Deckin' the halls...

One of the highlights of the holiday season for me has always been trimming the tree. It doesn't feel like the holidays have oficially begun until there is a Christmas tree twinkling away in the living room. I always put a lot of thought into my color scheme and I enjoy changing it up year to year. Previous years I had settled for a measly almost six foot tree but luckily my amazing mother-in-law-to-be gave us an eight footer this year instead. I had always wanted a bigger tree but was too cheap to buy a new one so this was great. However, imagine my disappointment when I searched the house for my box of ornaments and came up empty handed. Apparently, somewhere between moving out of our old house and into this one they went M.I.A. I was pretty upset because we had several items of sentimental value in there, including Nelly's "Baby's 1st Christmas" stocking and ornaments that were given to us from various family members. Plus, a lot of the ornaments were still brand new from my shopping trip last Christmas when I decided to change up my entire color scheme two weeks before Christmas. Luckily, I managed to find some surprisingly nice ornaments from Dollarama for 1-2$. I chose blue and silver, the same color scheme I had used two years earlier, because I had really liked the look of it. My mother in law gave me a bunch of decorations as well so now I have more than I did before I lost them.

We rounded up the family and let the tree trimming festivities begin! It basically consisted of my children sticking ornaments in random places all around the bottom half of the tree, as high as they could reach, and then me moving them somewhere else when they weren't looking. This went on until the tree was (somewhat) to my liking. I then had to keep reminding them to leave the ornaments where they were because they insisted on rearranging them every two seconds.I was also a little disappointed because all I could get my hands on were multi-colored lights and they kind of threw off my theme of silver and blue. I would have preferred white lights but i guess beggars can't be choosers. We hit another obstacle about half way through when I realized I didn't have enough tinsel to finish the tree. Luckily I thought fast and supplemented the rest with silver ribbon. Everything was all fine and dandy until it came to the finale, placing the star on top, which of course turned into a fight between the munchkins. We had to let Coder put it on then take it back off and give Nelly a turn. Despite some minor hiccups I would say, overall, it was a success. This is what the end result looks like: (Disregard the very bottom of the tree, Nelly felt compelled to try to yank the ribbon and ornaments back off once we were done and anything within her reach was fair game to her)

When we were done it still felt like something was missing so with the leftover silver ribbon I whipped up a few super quick, matching bows for the tree.

Then I played around with my camera's Macro setting a bit and came out with these pictures of the tree which I LOVE and think look super cool.

 YAY HEARTS<3

With the leftover strand of multi-colored lights I decided to do my kitchen entryway. I added some rainbow bulbs to finish the look off.

It looked very nice until Coder decided to hold an impromtu hockey game in my living room. Things got a little out of hand and the next thing I know I hear the very distinct sound of glass breaking.

I was a little miffed as I really liked those bulbs and there were orginally three but another one was broken while we were unpacking them from the box. So now I am down to one lone bulb hanging in the center. Ahh well, I tried.

I am going Christmas shopping tomorrow (I know, I know. I am a last minute kind of person. Every year I vow to get it done early and then every single year I wait until a week or two before Christmas.) and there are still a few more decorations I need to grab including stockings for the family. We lost ours during the move, which really sucks because we each had our own personalized ones, so now I need to pick up some replacements. I also want to grab a can of fake snow and a roll of electric tape so I can do up the windows. I will post a tutorial on how to do it when I actually get around to it, probably on Christmas Eve the way I am going. I am planning to ship the munchkins to Nanny's house while I do my Christmas shopping, as they obviously can't come. I made that mistake last year and it was hell on earth. I will be posting my top gift picks in the next few days. My kids are still young enough that I don't have to worry about them stumbling upon my blog and ruining the surprise. Although I am sure I don't have many more years of that luxury seeing as I know seven year old kids with Facebook profiles. I do't know about you but I love seeing how other people celebrate Christmas, what traditions they have (and stealing the ones I like for my own family), what their tree looks like, what gifts they buy. It is like a guilty pleasure of mine. So feel free to share your own gift ideas, traditions and whatnot. **Check back soon for a complete list of my top gift picks for 2011** Adios, Amigos:)

Creative Teacher's Christmas Gift Idea!

I had originally planned on boring you all with a long, winded introduction on why I decided to start blogging (again), what my inspiration was, and basically my entire life story, but instead I am just going to cut to the chase. I decided to blog again because I have no life. Wait...Let me explain. I am a stay-at-home Mommy to a five year old son and two year old daughter (but that's for another post) as well as engaged to my middle school sweetheart and the father of my children (also another post). Now don't get me wrong, being a Mom keeps me hella busy all by itself. What I mean is, I have no life, other than being a Mom. I am with little people twenty-four-seven. My social life is non-existent. My idea of a good time is grocery shopping by myself.  I have realized that in order to retain some of my sanity I needed to do something just for myself. Since I love writing and love being a Mom, a blog seemed to be the obvious choice. Plus, I can do it at night when the munchkins are in bed:).I had first planned on blogging about something very important and current, but then every, single blog advice article stressed to write about something you know and more importantly, something you are passionate about. Well, there is nothing I am more experienced in and knowledgeable about then being a Mom. Despite the fact that I still have much to learn on the parenting front and still seem to do more wrong then right most of the time, there is absolutely nothing that I love more. So, here we are! However, although the main jist of the blog will be about being a stay at home mom and my family life day to day, I will also touch on whatever other random topics that I find interesting and/or think other mom's might like to read. And now without further adieu, let us jump right into post numero uno!.

Teacher Christmas Care Package from Positively Splendid

While browsing through my Google Reader the other day I stumbled across a simply adorable gift idea for my sons teacher. The post was featured as part of the Positively Splendid "Swell Noel" series and was a guest post by Michelle from A Little Tipsy. Both are A-MAY-ZING blogs and I encourage you to check them out (after you are done checking mine out, of course!). Anywho,  I had been struggling to find the perfect gift for my sons Kindergarten teacher for the past month and this post couldn't have come at a better time. What better gift to give to a teacher who is constantly exposed to snot nosed children then a care package full of health related and actually useful items. The best part? The whole gift, supplies included, cost me under 15$. SCORE!

Before I show you the finished product I am going to give you a quick run through of what I included in it and how I spruced it up! Oh, and you can check out the original and my inspiration for this fabulous idea go HERE!

 The first thing I did was purchase what I planned on putting in the gift basket portion of the gift. Most of it was purchased at the dollar store, however, I did get two or three things from Shoppers Drug Mart. What I decided on was: Hand sanitizer, travel size Tylenol, Hall's cough drops, a lip chap-stick, Extra gum, wet wipes, floss, Nivea hand cream, Christmas mug with candy inside, a small box of chocolates and a pair of Christmas socks for good measure (my son actually picked those out:)

Next I grabbed some supplies so I could decorate my gift basket. These were also from the dollar store and cost about five bucks. I got a Chistmas-y gift basket, red curling ribbon, some gift tags, silver basket filler, and some snowflake print cellophane gift wrap. Actually I splurged a bit on the gift tags, they were about 5$ for eight at Shoppers because all the other ones I saw were really little-kidish.

This is sort of a two-part gift, as you will see                                                        in the finished product. I picked out a box of Kleenex with a cute Christmas design on it.and spiced it up a bit more with some ribbon and a big bow I made.

 Finally, I put it all together and voila! Here is the end result which I like to think is just as pretty as the orginal from Positively Splendid.The finishing touch is the message on the tags. On the box of Kleenex it say "We 'Tissue' a Merry Christmas," and on the basket it says "And a healthy New Year!" Genius!!

I can't wait to give it to Coder's teacher! I hope she will find it as adorable as I do:) So what is everyone else giving their child's teacher for Christmas?

**I linked this project up on Make It Monday's weekly Linky Party and I encourage you to link your favorite card project too!!