the last two posts, please take a look at our Kitchen and our Dining Room.

Now, on to the Living Room!

 After I had finished decorating the Living Room, I glanced at the photo boards and noticed they looked out of place because they held all of our recent photos . . .taken in the midst of a beautiful fall!  The fall pictures just didn't work so I went through last years Christmas photos and picked out some favorites, had them printed and have put those on the boards.  Such a small thing makes such a big difference!

 The boys stockings.  I'll be honest, they are never big enough HA  But, we love them.  We purchased them at Bronner's in Frankenmuth before each of their first Christmas'.

 A favorite spot of the boys - the candy dish! 

 I used to wrap the pictures on the walls but, as nice as it looks, it is alot of work so instead I'm slowly adding Christmas artwork.  In this case, these are paintings the boys did last year.   The shelf holds a couple of special decorations.  The Christmas Tree was a gift Darryl brought me on our very first date.  It is supposed to light up but it doesn't anymore - I still love it though!

 Then there is this Reindeer Noel - I bought it for my first apartment and have never found anything else like it.

 The Trees are a new addition this year.  I found them at Walmart after Christmas last year for just a couple of dollars.  They look great by my special snowmen.

 Another thing I love to do is hang ornaments from the ceiling.  I think it adds dimension for not a lot of effort!

 Donald Duck.  This is something we picked up at Frankenmuth years ago.  I will admit that he often stays up most, if not all of the year. 

 Our Christmas Tree (and it is snowing really hard outside too!)

 I left some things for the boys to decorate with (I decorated while they were at Papa and Nana's) because I know how much they love to help.  I even left this whole stand empty for them and this was Josh' creation. 

 Such a pretty photo of the tree and all of the snow outside!

I picked up this house through a Home Interiors party quite a few years ago.  I like that it is whimsical - and it is made of Tin verses the classic Glass houses.

 Another picture of the tree to showcase the lights. 

One last photo - see the guy in blue?  That is a toy from my Husband's childhood.  (Not HIS toy - he and his brother destroyed their toy like that making it do all kinds of things HA).  He resides on the cabinet all year long but at Christmas he gets a hat and some jingle bells :-)

Now, on to the bathroom!

 The Christmas shower curtain - an all time favorite.  And the rug :-)  Those two things alone make the bathroom much more festive!

 The shelf in the bathroom is home to some more of my favorite snowmen!

This, once again, is Josh's handwork - he felt the tree would go perfectly right on the bathroom cart and who am I to argue? ;-)

I love wreaths on the doors.  This is the bathroom door and then in the distance is our bedroom door.  This year, that is as much decor as our room got.  I usually change out the bedspread but my husband is using that quilt on the couch to sleep most nights and, after cleaning out all of my stuff this summer, I ended up without stuff to use in a few rooms.  That's ok - our room right now is "filled" with boxes holding Christmas gifts, or at least it FEELS that way!

Finally, the boys room.

 Their door decoration.

 Each of the boys has a tree.  They love them (and they will probably be up until April!!)

 This year the boys are really beginning to understand what Christmas is - that there was a special baby born just for us.  I love the Nativity Sets they each have and, it is even ok if they play with them!

 I used wreaths as wall decorations in their room - there is one hanging over each of their beds.

Some ornaments from the ceiling add lots of fun for them too.

A nice shot of their trees and nativity sets.

That's our home this year!  I've mentioned before that I've had more fun this year because I have less stuff and have been able to add a few new things.  Next year I want to add more lights and wall decor more than anything else.

Merry Christmas!

Homeschool Corner

The boys are really enjoying "school" this month.  The advent Bible reading has gained their interest as have the Christmas Books and Crafts.  I realized one day last week that I need to start prepping for January.  Printing, planning, cutting and prepping all take time.  I want to do something a little different for the rest of the year and that is I want to print everything now and put it in file folders so that each week I just have to pull papers that I need.  I'm also starting to look at curriculum for K-5 next year.  I think I have it narrowed down to what I want to do and am looking forward to a Homeschooling Conference in May so that I can do some looking and shopping for curriculum there as well as attend sessions.

This is what we did this week!

The Grinch Advent
Monday - We had originally planned to take the boys to see Santa; there is a local Husband and Wife that are "official" Mr and Mrs Claus and they set up a really cool Santa House for free photos.  Well, I asked the boys if they would actually sit on his lap or stand by him and they said NO!  My kids are very shy when it comes to new people or characters . . .so I'm letting go of that "tradition" for now :-(  Instead they opened up a small stamp set . . . which they loved and made fingerprints and hand prints.  I obviously didn't think that gift through :-)

Tuesday: Nuetlla snack cups with cookie stix - a favorite treat of the boys!
Wednesday: Starburst Candy Books
Thursday: Christmas Pez Dispensers
Friday: Stuffed Animals - to which Nate promptly said, "I do not like it; do not give me stuffed animals as gifts. Geesh!
Saturday: Airplanes
Sunday: Ring Pops (a big hit!!)

Our Bible Advent
Using the Storybook Bible is fabulous.  Once we finish with the advent, I plan on using it at Bedtime - we have started reading stories at night so I think we can add reading one of the Bible stories as well.  We are not doing this advent 7 days a week . . .so I am picking and choosing some of the stories/ornaments we are doing in order to make sure we get to the end of the stories on time.

Just a sampling of what we are doing.  I mentioned to my husband this week that, well, our boys are not artistic.  It isn't that they aren't creative - they are - they just have no artistic talent HA!  Their coloring consists of one solid color and it drives me bananas.  Oh well.  They must get their non-artistic talent from me - I can't even draw a stick figure!

And since these posts have been a little less than exciting, I thought I would include some misc photos from our week.

On Saturday, the 7th, it started Snowing and the boys were over joyed.  They slipped on some boots and went outside in their PJ's Saturday morning.  Nate went out first and it was just too cute to NOT take photos! 

 Notice the glove on one hand?  He started with two gloves but realized he couldn't feel the snowflakes with the gloves on so he took one off.

 Of course, once the camera came out, Josh had to get in on the fun!

 Then, the snow really started to amp up on Sunday.

 First up, the boys found some new cookie cutters I had picked up for making Christmas cookies (remember we were going to make them last Friday but I was SOOO sick!) and they BEGGED to make cookies.  Darryl took on the task on Sunday afternoon.

 Now, really, this is all they did - they cut them out, we baked them, they ate a bite or two and that's it.  No decorating.  The cookies were made with sugar cookie dough (refrigerated) and I didn't realize that it wasn't really meant for cut out cookies . . .. they spread and the cookies had no shape.  Plus, they weren't really that tasty.  I plan on making some real cut out cookies this next week so the boys can decorate them.

 Once the cookies were made, they headed outside and played until it was dark. 

Monday brought even MORE snow!

The boys used bowls to make snow forts, got their bikes and out played "crash" in the driveway (they would fall over and the other one would rescue them) and again, played until almost dark.

The weather turned bitter so on Tuesday and Thursday they couldn't go out at all; on Wednesday, I let them go out at about 3:45 and Josh stayed out until 5:00 - he's warm blooded like me, though, so he can last a long time in the cold ;-) 

Things My Kids Say

* Nate got sick in the middle of the night last week; I heard him up and got up to meet him at the bathroom.  He nonchalantly walked past me and said, "Mom, I puked so you need to wash my big blanket.  I just need to wipe my face and go back to bed.  As he carefully wiped his chin . . .not noticing that his PJ's . . well, he had a bigger mess on his hands.  Poor little guy : -(

* I asked Nate what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, thinking he would say chocolate or vanilla.  No, his reply was, "I want a pony or rocket or maybe a bunny - you know, mom, the kind we see at the store. Lets go to the store and buy one." LOL  I love how he thinks.

*Nate looked at me one morning as I came out of the bathroom (he had been waiting for me . . . .) and said, "Mom, that was a long shower.  I used to take long showers when I was a grown up like you too.".   Where does he come up with this stuff???

* At the end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse they sing "The Hot Dog Song."  Nate stood up and said, "Everyone is singing and dancing, including I!!" LOL  Then he danced. :-)

*Josh is my perfectionist.  So, sickness is not on his list of "perfect things".  This past week he has also been hit with the flu but anytime I say, "Well, you feel like that because you got sick last night."  He'll respond with, "Mom, I'm not sick, I just . . . drank too much water, ate too much dinner, was too hot, was scared of something in the room  . ..  .(you get the idea)".  It makes me snicker . . .someday he will accept that being sick doesn't impact his "perfectness" LOL 

Our Book Advent - Week 2

December 9

Since "Mooseltoe" was checking everything off of his list - we made a simple little Christmas decor craft that I picked up at Michael's a few weeks ago :-)

 Josh's Wreath :-)

Nate's Wreath :-)
December 10:

This book goes through the Alphabet with lots of fun things . . .I liked Jingle Bells so we did a fun craft from Education.com.

The boys enjoyed this project - they each had their own sheet of stickers along with some left over foam stickers from Monday to decorate their Jingle Bell Cups.  It surprised me that Nate enjoyed this project the most - he used every last sticker up (His is the cup on the left!)

December 11

My original plan was to make pine cone Christmas Trees but I came up dry on pine cones - shoot, I couldn't even order them on Amazon because they were sold out!  My boys have been begging to paint and I've been wanting to do Q-Tip painting so I figured we would paint Christmas trees.  Josh loved this craft and ended up making two trees.  Nate "got tired" and wanted me to paint for him (which just means he is done!)

 Nate's Christmas Trees . . .

Josh's Christmas Trees - paint is Josh's friend!

December 12

And this is real life . .. I didn't feel like doing anything today so instead of doing my orignally planned craft . . I pulled out another purchase from Micheals.  These were Scratch Ornaments . . except you can't see the scratch part because once the boys scratched off all of the black part they covered it all up with the foam stickers.  They did love doing the scratch off part though :-)

December 13

Naturally, we decorated Gingerbread men today (and then ate some!)

 My cookie :-)

 Josh's plate of sprinkles . .. I mean his cookie HA!

Nate's cookie - yes, there are Halloween Sprinkles on this cookie too!

Food Friday - Butterscotch Magic Bars

Butterscotch Magic Bars
adapted from a friend 

One of the mom's made these bars for the "mom snack" at Friday School this last semester and I had to remove myself from the snack table or I would have eaten the pan.  I am a sucker for anything Butterscotch then add Sweetened Condensed Milk and, well, I'm sunk HA!  They are so easy to make and just so darn tasty! 

2 cups crushed graham crackers (about 1 sleeve)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips

Mix all of the ingredients together and pour into a pan that is lined with parchment paper and very well greased 8x8 pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.  Allow to cool completely.

* A few pointers:
1) I am normally not one to use parchment paper but I learned from the mom who made these (as she had to pry them out of the pan) that these are sticky!  So parchment paper will save you a lot of work.  Once these had cooled, I just used the parchment paper to lift the whole thing out of the pan and set it on a cooling rack. 
2) These are not nearly as good warm.  They need to set up completely so allowing them to cool is the best thing to do.  Granted I may or may not have taste tested these well before they were cool :-)