Merry Christmas!

The Christmas season is here and the new year is around the corner....

May your holiday be full of friends, family, food & fun with wonderful memories to last a lifetime...


...and wishing you FUN in 2010!


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Christmas Spirit

Christmas Recap

Christmas time is busy for us as we travel to different family members houses.

Each year we spend Christmas Eve at hubby's mom's. B enjoyed watching the player piano and the hit of the night was the shoot gun that you can knock down cans! Everyone had fun with it!

Christmas morning Santa brought lots of cool things that B had on his list. Two of the favorites were the Polar Express Track and the I-Coaster.

Christmas Night we spend at my uncle's house. We play silly games instead of exchanging gifts. This is called "wooden spoon guess who". This is hubby trying to identify my grandpa.

The Sunday after Christmas we always travel to Indianola, IA- about a three hour drive to hubby's grandpa's home. They had some ice the day before but the roads were fine for our driving. The whole way up everything was silver and shiny- it looked so glittery.

While at grandpa's we get the chance to see some family who we only see one or two times a year. B really enjoyed helping everyone open their gifts this year. His favorite at grandpa's was the GeoTrax Grand Central Station- he couldn't wait to get home and put it together.

Santa Baby

On the 20th we had a pot luck at my house for the day care families. As we had all started to eat, some of the kids sitting by the window looked outside and saw Santa walking up the street. He came right into our downstairs and had a gift for all of the kiddos. Funny, he came last year too- he must know what night we party on!

Last year we just had cookies and Santa but one of the moms had the idea of the potluck. It was lots of fun and our food was yummy. All of our regular families came minus one of the dads and we invited 2 of the drop in families to join us.

When the kids arrived, I had a Christmas Tree Ornament craft for them to do that was similar to the bead ornaments we made earlier in the month. I got the idea from the Make and Takes blog. Next we started in on all of the yummy food and had a short interuption for Santa and opening the gifts. As everyone finished their dinner, the kids ran around and played while the grown ups got to have some time to chat.

Having Santa come to our house means so much to me. As I was growing up we had the BEST Santa ever come to our house each year. We always had so much fun playing with him. He would actually stay and play, not have to hurry off. He was great. Such a memory! That is why I love having one who comes to our house for B. I hope he enjoys it as much as I did. I just think there is something magical about Santa coming to your house.

A few of our Christmas Crafts

Like I mentioned in the last post, I did not get any of my posting done before the Christmas holiday. I'm not to worked up about it since none of the ideas were that creative or something that I didn't "borrow" from another site. Anyways, here are some of the things we did to get ready for the holiday:

Cinnamon Dough Ornaments inspired by Skip to my Lou. They were very delicate and a few broke while they were drying.

We did this idea last year. The kids really like it though. They piece the 3 parts of the tree together with glue and then they cut out (or I cut out, depending on how old they are) pictures from the Sunday ads of things they would like to ask Santa for. They get so excited cutting out everything they want.
Silouhette Ornaments for the Mommies and Daddies of the Tot Spot Kids: loved the way these turned out! The idea here came from The Shabby NestEasy Wreaths made from cutting the center out of a paper plate. They glued torn green pieces of construction paper and then added foam stickers and a pipe cleaner on back to hang it. Candy Cone Trees as seen on No Time For Flash Cards.

Merry Christmas

I am so behind on my posting. I had so many things I wanted to share the past few weeks but have been crazy busy with not any extra minutes to spare. My plan is now that I will condense them all into one post sometime this week and share with you what we have been up to.

I just wanted to drop in tonight to wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope that everyone was able to enjoy their day to the fullest! We had a wonderful 2 days of family fun and I will also share some highlights from these.

The Stockings Were Hung...

... on the stairs with care. My little blogger friend Nikki at WhiMSy Love is hosting a little get together to share photos of our stockings! Visit her blog and check out her crafty goodness. I really like her snowman one and her vintage looking one. How cute.

We don't have a chimney, so ours have gone on the stairway for the past few years. B has been enjoying going up and putting little toys or stuffed animals in them this year.

Like Nikki, I also have a stocking that was full of memories from when I was growing up. It was crocheted and white, green, and red. It was not very big, compared to the other stockings in my family. But I loved it and now it is gone. Boo Hoo.

I use the top snowman one with the red scarf and hubby uses the one with the blue scarf and little bird on it. I actually like that one better, but when we got them I asked him which one he wanted and he picked the bird one. (why did I ask?!?!) They both have a satin lining.

B has a navy blue felt one with his named spelled on the top. It also has a jingle bell on the toe. I really like jingle bells at Christmas, especially on stockings. This one was made for him by my sister for his first Christmas and we have used it ever since. Yes, it hangs backwards, but she didn't realize it until after it was done. We still love it though!

This year for his birthday, B got a new stocking with a train on it. Since we love the one his Aunt made for him and I like to keep traditions, we are just using this one for a decoration on our door.

I also have stockings for our 2 doggies, but did not put them up this year. I believe in equal opportunities, and since I didn't have one for the 2 fish and 2 bird, I left them all out.