Merry Christmas!

From our family, to yours!

1 day till Christmas

This is a timeless craft and a great gift. They smell so good and look aborable plain or decorated. Click here for the recipe. 

One thing this recipe doesn't suggest, is that you can add glitter in the dough if you would like to add a little sparkle :)

Merry Christmas!!

2 days till Christmas

This year I actually got excited about making a gingerbread house and was pleased at all the sites I found through google that gave me tons of recipes and patterns for baking and building one. I learned that it really takes 3 days if you do it right, so I worked on it for 3 days and had everyone help decorate it today (Christmas day). It is actually our "2 days till Christmas Craft" because we put it together on that day and just had the fun of decorating it on Christmas day. With how easy and fun it turned out being, I will do it again sometime.

what child doesn't love a candy house?!

What's cooking in your kitchen?

3 days of Christmas

It's baking time and boy do I feel it! As much as I enjoy it, it shocks me every year how it wears me out standing for hours to cook and bake. The greatest part this year though, was making treats with the children. This is one of the best sugar cookie recipes I've ever enjoyed. My grandmother Buxton used to make us a box of treats every year with a santa face for each of us made from this recipe. I love it because not only does it taste great, it can be mixed and cut outs made without any chilling time. They are best after a day or two as well, believe it or not. Sooo Yummy!

The baby even enjoyed watching! :)

Happy Baking!

4 days till Christmas

I wanted to share this wonderful recipe for this time of year. I make it every Thanksgiving and give it out for gifts. People love to recieve it and it is delicious!

                                                           Cranberry Pineapple Sauce           

By: MaryLee Pugh

1-20oz. can crushed pineapple
2 C. sugar
pineapple juice & water to make 2 cups
4 C. washed fresh crannberries
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves

directions:
Drain and reserve juice from crushed pineapples. Place juice & water in cooking pan. Bring to a boil and boil one minute. Add Pineapples and cranberries, cinnamon & cloves. Bring to full rolling boil, turn down heat to medium and continue cooking till you no longer hear cranberries popping their skins. Boil lids & seals for 5 min. Ladel into hot pint jars and place prepared lids and rings on tightly. Invert jars for 20 mins. then turn upright. Jars will seal. 

Tie with raffia, label and give as a special gift. Great with Christmas dinner!

5 days till Christmas

Since we did a lot of shopping today for ingredients and supplies, we didn't get too many crafty things done. Without the children's help, I wouldn't have gotten as much done as I did, But here is what the and I did make:
                          Muddy Buddies (courtesy of Bryon)

Marshmallow Snowmen (Jeremy & Justin)

Rice Krispy treats (me)

& Dough for gingerbread houses (that needs to be chilled over night)

                                                            
last but not least....

Our tree is FINALLY decorated!!

 ....does that count as a "Christmas Craft"?! I think this year is the longest we have EVER put off our tree decorating (since we've had children). It's so beautiful to us though since it took so long to put up and do, that it is kinda nice to have it up late ;)


Hope your Christmas preparations are going smoothly!
Love,

6 days till Christmas

The children are finally out of school. YAY! To keep the children focused and having fun, we created this "Christmas Family Fun Chart". I find that if I'm organized things are fun and keep on track...otherwise we end up with chaos and I just can't wait for the kids to go back to school. We are really looking forward to this vacation though and this is just an added measure to keep things fun and have a sort of check list. The activities on this chart are things the children would like to accomplish during their vacation. Take a look!

This just might be the best "Christmas Craft" yet! ;)

Christmas crafts

This is December 8th craft. I made this for my children and the other children athe their bus stop loved it so much I thought it would be fun to make them one too.

December 7th Candy laden Christmas tree. This was an idea my Mom gave me and so much fun!

 Fun for all ages!

Christmas Countdown

Finished my Christmas cards (finally)! Woo Hoo!! Can't believe how relieving that is. I will be sending these out today.

In the meantime I'll be working on elf hats for these guys (10th day of Christmas crafts)

and dried oranges for the 9th.
How's your Christmas countdown coming?

12 days till Christmas

I got this idea at a local craft store at their after Christmas sale last year and just saved everything for this year. Here is what you will need:

Large vase, string of lights, berries for filler, flameless candle (preferably), pine cones, ribbon (not shown) and puff ball snowmen ornaments.

Arrange lights around candle. To get the right effect, I plugged the lights in. Next add the snowmen ornaments and berries, arranging as desired. You may choose to fill further with pine cones and other kinds of filler pieces. Tie a ribbon around the base of the vase (optional). You seriously can't go wrong. This is the finished project:

                                It's truly that simple.


I love how this looks in place :) Hope you're enjoying the things you are doing!

13 days till Christmas

I'm counting singing in the choir as the craft for Sunday because there was so much time in practice and sacrifice to make it a success. And it was. The finale was the Messiah's "Halelujah". It was Majestic! I love to sing in large choirs because you can use the full richness in your voice with now reservations. Since I don't have a video here, I decided to share something that I discovered  by way of a friend. I hope you enjoy it like the children and I did!

14 days of Christmas

 Today was a busy day doing cards again and attending our first family Christmas dinner party but even so...

 I managed to pump out some cranberry sauce and put together mixes in a jar. I've been wanting to do this for a few years now and am glad I finally got the opportunity. These are the gifts we are giving to our neighbors this year. One more thing to check off my list. Now I can sleep peacefully. :)

                                Hope you sleep well too and have "visions of sugar plums dancing in your head"!

15 days till Christmas

Michael came home with a countdown chain he'd made at school today so Jeremy got the idea to make one as well. So for our Christmas craft countdown we made: 1 construction paper chain

Worked on: 25+ Christmas cards after picking up the family pictures....

 and started: that scarf I intended to start a week ago now? Have any of you ever worked on a knitting loom? There are great tutorials on youtube! ;)

Plus, we actually got the Christmas decorations down from the attic. Now we get to put them up tomorrow! I'm SO excited. I LOVE that part!

       Hope you are getting things done and enjoying them along the way! Feel free to share them with us here :)

18, 17 & 16 days till Christmas

Nothing like tryin to make up for 3 days of Christmas crafts, but I like to think the old addage still rings true that it's "better late then never". I have been crafting and cleaning like crazy with what seems like nothing to show for it. Especially when one of the things I'm "crafting" is that Christmas card I literally sat down 2 months ago to make for our 75+ Christmas card list, only to lack what I needed in supplies. By the time all the supplies were at hand, time wasn't my friend (to say the least). So here I am, as usual, 2 months later like I say isn't going to happen EVERY YEAR and I am finally pulling that card together. I know, everyone says they just let it go. Then why can't I?! For some reason I don't feel like Christmas can happen until I get my cards out. And the I did try to "let it go", it seemed like every friend I talked to on the phone or otherwise had to tell me how much they looked forward to my             card e v e r y  y e a r. Not exaggerating. Maybe this is why I don't feel like I can "let it go". So yesterday I went to order my prints of our family online and couldn't find the file on the computer AT ALL. So I ended up loading up the kids and taking them to Wal-Mart to place my BIG ORDER amidst my screaming two year old and the dinosaur machine that I swear moves slower than my home computer (if that's possible). After what seemed much painstaking time and a lack of patience, I finally got them ordered-only for the nice photo man to tell me the 1-hour printer wasn't working correctly so we might have to wait another day or two. No problem, I mean, I don't even have my cards made yet, right? So I did go home and get busy at least working on some Big and Chunky necklaces and brainstorming some kind of creative card (yet feeling very uninspired) and retiring early to bed. (reason for no post yesterday). Yet I am happy to say that the card is well on it's way although I am again lacking in sufficient supplies (thus the reason they will not be pictured here tonight) and the ability to break away long enough without the help of my very TWO two year-old. So I am sorry to say that my Christmas cards are having quite a time getting into the mail, yet I now have cranberry ornaments in the process and Chunky necklaces ready for posting (tomorrow) and cranberries ready to be bottled and given away. Things are in the works and can I just say? It's beginning to look a LOT like

                                                                                          Christmas!!! 

I had to post this picture of Tyler with Santa from the first

year we lived in Eugene. It cheers me up!  :)

What have YOU been crafting?

19 days till Christmas

Okay, small confession. I didn't do a "craft" today. Although I have a wonderful craft to share, courtesy of my amazing friend Margaret and her beautiful "Cranberry Heart" ornaments. Instead, today I worked on Jewelry orders and ga-gaed over my new watch face order. That's right! My watch faces are here!! So now, you can go to my boutique and get that Big and Chunky must have watch! More faces will be posted soon, and guess what else? We are pumping out Big and Chunky Necklaces!  So by the end of the week, you can get a set for yourself or a special somebody you just can't find the perfect gift for. So for now... get into the spirit of the season with these beautiful ornaments and...

 browse the Boutique because, more is coming your way....very soon!

WARNING: pictures do not do these bands justice!

What a Beautiful time of year :)

XOXO,