Homemade with Love

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Our main tree. It is in a new spot for us this year, as we got a huge couch after Christmas last year. It is in such a visible spot this year. I love it. I had lots of help putting it up too. It takes so long to decorate that Wayne and the girls usually get bored and "find" something else to do. They stayed until the very end and kept the complaining to a minimum. There are something like 400-500 ornaments on this tree. It is insane. My favorite ornaments are the ones the girls have made. I also love that the girls put the Christmas tree lights on first thing in the morning. :)

This is our white and silver tree. It is in the dining room and really warms up the area.

This is also in our dining room. I put a live tree on the buffet, as well as a big basket of walnuts and a kraft-colored NOEL sign.

Have I mentioned how awesome my hubby is? I had this idea of wooden sleds that I wanted built. So, he made me a couple. One is rather big and this one sets perfectly as a centerpiece on the dining room table.

Here is our mantle complete with stockings, one of our two advent calendars, our Christmas reading, and a fresh wreath that smells ah-mazing.

This is our entryway and a couple of my Nicol Sayre pieces. Can you see the tip of my elbow in the mirror? This is the best picture I had. ;)

Let's go outside, shall we? Let me start out by saying that all of our decorating was done BEFORE Wayne's emergency appendectomy. I did not make him do any post-surgery decorating. With that said, I envisioned a "Christmas in the Country" theme for our outside decorations. My sweet husband just went with it, and by went with it, I mean he made me a 24-foot fence to go along with my theme and that beautiful sled on the porch. Did I mention the fence will be taken down and stored after Christmas is over? I have a friend who told me that I am *gasp* spoiled. Me spoiled? Maybe.

I bought the ice skates at an antique store a couple years back and love how they compliment the sled. I pulled stuff from the garage (like the metal basket with fake gifts and all the galvanized buckets) and the house (baskets and black table). I also like that we used found objects, like pine cones, to add to the live tree.

I know I have mentioned this before, but my guy made this chalkboard for me! He is awesome like that.

I love all the fresh greens and poinsettias all around the house.

That is the fence Wayne built. I hung fresh wreaths and he built a green box to cover the two spotlights that shine upon them at night.

I have been a bow-making maniac around here too. I filled the topiaries with pine cones we hunted for.

I LOVE how everything turned out. Inside and outside. It was loads of work, but we had fun working together. :)

Grateful

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year at my mom's house. My mom did an outstanding job cooking a yummy meal for us all to enjoy. Of course, after we ate, we planned our Black Friday shopping. Abigail joined us this year, as 12 is the magic age in our family. It was awesome to shop all together. Wayne teases me that I will get up early for only two things: Disneyland and Black Friday. He is totally right. ;)

She's ready to go! Her first Black Friday! We left just before midnight to hit Target, then Kohl's, Wal-mart, and out to eat doughnuts. We went home to sleep for a couple of hours then hit the stores again!

Here is a pic of the girls right in the middle of all the madness at Target. Oh my! It was CRAZY....but fun too!

A Happy Halloween

Although both of our beautiful girls dressed up for Halloween, Hailee decided not to trick-or-treat this year. Instead, she accompanied her sister, dad, and our friends, the Rhoades family, as they walked through the neighborhood.

This group of Giants players joined us this year. Weird thing is that I caught the bearded one kissing the long-haired man. Hmmmmm.

I probably shouldn't post this picture. I have no make-up on. Although I had no intention of dressing up to pass out candy, I am proud of how our Potato Head costumes turned out and glad that we wore them a second time.

My baby's haul. I love that smile on her face. :)

Pumpkin Carving

We had our annual Halloween pumpkin carving party the day before Halloween. We hosted family and friends for an afternoon of tricks and treats. Okay, mostly treats.

I spent A LOT of time preparing for our guests. My color scheme was orange, black, and blue. I LOVE those colors together. Wayne made me the BEST A-Frame chalkboard to greet our guests as they arrived.

We had a pumpkin taxi out front for our guests to use.

We set up a libation station outside with the tables. The swamp punch was a big hit. Can you tell I have a bit of a chalkboard obsession?

I set up the treat table inside the kitchen. I made cake pops, caramel and cheese popcorn, cupcakes, and a HUGE chocolate cake. I sewed the banners and made pom-pom wands. Wayne and I made the chalkboard cut-outs a couple of months before. Thankfully, I had the table cloth from our 4th of July celebration. That thing took so much fabric to make, I am pulling it out for EVERY holiday! ;)

Here is a picture of all of our guests. Love them all.

I am so disappointed I didn't take more pictures of the girls. I was running around like a crazy woman...I mean hostess. There is always next year. ;)

Disney's Halloween Party

In October, we visited Disneyland and went to Mickey's Halloween Party. Oh my! We had so much fun. We met our friends, the Giottas, and spent the evening with them. We trick-or-treated A LOT, went on lots of rides, and enjoyed the fun nighttime atmosphere.

The girls were Jessie and Sally. They looked adorable! Wayne and I went as Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. Things we might do differently if we are lucky enough to go again: 1). Go to the park fed! We used up about an hour of our time eating dinner. When the party is only five hours long, time is precious. 2). Make a mental list of everything we want to ride. There were virtually no lines for the rides. 3). Try something new. The people at the dance parties looked like they were having a blast. Wished we could have spent more time at one of those. 4). Pick a single character we want to have picture with. We only got in line for Jack Skellington, but I wish we would have gotten our pics with Mickey and Minnie instead. Those lines were really long. 5). Bring or buy extra strong bags for trick-or-treating, because you end up with LOADS of candy!

These are our pirate friends. Meet Tony, Dawn, and Andrew. :)

We went into the park the next day as well. We got to enjoy all the beautiful and festive Halloween decorations throughout the park. We love seeing the Haunted Mansion decked out in the Nightmare Before Christmas theme too.

Biggest disappointment? We found out that they no longer offer cookie decorating kits at Halloween or Christmas. This was one of our favorite activities to do. We could just sit for awhile and relax. We still had a wonderful time together. :)