Christmas is coming!

We are super excited about Christmas! The boys made a gingerbread house like we do every year, and I put up some Christmas decorations.  

The boys randomly asked me if today if Santa Claus was real.  I wasn't sure how to answer.  I tried explaining that it isn't just one person, but it is a more of a person who you believe in your heart and the people dressed up as santa are just kind of bringing his spirit to life.  Needless to say, they had no idea what I was talking about.  I'm not sure I even convinced myself.. but they didn't seem upset, so I guess all is well.

 Here they are making the gingerbread house.

Here are some decorations.. 

Don't know why this picture is so yellow but I can't fix it.  Also, ignore our lack of curtains.  We hung them three times but the cats kept tearing them down so we gave up.

First time for outdoor decorations.  There are lights on there too but obviously they don't show up during the day.

  Cookies!

Christmas Tree

We went with a small tabletop tree this year.   Our space is limited and I was worried about the cats pulling down a full sized tree onto the tv or something.  Also, my beloved Martha Stewart tree is no longer with us (RIP).  The boys had fun decorating the mini-tree though!

E

I love N's scrunchy faced smile.. it melts me! 

E left, N right

Put on holiday sweaters to get a Christmas card picture.. this one was 1st runner up :-)  (N left, E right)

Costumes

The boys' school had a day where they could dress up as their favorite literary character.  E picked the black kitten from "The Little Island" and N picked Stellaluna. I have no clue how to sew (other than hand stitching) and I don't even own a sewing machine anyways, so I had to improvise a bit.  The kitten costume was easy, I just made ears and pinned them on a black hoodie.  Stellaluna was very time consuming (I'm aware that this is not evident from the quality of the costume lol) It consisted of a pillow case, scissors, half a bottle of liquid-stitch and some safety pins.  Anyways, the boys loved them.  

(The picture is from after they came home and switched costumes) 

Day to day happenings

November and December have been kind of crazy around here.  Just the right amount of crazy.  Thanksgiving was awesome, but it was the first time that I did it by myself, so I was pretty busy. My sister came to visit a couple weeks ago and I think we set a record for the amount of shopping that can be done in 4 days.  Thankfully I was able to finish up the Christmas shopping though.  Christmas decorations are up.  I did our Christmas cards and just sent them out.  Now we are planning a trip back "home" to Florida, which I am very much looking forward too, but it does require lots of laundry, packing, boarding our cats, etc.  Anyways, I just wanted to make a post about the day to day things that happen between the craziness.. it's my favorite kind of stuff.

Lots of homework.  E and N seem to be at the top of their class though.  Me and J could not be more proud!

E is just stimulating his brain.  It must help him figure out the math problems.

Transformers gotta eat too!

Oatmeal! 

Making a mess crafting!  N made a bug.  E made Spongebob.

Apparently Chocolate Chip looooves hash browns. 

Silly cats.  I will miss them while we are in Florida.  I will also miss the 200 freakin dollars that it costs to board them.

A trip downtown

     We took a trip to the downtown area to see if there were Christmas decorations yet.  It was such a nice drive! Downtown here is a lot smaller than in the city where we use to live, but it's also notably cleaner and safer so it's really nice to just drive around or check out the museums and go to lunch and stuff. There weren't too many decorations when we went but they did have the wreaths up.

                     

                       

Turkey project

One of my favorite crafts as a kid was a big thanksgiving turkey that I had to "color" by glueing on different types of dried beans and peas.  I think I was in Kindergarten and I still remember how much fun I had making it.  I decided that the boys should make one too!  They were excited when I told them about it.

E

N

N concentrating

We made quite a mess but that's ok 

N's finished turkey! 

E's finished turkey!

All the leftover beans went into the craft/upcycle box for a future project. Clearly I need to find some crafts that use paper towel rolls!

 Hopefully I can get some Thanksgiving pictures up soon!

New goal

One of the really popular diy blogs that I read daily participates in a Pinterest Challenge.  I thought it was such a great idea.. I pin way more than I do.  So I have given myself a new goal.  I am going to try to make/use/do/cook at least one thing a week that I have pinned.   I've made a few things before from there, though usually it's more inspired by things I pin rather that an exact remake.  I do it a little more to my style/budget/taste/laziness.  That's ok, I say it still counts.

This week I was inspired by all these pins I see of curtain rods being used to hold pictures or art.  I thought it might be the perfect solution for the kids' art work.  I usually hang their pictures on the fridge, but the kitchen is quite cozy and we brush my the fridge a lot so the pictures fall off all the time.  We needed a new location.

I went to Big Lots for a cheap curtain rod and hooks.  $10 later, I had a little display area!

I kept it like that for a day or two but I was a little disappointed that the rod could only hold a few pictures even though it's about four feet long.  I still had left over rings though so I decided to buy another rod.

 So much better!

I love it! The wall isn't empty anymore, we have a place for the kids' pictures, and it was less than $15.  Oh and I should mention that I did it all myself! And they are perfectly level and evenly spaced (though the angle of the picture is deceiving) Go me! I normally suck at hanging things up unless I am using command strips or poster putty haha

Changing leaves

The leaves around here are turning so many beautiful colors!  I feel like an old lady for being so amazed by this but what can I say, I grew up in Florida, I haven't seen things like this before.

This is what we are seeing on our balcony lately.  We have probably the most private apartment in the whole complex as far as our balcony goes. (Yes I realize that "private apartment" is kind of an oxymoron)  Nobody can see into it and we don't face any other units.. just trees.  The downfall of course is that our apartment gets almost no sunlight but oh well.  

These pictures don't even show all the reds in there but you get the idea.

 This one shows the reds but not the yellows.  I can't win.  I need to learn how to use my camera.

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