Christmas Tour

Last year, I invited you to come again and enter through our kitchen.  So, that's where this year's tour will start.  I purchased these two wreaths, which I just simply adore, and hung them from the top of my window trim with small nails.  After looping the ribbon onto the wreath frame, I added a grommet to hang the ribbon onto the nails.  I think I'm in love!  I can picture wreaths here all. year. long.  Except, I don't think it will be so nice when opening windows - so it may just be a winter-thing! ;-)

I made the shorter candle by hot gluing cinnamon sticks to a candle and then finishing it off with some cute ribbon.  The taller candle has ribbon wrapped around it with a piece of artificial berries tucked inside.  The candle stands and topiary are all from Southern Living at Home, some of my favorite pieces!!

Need a quick idea to spruce up your cooktop? I placed a seasonally scented candle and surrounded it with various nuts. It's simple to do, but I always get lots of comments about it.

Another simple idea is these plate racks. I have 4 plates that coordinate with the wall hanging my mother made me. I swap out the plates each season for a new and fun look.

I wanted to find a special little place for a gingerbread nativity set I purchased after Christmas last year. What better place than the shelves in my kitchen!

Here's a closer look at the top two shelves.

Leaving the kitchen and entering our family room, you'll find our entertainment center.  On the bottom shelf is our Advent Calendar as well as our Advent Nativity set - which I absolutely LOVE!  Hanging on the side of the shelf is a stocking I made for my hubby a long time ago and peeking out from inside it is Charlie, our Elf on a Shelf from the North Pole.  The two pieces of pottery on the top two shelves are from my hubby's place of employment - wonderful keepsakes!

The other side of our entertainment center.  The wreath is on a wreath stand (another thing I am absolutely in love with).  I think they give you so many more options with wreaths.  I purchased mine, here.  I decided to add my Easter egg to our Christmas collection this year, too!  Because you don't get to Easter without Christmas!

And at the top of our entertainment center, is my Willow Tree Nativity.

Turning around, you'll see our Christmas tree and mantle. Our tree is decorated with Hallmark ornaments that date back to 1980. I've continued the collection with my children. You'll notice another wreath stand on my mantle; I just couldn't put a nail in the stone!  At Christmastime, I replace my silk flowers on the red sconces with these little evergreens.  The stockings were made by my mother-in-law.  They are similar to the one that I made my husband ... and I have one half completed sitting in a basket! :-D

Inspired by Just Mom, we created our own set of "JOY" letters to hang above our "window mirror." I wanted to find bigger letters, but all her readers must have gotten to the craft store before me. :-(

Around the corner from our family room is our living room. Here's a little tree that my 3 year old enjoys playing with. Isn't it obvious? ;)

The other side of the living room entryway.

Our front door.  We get so much wind at our house that I cannot hang wreaths outside.  :(  So, we settle for hanging them inside!

This is our living room where Quintin and Elle have their salt dough nativities displayed.  They both made them at our homeschool co-op.  Quintin made his 2 years ago and Elle made hers this past fall. In the middle is a picture of a snow-mail-man delivering mail to a little girl named Hannah.  Hannah's family attends our church and last year she was diagnosed with cancer.  Her Christmas wish last year was to receive lots of Christmas cards.  She received well over 157,000 cards!!  A local artist created the picture and they have raised lots of support for many other children battling cancer.  Hannah passed on to be with our Lord this past June, at just 5 years old.  We were sad but we also rejoiced as she joined her mommy up in heaven!  Her mother passed away when she was a toddler.  This picture is very special to us!

Thank you for visiting.  If you haven't done so already, head over to The Nesting Place to see many more beautiful homes and Christmas tours!

Has it really been 1 month already?

Well, golly gee, I'm pretty torn up about it too!

Cookie Exchange

Today, Short Stop is hosting a cookie exchange.  I just had to join in and share my three favorite cookies.  I loved them since I was little and it doesn't feel like Christmas if I don't make these!!

I've posted them all on my cooking blog, but here are the links.

Fudge Meltaways

Chocolate Crinkles

Coconut-Chocolate Meringue Bites

Click on the above names to see the recipes, and be sure to see MANY more at Short Stop's blog!
These are my favorite cookies - let me know if you try them!!!

November's Thankful Tree

Every November we do a Thankful tree, adding a leaf each day with something we are thankful for.  And every November, I'm scrambling to cut out leaves and usually getting annoyed with the process.

I thought ahead this year, and in October, we gathered up some pages with leaves printed on them and pulled out the paints.  The kids had a wonderful time painting them!

It was more work than usual, but after getting them laminated at a local teacher store, I'm hoping we can reuse them (as long as I don't forget where I put them!)

We had a few too many, so before laminating them, we sent some to a friend who had mentioned all the pretty leaves in her yard had already fallen off the trees.

Rather than starting at the beginning of the month, we waited until 2 weeks before Thanksgiving; that way each child could have a leaf every day.

It's a little hard to see, but here's our tree!

I think my favorite this year was Quintin's thankfulness for "new teeth!"

Happy Birthday Bubba!

It's hard to believe that in this picture, Elle is 2, Colin is 6 months and Quintin just turned 5.  It's even harder to believe that Colin is turning 3 today!  Happy Birthday Colin!!  Our children are 7, 4 and 3!  But only for  a few days, because Elle has a birthday coming up soon too!

Practicing the "3" fingers! :)

It's okay, you can wish me a Merry Christmas!

Now customers have a voice - Stand for Christmas

I thought this was a very cool campaign!  Let's keep Christ in Christmas!!

Grrrr!

Nope, I'm not on vacation this week, but I wish I was! ;-)

Both computers got infected with yucky stuff but thankfully they are both back in *my* posession!

Being off the computer this week has allowed me to get lots accomplished!  Who knew? :-P

Hoping to share some fun things with you next week - because I even have my camera back now.

So far so good.  Oh wait, last night the cd player wouldn't eject my cds ... grrrrr ... electronics!  Can't live with them, can't live without them ... well, unless I convert and join my Amish neighbors!

Enjoy your time with loved ones and ...

Solar System

Since I don't have my camera right now (waiting to hear back from canon - still under warranty, but need to find out the cause of the problem before I know if it will be a free fix or not) I thought I'd share some pictures from an older unit, solar system, we did a few months ago - obviously, the kids are in SHORTS!!!

We continue to work through The Weaver Curriculum.  This is one of the chapters that made me love The Weaver even more!  The Weaver curriculum is unit study based, meaning that when you study the solar system, you study it in Bible, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts and Creative Writing.

My favorite Bible lessons have come from this chapter.  Below, I'll share some from the curriculum.

Weaver Bible Background: "When Abram was shown the stars in the heavens, he was told to count them.  He could not do this, for they were innumerable.  The size of the universe is incomprehensible to man.  Which of us can understand the distance to the sun?  We have an idea of the distance to the moon, for man has traveled there.  Yet, the distance to the moon is just a small percentage of the distance to the sun - very inconsequential!"

My favorite part of this entire Solar System chapter was the application that we serve a big God, a great God.  A hint of His size is shown in the universe.  Remember, this is His creation!!

The bible lesson led us in an activity that made a HUGE impression on all of us.  We went out to the end of our driveway and followed the "steps" in marking off the sun and plants.  It would have been nice to have had actual pictures of the planets on the signs, but time was crunched that day and they didn't get made.  In fact, I was happier to have the names, as it was much easier for us to read from far away.

From the sun, looking back.  If you look very closely, you can see a white paper in the woods.

Here, let me zoom that in for you!  That's Quintin and Neptune!

We finished the chapter with a poster of the planets.  (I took these pictures with the camera in the laptop.)

Each planet has a paper with the planet name, how many moons and rings, as well as the number of days or years it takes for that planet to travel around the sun.  The scale of planets is off, I know, but the hands on work in this chapter has helped retain so much of the info.  A very fun chapter for us all.

Currently, we are working on the body systems.  Hoping for a fixed camera to make its way home soon so I can share what we're learning!

Fall Break ... part 5

Our final full day on the ship, last Wednesday, was a "day at sea."  We put all the kids in their kids' clubs in the morning and did some shopping - we do have two kiddos with birthdays in December and we had a little princess who would really like a princess doll!  T and I also took the free time to shop for pictures.  They have professional photographers walking around taking candid shots as well as posed shots with characters. 

On Pirate Night, we stood in line for the kids to get their picture taken with Pirate Mickey - just as I was about to snap the picture I noticed it was blurry.  I took it anyway and could have cried at the results.

We wanted to buy this picture and see if there were any other good pictures of the kids.  They really do a good job getting lots of pictures!

They were also taking some pictures at dinner too, and we couldn't resist this one of Pirate Elle and her "hook."  I think her braids with the beads on the end look absolutely adorable under her cap.  But hey, that's just my opinion.  I think her face is precious as well, but I'm her mom! :)

After shopping, and hiding the purchases in our stateroom's closet, we gathered up the kiddos. Quintin had been in Stitch's Great Adventure and Elle and Colin got to march with Mickey and listen to Snow White tell a story.  It was so precious to hear Elle tell us all about Snow White - she was in awe!

Prior to going, I had read that if new movies are due in the theater while on a disney cruise, they'll show them in one of their theaters.  It wasn't a new release to the theater that we saw, but one that came out on video while we were out at sea - UP!  I had seen this movie earlier in the summer with Quintin and Elle and I was eager to have T and Colin see it too.  We grabbed a quick lunch and then headed to the theater with 2 cousins (boys, ages 16 and 15 - their faces were hysterical as they listened to Elle tell of her adventures with Snow White!)  Bonus - Up in 3-D!

We have so many wonderful memories of this vacation and thanks for letting me share them with you.  I'll finish with a few more pictures I couldn't fit in anywhere else, and some of our other memories!

Early Sunday morning, as we were dressing the kids to get ready to leave for the airport, I pulled Colin's favorite short sleeved shirt out of his dresser and asked T, "Is this one okay?"  I was asking because it was short sleeves, but it was good I asked.  T answered, "No, that's not a good one for a plane ride."  I was puzzled for a second until I re-read his Fourth of July t-shirt, "KABOOM!"  LOL!!!

One time while walking around Elle asked, "Why is everything Mickey?"

And while waiting for our plane to take off (waiting for over an hour ... after an unexpected, extended layover in Charlotte, NC), Elle asked, "When are we going to blast off?"

Quintin heard a man with a strong accent talking to T and me.  After the man left, Quintin looked at us and said, "I could understand everything he said and he was speaking Spanish."  We chuckled and explained the man was speaking English, he just had an accent - and it wasn't even a Spanish accent!

Colin was pretty quiet on this trip, taking it all in.  He earned back his nick-name of "Velcro" because he wanted his daddy to carry him EVERYWHERE!

This was my first Disney experience ever - I enjoyed the low-key, not very overwhelming experience the cruise provided.  Maybe one day, we'll experience a theme park with the kids!  But for now, we've got some amazing memories to keep us going!

Fall Break > part 4

I want to post today about the food service aboard the Disney Wonder.

INCREDIBLE!!!

If you choose to dine in the restaurants for your evening meal, they rotate you through 3 different ones - which were all wonderful!  You don't have to eat in the restaurants - you could choose to eat on Nassau (didn't have to be back on board until 7pm) or any of the several pizza, burger, chicken places on the top deck.  We chose to eat in the restaurants all four evenings and rotating with us was our entire serving staff.  We had the same waiter and assistant server every night.  And let me tell you, these two guys created so many wonderful memories for us!

This was taken on our second night in the restaurant Parrot Cay - it was Pirate Night!!

These two guys were fantastic at learning about their guests.  We'd come to dinner and 3 chocolate milks would already be on the table!  They did some magic tricks for the kids, did origami with the kids' placemats as well as challenged each table with brain teasers!  Our families all sat close to each other each evening - so it was fun to watch these guys interact with the whole family.

They even came out to sing when presenting T's parents with a Happy 45th Anniversary cake!

Our families (there was a mix-up the first two nights and Quintin sat with his cousins at T's sister's table - his cousins are 6 and 10 - he was in heaven!)

T's sister has 5 children - 12, 10, 6 and 4 year old twins.  This sister is closest in age to T, he's the baby of the family.

T's other sister, second oldest, also has 5 children, 21, 16, 14, 6 and a 1 year old that stayed at home with her paternal grandparents.

T's brother, the oldest, has 4 children, 16, 15, 11 and 9.

And then our little family of 4 before they moved Quintin back to our table at our request.

These pictures are also from my mother-in-law's camera and were taken on our second night - formal night.

Dinner was always a fun time and we shared lots of laughs together.  Even though the entire family didn't spend all day together, this was always a fun time we looked forward to. 

We learned from these men that they work 7 months straight and then have a month off.  They were counting down the days until their break beginning December 6.  Our head server has a 5 year old son in Peru and he could not wait to get home to see him.  It made us appreciate them all the more and the hard working ethic that they have.  These men were excellent at their job and had a fun time doing it!  I will be thinking of them on December 6 and their reunions with their families.