All the family is together - time for some pictures.

We rarely get time to be together as the whole family.  With two of the boys in NC at college and then the four of us here at Sheppard AFB in Texas it is hard to all be in the same room.  So when the opportunity raises itself we do pictures.  Now, doing pictures is a HATED thing by most of us.  But when mama only wants pictures for her Christmas present - who can deny me? 

Just the kiddos. 

Biggest boy- Josh - not sure why he likes the beard or why it is red, but he does.

Second son- Jon - he's our preppy one who loves clothing.

I love these kiddos.  Wish they were all at the same place.

Christmas

Christmas time and in Texas.  With our base house space is limited and throwing in a Christmas tree made it even more tight.  We used our skinny tree and decided to do it much more simpler than normal.  To give us something to do, Sophie and I created a tree paper chain garland out of all our Christmas scrapbook paper.

The college boys came home for two weeks.  The little ones were so excited to see them.  I don't know if the big brothers realize how much Sophie and Jack miss them and how hard it is on them to be so far from them.  It was very hard for them to go from living in the same house with them to living across the country and only seeing them at Christmas time.
Here Jon is doing what any teen does best...sleeping.

Jack and Sophie waiting at the top of the stairs until they can come down on Christmas morning..they are eager - although tired- to see what Santa left.

Toy time.

The college boys are not so good in the morning haha

Jon finding out what his friends were up to during break.

Josh's turn to do the teen thing- sleep.

Here's to Christmas 2013 !!!

{ Advent Countdown- Tutorial }

Hurry wake up.  Time to see what is in the calendar.  

I love hearing that during the countdown to Christmas.  

The excitement, the joy, the kids just running to see. 

 Usually I take the easy way out for advent calendars.  I buy the cheapie cardboard one with all the doors full of chocolate from World Imports.  

But this year easy eluded me.  I could not get to World Imports.  

(Surgery and no driving allowed after)

So, I searched the great google and found a nice easy tutorial that I could tweak for our use.

I found it at maya*made.

All I needed were toilet paper tubes, mini clothes pins, wrapping paper, tape, staples, and a frame.  Easy enough right?

Step 1.  Take a toilet paper tube and staple the bottom closed.

 

Step  2.  Cut a piece of fun wrapping paper to cover the tube.

Step 3.   Tape paper around the tube securing on sides and bottom.

 Step 4.  Don't forget to tuck in at top and secure.  (Don't want to see toilet paper roll)

 Step 5.  Repeat steps 1-4 twenty three more times. :)

Step 6.  Print out little number tags, stamp them with numbers 1-24. 

 Step 7.  Cut tags out and glue them to the front of the tubes.

Step 8.  Hook all the tubes to the chicken wired frame using your mini clothes pins.  Make sure they are in order- your kids will point it out if they are not.  Believe me. 

 Final step.  Fill with candy and small treats.  

Do you make advent calendars?  Link up some ways you do them in comments.

tammy

linking up to Home for the Holidays party

Merry Christmas.

Have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy all your family time.  

Please remember all the military members who aren't home this season so that we can all have the time with our families. 

Won't be posting again until after the 27th..

Going to be spending time with the family.

I can say the blog will go back to full posts as this page break is not working for me.  I thought I'd like it and it does make the page load faster but I just don't like it.

Until then- 

peace.

tammy

{cookie time}

Well we had to bake cookies for that Holiday open house so I got the kids involved.

You know - why not make it messier and more fun?

  

Yes, Jack is a future tv host. 

  

She has the method of one on the cookie- one in my mouth.

do you bake with the kids?

{lights at Dale's Nursery}

After meeting Santa for the first time we walked around and enjoyed the lights.

  

  

Then of course it was time to get cookies and hot chocolate.

And it wouldn't be a good time if we didn't give mom a stupid photo.

  

 

 Happy holidays to your crazy family too.

{kids and santa}

Up until this year we have no photos of the youngest two with any holiday characters. 

Why?  

They have always been terrified of costumed people- 

be it Monkey Joes or Chuckie Cheese - they don't like them.

We went to look at the lights at the local nursery and Santa was there.  

Just like every other year, I asked," do you want to go see Santa? " .  

But to my surprise, Sophie said - " I'll try". 
   

 So proud of them.  I just wonder what crazy things they asked for. 

What a white wonderland to awaken to...

We had all the plans- we were leaving the house at 6:30 to hit Target, Joann's, Michael's and more..

But Mother Nature forgot to send us the memo and we awoke to this:

 The kids loved it, 

The dog loved it, 

 Oh well we can shop another time, this only happens once in a great while.

It was for the best anyway.  We finally hit town and half the stores just chose to take another day off and not open.  This is rare for NC- kinda the reason we moved down south - to get away from these northern storms.  

oh well. 

Advent calendars for my kids

I literally waited till the last weekend in November to finish these.  Nothing like last minute is there?

I had seen some done like this last year in blog land so after Christmas I snatched up little paper mache boxes everywhere on sale.  What I didn't get then I did get this November on sale also. 

Here they are :

 The two of them are very into who has what and are they the same.  You know that sibling rivalry - where all must be equal.  So they each have the same boxes for the same days in the same papers but seeing as if I had to make them both exactly the same I'd go crazy.

I made Jacks tall with a red background and laid out one way. 

 And I made Sophie's wider with a green background and her boxes in a totally different layout.

 It was a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be.  Those dang small boxes were hard to cover and then trying to get it all to fit on the board with all those boxes was a puzzle all unto itself. 

But in the end it all worked out fine.  I like them and they are all ready for years to come.  

Yeah one less project each year. ha ha

Christmas homemade gifts

. This week is homemade gifts and I have worked on a few this past week. I made a burlap banner that says Jingle Bells and has bells tied to the tip of each letter. It was extremely easy and fun. I love working with burlap - in fact I am almost out. Dang.

It ended up quite large so the kiddos had to hold it up for the photo.

Here is a closer shot of the Jingle part.



And here is my lovely crafting partner holding up the bells section. Notice the cute bells on the ends?  Though I think her belly sticking out of her shirt is much cuter :)

 
As I have said - I love burlap. So, I made a cute stocking while I was at it. I had so much fun with this that I think we are all getting new stockings this year. I added muslin as the cuff and then put some fun fringe on it. Topped it all off with a burlap flower.

And would it be a holiday without a tassel? I think not. So sticking with my natural elements color theme I did a brown and cream one with a "let it snow" motif. I painted the lovely snowflake with rustoleums Heirloom white - I mean seriously what else would I use? And then used lovely mod podge and some martha glitter. Love it. Gotta quit making all this cute stuff to give away :)

Lastly, my mom's house is not decorated yet. And to a whirlwind- thinks everyone should be decorated by now and done to the nines kinda gal it made me sad. So the kids and I made her a wreath today. We had dinner with them tonight and felt it would be a great thing to give her then. We had fun doing it but man does it take a lot more ornaments than I thought - and if you wait this late the dollar tree no longer has the green and red- only silver and gold. So, gold got added to the mix. My daughter would love a pink one with silver..maybe after Christmas. 

And had to end with a shot of my wreath making helpers. Aren't they cute? And no I did not pick out her outfit she did it all alone. Somehow she thinks that the blue polka dots on the shirt tie into the blue of the dress. Don't ask?

We spent the morning helping festive up my sisters house. Fun there. Will take photos when it is all done. Enjoy the week and stay warm all.