Pinteresting New Year

Over the past few months Pinterest has inspired many crafts in our home, dinner ideas, outfits, gifts, etc. Now pinterest is inspiring my new year.

The kids are already excited that I am going to let them stay up until midnight. I have a feeling however that there will be a nap scheduled for Saturday, and most likely Sunday too, but thanks to Pinterest this is what I have planned:

To make our night feel a little more "fancy", as my daughter would call it, I plan on glittering up the champagne glasses with sugar, served with sparkling grape juice for the children and champagne for the adults. I also plan on glittering up my and Skylar's nails with glitter fingernail polish.

Before the count down begins I want us to have some fun with games, music, dancing, treats, and maybe even a movie. I have seen this idea on other blogs and all over pinterest, and I believe I want to join in on the fun of doing count down bags, where every hour you open up a bag with a fun activity inside!

So those are my evening plans, hopefully it will end with a midnight kiss from my hubby and wishful, hopeful dreams for 2012. Of course Pinterest did not lack in giving me ideas on how to start off my new year. For instance I will on January 1st (or 2nd) turn all my hangers in my closet backwards. As I wear clothes, I will simply turn the hanger around. Anything that is still backwards on June 1, I'll toss. Another cute idea I found is to start a time capsule for the year, I love this idea!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed new year! Please tell me how you plan on celebrating New Year's Eve.

25 Days of Christmas: Day 25

Merry Christmas!

25 Days of Christmas: Days 18-24

I did not think about how busy and fast this season would be! But it has been filled with joy and many precious memories.

I want to complete my 25 days of Christmas, but I need to keep this post short since my spare time is even shorter. Over the past few days our little family has enjoyed the sound of Christmas music, Christmas stories about our Savior's birth, lots of baking, present wrapping, and we visited the Grove Park Inn for a tour of ginger bread houses. Skylar and Maddox even got to take a special plane ride with their Papa as their own personal pilot down to Georgia to spend time with their grandparents. Their Papa even let them do some flying as well! While there they were surprised to see Jingle Twingle, their elf, make an appearance. They spent time on a farm petting a baby cow, picking cotton, and collecting pecans. They received a ton of spoiling from their grandparents with precious memories that will last a life time. While gone I did some much needed cleaning, more present wrapping, had fun at Christmas party with friends, and enjoyed some alone time with Mitch.

I am glad to have my babies back. Today we have spent all day baking and making a few homemade gifts to give away. This evening we will go to a Christmas eve church service, then spend time with distant and near relatives. Tonight before bed we will sit by our fire place and listen to Mitch read from the Bible, Luke chapter two, the story of the birth of Jesus Christ.
Tomorrow morning we will wake up early, and open presents. For breakfast we will sing to Jesus happy birthday and enjoy a an angel food birthday cake. Over breakfast we will discuss how this is Jesus' day and not ours. Then we're off to spend the day with family.
I hope you will enjoy our photos from this past week, for we have enjoyed the memories.

Merry Christmas Eve!

25 Days of Christmas: Day 17

Day 17

Every year we take the kids to Hollywild zoo, where they put on a display of lights, and we get to feed the animals. This is one of my favorite traditions.

25 Days of Christmas: Days 15-16

Day 15

The kids put together a gingerbread house! This craft was easy, fun, and yummy! The reason it was so easy was because we bought a kit from the grocery store. I just knew this house would end up looking like a half eaten mess, but Skylar and Maddox did an amazing job! You can see their finished project below.

Day 16

Christmas cards, Christmas cards, Christmas cards! We almost drowned in cards as we wrote out 45 cards to send out to friends and family. The kids used finger paint to create Christmas lights with their finger prints as a part of their signature. It was satisfying completing them all and sending them off in the mail.

25 Days of Christmas: Days 12-13

Day 12

Mitch, the kids and I enjoyed another movie night. I made hot coco and we all snuggled up together and watched Polar Express.

Day 13

While scanning pinterest I found similar ideas to our next project, ornaments with the different names of Jesus. I thought this project would be fun for the kids and I to do, along with making our tree a beautiful and constant reminder of Christ. I had 24 glass ornaments so I chose 24 names in which Jesus is called and wrote them on the glass. I talked with Skylar and Maddox about the different names and then they helped me fill the ornaments with glitter and crumpled up paper made to look like hay.

The names we used were, Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace, King of kings, Emmanuel, Jehovah, I Am, Savior, The Word, Messiah, Lamb of God, The Way, The Good Shepherd, Bread of Life, Light of the world, Bright Morning Star, The Rock, Redeemer, My Healer, The Truth and the Life, Alpha and Omega, Living Water, The Vine, Thy Salvation, Lord of All.

25 Days of Christmas: Days 10-11

Day 10

The kids and I finally finished our ribbon garland project. It's wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be, $15. I think our garland turned our beautiful. The kids watched as I wrapped it around the railing of our front porch. I had some extra lights, so I decorated a couple of trees around our house as well. The lights aren't too much, too bright, or too fancy, but still special to us.

Now the set of pictures you'll see below is from our outing on day 11.

There is a neighborhood a few towns over from us where a guy and about 4 to 6 of his neighbors turn their home into a Christmas light attraction. They even have their own Santa Claus and offer free popcorn and hot chocolate. These people go all out in decorating for the season. So Mitch, the kids and I, along with a group of our friends had a night out enjoying what these amazing people had to offer for free for their community.