Haiti

While looking around the web I came across this great T shirt from Doubletake Clothing. According to their website, all net proceeds go to your choice of one of the following: UNICEF; Doctors Without Borders and CSI Ministries. According to their website, as of 1/24/2010 over $7000.00 has been raised. For more information or to order one, please click here.

image via Doubletake Clothing.

Some other donation suggestions:

Red Cross

United Way

Hope for Haiti Now

Hope for Haiti Now Album

Ralph Lauren is donating 100% of proceeds when you purchase the Haiti Relief Polo Shirt. 

(Click here for more details about the donation and how to purchase.)

MTV has a 20 Things You Can Buy To Help Haiti

Chaos vs. Keeping Calm

Would love to get one of these for the kid's bedroom (since it is also their playroom) and this is the general theme in our household...

To purchase one (they are available in many colors), visit Peta Mazey's blog.

Then, I would absolutely have to get this for my home office (otherwise known as the dining room)...

From now until Feb14, 2010 a $5 donation from every sale will be made to the Red Cross Haitian Relief Fund - see here for details.

Making Photos Look Better

Today was one of those days - the kind that just follows their own course entirely without any regard to what one was hoping to accomplish or the items on one's never ending To Do List.  It started when the Bubs went down for a nap and I had a few free moments to myself.  Instead of sticking to the schedule I had planned the night before, I decided to 'quickly' hop onto Google to find a few ideas for Valentine's Day.  And just as the internet has a habit of doing to a person, before I knew it, one thing led to another, and I didn't get to anything related to Valentine's Day at all.  Rather, I found myself in a hundred different places and ended up reading a very helpful post that contained some great tips on how to make photographs look better. 

It must be noted that one of my guilty pleasures is reading Photography Blogs.  The common theme with the particular blogs I read is that the photographers are all, for the most part, mothers, who have chosen photography as a career path.  I am in awe of the photography they produce and wish that my photographs would come out looking anywhere in the vaguest region of that good.  I realize that photography is a career for them, and that they have mastered the fine art of it, but oh, how I wish I could make my photographs come even just a little bit close to the superbness that they are creating. 

But, alas, I just do not have any particular interest in learning photography.  I just want the seemingly countless photographs that I take of the children to look great.  At least some of them.  I know that is like saying: "I want my meals to look and taste like Julia Child's, but I don't want to follow a recipe."  My husband has tried to show me how to shoot on manuel and adjust the ISO and some other things, the names of which I can never remember, but I admit that I am just a lost cause.  And so whenever I pick up the camera I just flip the switch to Program Mode and hope for the best. 

So I was excited when I came across this post on the "new to me" blog - Beyond Snapshots.  While I understand that you have to start with a technically correct and basically good photograph in order to get to an even better photograph in post production, and that it is pretty impossible to transform a bad photograph into anything other than possibly a minimally less bad photograph - I decided to snap a quick pic of my Bub and go through the steps listed in the post to see if I could at least add the slightest of improvements.

Although it is far from anything I see on my favorite photo blogs, I was happy with the results and I think it is as much as I can hope for unless I step it up a notch and actually listen to my husband's words of wisdom. 

Hopefully this will help out some other moms out there that like to snap a hundred photos of their kids every second and are hoping to be able to tweak some of their fav's before printing and framing. 

As a side note:  it must be noted that my computer is quite old (as is my version of photoshop) - so this might actually look quite terrible on anyone else's computer screen (!) but I hope it provides you with the same inspiration I got from reading the post over at Beyond Snapshots and that you have fun playing around with different settings until you find something you are happy with!

Whenever I whip out the camera, Bubs always goes into super ham mode and pulls the funniest of faces - usually he scrunched up his nose, squeezes his eyes shut and lifts up his chin!  Here I caught him in the middle of doing all three...

So my day turned out to be just perfect, even if I didn't accomplish anything I was hoping to, and learning some new things is always a good thing.  My next step might even be ACTIONS!

Mini Snowmen on a Snowy Saturday

This morning we awoke to fresh snow on the ground and the kids were very eager to get outside and play. They wanted to take their little red sleds to play with in the snow and before long I found myself outside helping them to make tiny little snowmen to ride on the sleds...

After they had been outside for quite some time (it's amazing how long they can stay out in the cold...) they came back inside requesting hot cocoa...and we ended up making some skiing mini marshmallow snowmen.

It's at times like these, when you find yourself unexpectantly celebrating the small things in life, like a fresh dusting of snow on the ground with the ones you love, and you feel your heart burst open with joy and gratitude for everything around you, that you find yourself knee deep in the heart of life. Recognizing that joyfulness is a gift that sometimes comes from being fully immersed in the moment...a gift that allows you to forget all about your silly frustrations about how you can "never get anything done" and instead of viewing certain things as distractions, you realize that, if you allow them to be happy moments, they are really the marrow of life. And when you look back, these moments will all string together to become the great garland of what you remember, for you certainly won't be remembering what it was you were distracted from...

Mini Champagne Bistro Chair

I am loving miniature things right now, and so I loved this post from Design Sponge about how to make a mini champagne bistro chair.  Wish I had seen it right after New Year's Eve, but heres hoping that there are many more opportunities to crack open a bottle of bubbly in the new year. Click here for the tutorial.

Organizing...

There is something about the start of a brand new year that inspires a grand sense of organization.  At least that has been the case with me this year.  Last year I started the new year completely inspired by some wonderful food blogs and I went roaring into the month of January and even well into March (if I remember correctly) menu planning and experimenting with all kinds of tasty dishes.  Lets just say that my husband was a very happy man.  However, by the end of March I was pretty much over it - I am just not a "foodie" kind of person and cooking, rather than being something anywhere close to a "passion" is very much just another item on my To Do list.   When people describe it as being relaxing, I drop my jaw with the sheer weight of incredibility.  I feel like I spend the entire day trying to do at least five things at the same time and most of the time I feel like I am just running around like a chicken with my head cut off, so to spend an hour in the kitchen, with the simultaneous chopping and slicing and sauteing and boiling and frying is the most stressful thing to me. 

So I resorted back to my handful or so of trusty favorite recipes, and every once in a while added a few new ones to the rotation.  One of the wonderful things about the really good food blogs, the ones where the blogger has so much passion for cooking, you get excited just reading and looking at the photographs and you want to run out and buy the ingredients to make something that you would never have made before.  Thats inspiration.  And although I will never share their pure passion and love for food, my life will be better for having shared in theirs through their blogs and through the recipes I try myself. 

So that said, the food inspiration simmered down to a try something new a few times a month kind of deal.  This year I have felt the great desire to honor the new year with a clear desk, a clean, clutter free house and a clear mind.  While I can't say I have achieved the latter (although I suppose that is another item to add to my list of resolutions....the ever present wishing for a mind that is clear, sharp and focused.)  I feel pretty good with the external organizational aspects of my life so far this year. 

With a lot of team effort, the house has stayed toy-clutter free.  When the children have finished playing with their toys, they have been putting them away without being asked and have been such a help in picking up after themselves.  I must say that when the house gets over run with toys, it is because I am not being an effective organizer and task master.  I just let things slide into a state of chaos and then get upset that the house is in such a state.  The kids are generally always eager to help, and so I need to make sure that I keep reminding them.

So we started the new year with each room in the house looking neat and tidy and organized, but my goal this year is to try and come up with a plan to make the most out of each room, in terms of storage solutions and utilizing the space in the most efficient manner. Living in a small space demands a lot of functionability out of each area, and I feel like our rooms are not as space efficient as they could be. 


The boy's room is on the top of the list, since they all share a room and space (or lack thereof) is a huge issue. We don't have a playroom, so all their toys are kept in their room. My husband's solution for the Toy Dilemma is to just get rid of half their toys. However, I don't think that they have a lot of toys, it's more an issue of there being too little space to put the ones that they have. 

Dreaming of Paris

I am just not in the mood to do much of anything today, least of all start that Christmas Album (!) although this morning I did manage to cross off a large number of items off my To Do List....
Now that lunch has been served (the children like to ask for a meal by asking when I will be serving it)...I happened across this lovely Paris Loft at Cookie Mag and I am dreaming of Paris...I wish I could spend the afternoon here...

this master bedroom looks a little like ours...I think I might try to copy the heart shape polaroid ideas above the bed - perfect in time for Valentine's Day...

i also heart the hot air balloon in the child's bedroom...

Tiny Things

Right now I have a huge To Do List that I am avoiding.  One of the items on the list is the task of making a December Daily Christmas Album.  Last year I was inspired by Ali Edwards and her annual December Daily Project and really wanted to make an album of my own, since we do so much fun Christmas related stuff in December, but I never did get around to doing it.  So this past December, I resolved that I would do it for sure this year, but now it is almost mid January and it is still just an item on my To Do List. 

I know the point of it is to try and complete a page a day in December, but I knew that I would never accomplish this before Christmas, so I gave myself some leeway and felt for sure that I would begin the project right after the mayhem of Christmas had subsided.  Uh-huh.  I imagine it is one of those projects that you just have to start, and then the creativity will flow from there...and I imagine that having some kind of album would probably be a very good starting point.  I'm sure if I just read the "instructions" on her blog, all this would be layed out very clearly...  but when I popped over there a short while ago to find out about the Album details, I got sidetracked by a great post about what she does with all the photo Christmas cards she receives from family and friends.  She cuts them into squares (using a square punch) and makes a scrapbook page out of them all.  Very clever, although I don't know if I could be as fearless as she is, when faced with having to choose which part of the card makes it into the perameters of the square punch.  I might try it, but I will only allow myself to do so after I have completed my Christmas Album.  The Album which is now causing me guilt and anxiety and dread, and is forcing me to look around the web for Valentine's Day ideas, in an effort to rid  my mind of anything at all Christmas related...

And so I was delighted when I came across The World's Smallest Postal Service from Leafcutter Designs. How tiny and adorable are these little letters?  They would make for some very cute Valentine's Day notes...

Happy New Year Mini Banner

While i am still procrastinating like crazy over sitting down to actually think about my resolutions and goals and plans for the year, someone else has been diligently working on his....

I just love how he dragged a chair over to the wall, then found his brother's booster seat and placed it on the chair and then climbed up, found a pen, and started to "write." 

And while he was busy working on his project, I decided to make a Happy New Year mini flag banner for my computer - because that is what you do when you are avoiding a 356 item To Do List.  (Inspiration via Paper Source)

Resolutions and a whole lot of rambling

Happy New Year!
2010 has a great ring to it, and since it wouldn’t take a lot to beat 2009, let’s hope the year is a good one for everyone. We had a lovely evening at home saying goodbye to ‘09 and welcoming the New Year. Big P came home with some party hats and noise makers, so all I ended up having to make was the 2010 eye glasses, which the kids decorated. They also filled in a 2009 Favorite Things Worksheet – which basically consisted of a blank piece of printer paper, with a spot to write their name and the year on top, and then I wrote out a list of their Favorites Things of the Year, such as friends, sports, games, video games, colors, animals, candy, food etc. and they filled them in. They actually quite enjoyed thinking about all their "favorites" and so we shall do this every year, and re-read the lists every New Year’s Eve.

Last New Year’s Eve, we had family in town and after dinner we discussed each person’s Funniest, Happiest, Worst, Best etc. Moments of The Year. I had taken down notes, so we could look at the list again the following New Year’s Eve (which would be this one…) but I could not find where I had put them. Surely with the Christmas stuff, but apparently not…. I do this all the time, so it’s not surprising to anyone…and of course I will find the list sometime in January…

Anyhoo, on that note, the year is off to a good, but disorganized start. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and really think about my goals and hopes for the year, but there are some very obvious Resolutions, such as Get Organized, that seem to have a permanent place on the top of any list of Resolutions I will ever make for myself. Specifically, Household Organization.  My husband and I like things neat, tidy and organized, however, to walk into our house, you would never imagine that we are actually like this.  Unless, of course, you let us know ahead of time that you will be coming over, then I will go into a frenzy, picking up, tidying up, neatening and straightening and not allowing the children to touch Anything In The House.  Not Even Their Toys - Especially Not Their Toys.  After all, that is the cause of most of the chaos to begin with....
But since most of my friends are always popping in uninvited unexpectantly, they know to expect a well lived in house...

I find it is next to impossible to keep an organized house living in a small space, but I know that I am full of excuses and that it can be done…with a lot of consistency and effort. But for someone who is not a big fan of domesticity, it is a bit of a challenge. I love my family and family life, I am just Not A Fan of the constant cleaning and tidying up and laundry and cooking and general menial household work. I know some Mother’s live for that stuff, or maybe some Mother’s just do it gladly without complaining, but I am a bit of a dud in that area. I mean, I do it, I just do not enjoy doing it.

I wouldn’t mind so much if it was every now and then, but it seems like every second of the day there is something to pick up, something to put away, dishes to wash, laundry that piles up, floors needing to be swept or mopped... It makes me wonder if living in a small house is a good or bad thing. Good, because there is less of it to keep tidy and organized or Bad, because within 5 seconds of the kids walking through the door, every single square foot of space in the house is covered in an explosion of hats, gloves, boots, toys, art work and everything else under the sun.

I know I should not complain – I should be more American and resolve to become super proactive about my shortcomings, but I blame the British in me…the truth is that I do like a good bitch and a moan. Did Lily Allen sing that? (Must get one of her CD’s this year…) But in all seriousness, I need to shift my focus away from the drudgery and focus more on the bright side and be thankful for every single thing I have.

And I do try – I do stuff like put up little signs, like the one that used to be above my kitchen sink that says:

“Thank God for dirty dishes, they have a tale to tell.
While others are going hungry, we are eating very well.
With health and home and happiness, I shouldn’t want to fuss.
For by this stack of evidence, God’s been very good to us.”

Author Unknown

I know, I am such a nerd, but that leads me directly to New Year’s Resolution Numbah 2, which is...Shifting My Perceptions. To shift my focus away from disliking the menial stuff to being thankful that I have a house to clean; a husband and kids to pick up after, clothes to wash; food to cook and dishes to wash. Not to mention a dishwasher and clothes washer and dryer to help.
And, in the words of Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance), I must strive to “find the sacred in the ordinary.”

I will sign off with a quote from A Course in Miracles:

“A Miracle is a shift in perception.”

May 2010 be a year filled with Love, Gratitude and Miracles…

Happy New Year!

There are always others who will say it better, so in the words of Martin Luther:

"Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given;
While angels sing with tender mirth,
A glad new year to all the earth."

and Edith Lovejoy Pierce:

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called "Opportunity" and its first chapter is New Year's Day."

Goodbye 2009

Goodbye 2009. It was a good one – filled with growing children, a good life in a beautiful spot in the world, a loving family, wonderful friends, fun times, laughter, and dreams that will have to wait another year to be fulfilled…

On New Year's Eve in an alternate reality, the kids would be home with a sitter and Big P and I would be partying up a storm at some glam party - and I would look like this...

But in reality, I will probably be wearing jeans and will ring in the New Year at home with the family on NYC time – we have decided to skip the parties and hang with the kids. We are starting a new tradition by surprising them with a very early dinner at a local pizza restaurant (Big Treat since I think McDonald’s was the only place they got to eat at this year!) Then we shall head home and they have some friends coming over for a sleepover.  I have some New Year's Eve arts and crafty things lined up and the night will probably include some sort of Wii marathon. We will try to watch the ball drop in NYC on the computer (if that’s possible) since we don’t have TV. I bought some non-alcoholic sparkling apple juice for the kids so they can say a toast to the New Year with us.

Hopefully BigP and I will get some alone time after they’re all asleep and play a little bowling ourselves– and hopefully I will retain my title as the 2009 Bowling Champ of the family.

May 2009 be filled with love and peace – in our hearts and in the world…

And in the words of ‘someone’ via BHG:

“May all your troubles during the year be as short as your New Year's Resolutions."

New Year's Family Fun

In true last minute style, I am quickly looking around the web for some fun ideas to do with the kids tonight...
So far this is it:

1.  Fortune Bubbles - BHG

2.  2010 Glasses - Family Fun

3.  Water Bottle Noise Maker - Kaboose

4.  Mini Silver Disco Balls - Social Couture

5.  Happy New Year Garland - Kaboose

The How-To's can be found by clicking on the links.  And it's too late for the Mini Silver Disco Balls - but how much fun would they be???  Mental Note for next year!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

...but a little thing like below zero temps isn't stopping the kids from playing up a storm outside.  (At least it feels like below 0 temps - our temperature gauge is broken ...and there's no fresh snow - it's just frightfully cold.) 
Inside, however, its warm and cozy and after whipping up a batch of Peppermint Bark...

image via Williams-Sonoma

...the boys read books on the couch while I got started on our Christmas Card Thank You list.  The boy's did their Thank You cards yesterday, so they are one step ahead of me...

I guess I am not feeling so "last minute" today...

Living in Small Spaces

We life in a home that is the size of a shoebox.  Well, not really, but it certainly feels that way - with all five of us crammed inside like sardines and no room to swing a cat.  So I love it when I stumble across websites featuring how others manage to get by living in small spaces. 

The other day I came across the Finger Residence at Dwell.  The apartment is in NYC and the boy's bedroom is quite a feat - his desk during the day swings around to transform into his bed at night.  Every space is utilized, including storage under the floor boards! 

Pics courtesy of Dwell and No Roof.

A Tale of a Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas – it was very quiet and relaxing and we didn’t leave the house at all. And after the total craziness of the month and all the activities and parties, we were absolutely fine with that. The day got off to an early start with the kids waking us up at 6.30 am, which was quite a bonus considering that I had given JJ my alarm clock with strict instructions that they were not allowed to wake us up until 6.00 am. I was hoping that they would sleep in a little since we had gone to a Christmas Eve party the night before and had arrived home around 10.30 pm. By the time the kids were in bed, it was after 11.00 pm and so the thought of them waking up at 5.00 am and being tired and cranky all day was not very appealing.

So our Christmas day began at 6.30 am with two very excited little boys chomping at the bit to start opening the presents that Santa had left for them. Bubs was quite oblivious to the whole thing, but once he got into the swing of ripping open presents, he got quite excited, too. After all the present un-wrapping, while the boys were completely immersed in playing with their new toys, Big P and I made a big Fry Up for breakfast. We fried up diced apples and sliced bananas, a mini Christmas Pudding given to us by my parents after a trip to Ireland in the late Fall, eggs, bacon and toast. The boys drank OJ while the adults got to sip on Mimosa’s.

After the huge feast, I decided to take a nap as my Christmas present to myself. I never ever nap during the day, and so it was quite the treat to sneak off and catch a few z’s while the boys began a Wii marathon which lasted until I woke up four hours later! I thought for sure that I would only sleep for an hour or so tops, but it ended up working out well...I spend so much time with the kids and Big P works such long hours that it was a great Christmas treat for him to spend the entire day just hanging with the kids and doing whatever they wanted to.

So we ended up spending the entire day just chilling at the homestead, which was perfect. With the kids in school full time, they are always so happy when they get the chance to just stay home and play with their toys. We had vaguely planned to take the kids either sledding or ice skating or even a little day trip to a ski area, but the day played itself out in its own perfect way.

We ate a very early dinner – Australian style – thanks to Big P. Every year, friends of ours who live in Australia, send us a different Australian Christmas book along with a few gifts. So this year, as Big P was reading one of the Australian books to the kids one evening, he decided that this was the year that we would celebrate Christmas Australian Style! Since we didn’t have any family fly in for the holidays, and we had celebrated Thanksgiving with my parents with a huge Turkey dinner, we thought that the more informal Aussie style dinner would be perfect. Initially we had planned to sit outside around our outdoor fire pit and pretend the knee deep snow covering our yard was actually the Pacific Ocean…but the temps were so cold – below 0F – that we nixed that idea pretty quickly. So we stayed indoors, cranked up the heat and pretended to be in Australia while we ate a tasty meal of BBQed ribs, mashed potato and a big salad. ( I substituted the ribs for veggie bacon). It was delicious and the boys almost polished off the entire rack of ribs!

Then it was off to bed for the boys since an early night was very much in order. I think they were fast asleep by 7.00 pm...woop-woop! Then Big P and I had a date night, bowling. Well, it was in our house, playing Wii, but it was still really fun just to have the evening to ourselves and have some good laughs.

So all in all it was a fabulous Christmas. We are so blessed to have a loving family, a roof over our heads, presents under the tree and so many wonderful and caring friends. Although the month of December sped by like the speed of light, I tried to savor the moments, and to fill my heart with love and gratitude – not always successfully, but I at least felt like I was on the right track.

We managed to squeeze a lot of fun activities into the month:

• The chocolate Advent Calendars and the unwrapping of a different Christmas story each evening were a huge success.
• The Elf on the Shelf was the source of much excitement each morning as the kids rushed downstairs to see where the little Elf had decided to perch. (Even if it caused much anxiety for the parents to try and remember to move the bladdy thing each night…)
• Anyway, keeping with the spirit of Christmas…we also squeezed in three visits to Santa,
• we drove around looking at Christmas decorations in the evenings;
• and we decorated sugar cookies (well, technically we started to decorate cookies until the Mother realized that we were out of red food coloring – which was essential for the present shaped cookies, the santa shaped cookies, the candy cane cookies and the stocking cookies…) and we ran out of time, so maybe we shall bake some more cookies and decorate them before the New Year.
• The Family Secret Santa went off well – and will definitely become a new family tradition from now on. On Christmas morning, we each revealed who we were Secret Santa for (although everyone had figured it out…) and each person announced all the good deeds they had done for that person during the month. It was mainly a way to be mindful of the true Spirit of the Season – for the kids to get their minds off their Christmas Lists and be conscious of being kind and giving and loving to those around them. I must admit, I had to remind one particular child to try really hard to be a good Secret Santa on numerous occasions throughout the month…but it was always a good opportunity to reiterate the ‘reason for the season.’
• We also went to various holiday parties and I hosted an impromptu Ornament Exchange Party at the house one evening, which was a lot of fun. On Christmas Eve, we went to a delightful party, with lots of caroling by the piano and delicious food and wine. Towards the end of the evening, we did a Gift Exchange which is always a good laugh, especially when one of your children is brutally honest with the gift he picked and then proceeds to critique all the other gifts that were opened from a standpoint of whether they would be totally awesome for a young boy or not…good times!

Now there is that seeming lull between Christmas and the excitement of New Year’s Eve. A time to recuperate and relax and reflect on another year that’s passed, before another year begins in earnest…

Christmas Place Cards

A few years ago I made some Christmas Place Cards for the dinner table and we have used them ever since. Next year, I think I will change up shop and update my design...

Below are some fun ones:

1.  Ceramic Ornament Place Card Holder - Beau-Coup

2.  Twig Reindeer Place Card Holder - Pottery Barn

3.  Glass Rim Place Holder - Family Fun - these are for your drinks!!

4.  Tree Place Card Holder - Martha Stewart

5.  Snowglobe Place Card Holders - Crate & Barrel

Christmas Gift Tags

I have never really bothered much with Christmas gift tags - I usually buy them on sale after Christmas in big sheets for a couple of dollars.  But after reading a post about gift tags at Elle's Studio, about how each year, she decides on a gift tag theme and how each year her family and friends look forward to seeing what she has come up with, and what will be adorning their presents...I thought that was fun and I was inspired!  Not for this year, mind you...it's just before mid-night on December 23rd - but next year I might just have to get my ducks in a row and hand make my gift tags...

Here are some fun and inspiring Christmas Tags...

1.  Polar Bear Tag - Amuse News

2.  Snowball Fight Gift Tags - Crate & Barrel

3.  Joy Tag - I have no idea where I found this - but it is so completely adorable -

hopefully I will find the source and add it later.

4.  Christmas Mitten Tags - Elle's Studio

5.  Vintage Gift Tags - Paper Source

6.  Snowman Gift Tag - Kate's Papiere

7.  Save the Date Gift Tag - Better Homes & Gardens

8.  Santa Gift Tag - Kate's Papiere

9.  Reindeer Postcard Christmas Tag - Seasonal Delights (Etsy)

10.  Christmas Holiday Gift Tags - Just Smitten (via LMNOP)

11.  Photo Tag - I have no idea where I came across this one, also. 

But it is is such a cute idea - I will try to add the Source later.

12.  Paper Stocking Gift Envelope - Martha Stewart

13.  Holiday Jumbo Tag - Eat Drink Chic

14.  Frosty Gift Tag - Better Homes & Gardens

15.  Lump of Coal Gift Box - Martha Stewart  (I love the tiny stocking gift tags - totally cute. 

And also, I would certainly not mind a lump of coal this year if it contained a pair of jumbo diamond studs ;)

Christmas Ornaments

With Christmas only 3 days away, I seem to have run out of time for arts and crafts...but here are some that caught my eye...

* Oops - I forgot to add the links...*

1.  Clothes Pin Doll Ornaments  - Martha Stewart

2.  Christmas Paper Doves Kit - Paper Source

3.  Picture Frame Ornaments - Martha Stewart

4.  Holiday Card Ornaments - Martha Stewart

5.  Click and Print Ornaments - Martha Stewart

6.  Tinsel Snowflakes - Martha Stewart

7.  Cookie Cutter Ornaments - Martha Stewart

8.  Paper Ornaments - Elles Studio

I loved this idea for Baby's 1st year. 

1. Christmas Keepsake Ornament from Better Home & Gardens

2. Time Capsule Ornament from Family Fun

Next year I will definitely make this really cute Family Photo Wreath from parents.com, especially since our family is spread out across the country and the world.

This afternoon I made a big batch of sugar cookie dough and tomorrow will see us baking and icing up a storm.  I wish I had these books for inspiration...maybe next year...

Kids in the Holiday Kitchen by Crate and Barrel

and

Cookie Craft Christmas available at amazon.com

Christmas Crafts Fun Stuff

One of the things on our Family Advent Calendar this year was Family Movie Night.  The boys were very excited about it, probably because as a *very special treat*, we made Coke Floats for the occasion. So we had an early dinner, and then, with Coke Floats in hand, we all watched the Polar Express.

I came across these really cute printable trains from Family Fun a week or so ago and so printed out two copies for the boys.  Since they are still a bit young to assemble the trains themselves, I glued them together and gave them to the boys the next morning.  They were thrilled with them, and I got a good hour and a half worth of train play out of them until the Bubs woke up from his nap and started sabotaging the trains attempts to pick up children to take to the North Pole...

Here are some more fun crafts and printables to keep the kids busy (or to do yourself):

1. Buildable Bird from Family Fun

2. Jolly Elves from parents.com

3. Snowball Soap Surprise from Family Fun

4. Glittered Santa Treat Boxes from Martha Stewart

5. Felt Tree Bottle Covers from Martha Stewart

6. Jellybean Christmas Tree from Family Fun

7. Dipped Candy Sticks from Martha Stewart

8. Sparkling Snowman Treat Boxes from Martha Stewart

9. Christmas Papercrafts from Mibo Studio