Christmas Scrapbook Tradition!

My mom started the tradition of scrapbooking each Christmas the year she and my dad were married! And the year me and my husband were married, she got us one of those "pre-made" Christmas scrapbooks! I was so excited to start this tradition too! Each year I type up all the fun experiences, memories and events that went on that Holiday season and then fill it up with pictures! If you aren't a good scrapbooker (like me, they take way to long!) get a pre-made one like mine! Or you can always just get a plain red or green scrapbook and buy a pack of christmas paper and just stick some pictures on them. You don't have to be fancy!

(My first and only scrapbook)

 One of my favorite things to get out at Christmas is all the scrapbooks my mom has done over the years and reminisce through them :) this is something I knew I wanted to carry on, because its so much fun to look back and laugh at us as kids! 

(My moms collection)

Here are a few highlights from 20+ years ago..

(SO glad we have these!!)

(parents first Christmas tree!)

(Oldest brothers first Christmas)

(How cute is this? Oldest brother and sister-Josh & Josee)

(Here I am, 1 week old and already celebrating my first Christmas!)

(1991 Christmas Morning- Dad built this doll house, even took the time to wallpaper, carpet and instal hardwood floors to match our house!)

(Favorite toy ever!)

(Funny drawing.. Like my flying donkey and random flower?!)  ;)

(Moms decorations definitely improved over the years..)

(Every year Josh would be Santa!)

(Josh wrote this note and taped it to the kitchen bench in June. haha)

(Most laughed at note of them all! "To: Mom- From: Josh, Josee and Ashley- Raped it good and hard!- we believe he meant to say "wrapped"..)

Lets fast forward through all the awkward years and get to last year ;)

 (Family picture!)

(Finally getting the"bump")

(Christmas Morning)

Polar Express Hot Chocolate

First of all, isn't this mug about the cutest thing ever?! My mom scored these for 25 cents a piece on clearance after Christmas a few years ago. The best part, when you tip the mug to drink out of it a magical sound of a train comes from it! And then when you're finished, the bottom says "Believe"-So cute!!

Every time we have guests over I make my "Polar Express" hot chocolate and with out fail I'm asked for the recipe! Now i'm not bragging, this took me years of working in a coffee shop and years of trial and error but I think I finally perfected this recipe! I call it the Polar Express hot chocolate because when I watch that movie I think that hot chocolate looks so delicious. This to me is what that would taste like ;)

 I have a cute little hot chocolate maker at my house and on cold days like today, its on all day long!! I usually make a few cups, turn it on and it keeps the hot chocolate hot and fresh all day! If you're a fan of hot chocolate i'd suggest you invest in one of these. They're only around $30.00 and its worth every penny! Go (here) to check them out! I've seen these everywhere from grocery stores to Bed, Bath & Beyond.

This recipe makes a little over 2 cups!

1 cup water

5 heaping spoonfuls of your favorite hot chocolate mix (mine is Stephens!)

1/4 cup whipping cream (the actual cream-not whipped in a can!)

1/3 cup Ghirardelli white chocolate chips

Whip cream on top!

If you have a hot chocolate maker, put all your ingredients in and turn it on. It shuts off by itself when its finished! If you're doing this on a stove, stir on medium heat until desired temperature and enjoy!

10 Ways To prove Santa EXISTS!!

This might be my favorite post yet, because I love that people have come up with the most darling ways to prove Santa's existence!! ;)

Santa Caught In The Act!

This "Santa in my living room" picture is the winner for me! All you do is go  (Here) and upload a picture of your living room! They have TONS of Santa's to choose from and you pick your favorite and stick him in front of your tree! How cool is this?!

(My mom wishes they had this back when we were kids!)

Mail Your Wish List To The North pole!

Did you know you can actually send your children's letters to the Jolly man himself?! The best part is he writes back! And it is postmarked from the North pole ;)

Simply mail your letters to:

Santa, North pole, Alaska

North pole christmas cancellation

postmaster

5400 Mail Trail

Fairbanks AK 99709-9998

Track Santa

Every year you can go online and track Santa's journey across the world on Christmas Eve!

It starts as soon as Santa and his crew take off from the North pole!

Check (here) starting December 1st- Thats when the countdown begins!

personal video message from santa

probably the COOLEST thing so far! Santa has a personal message for your little ones and he even says their names and tells them how good they've been. He shows how he has pictures of them and knows where they live by looking in a telescope and shows a picture of their house! Go to this website (HERE) and click on the little video example they have there. Santa shows you step by step how to upload pictures to make it personal to you! 

Go (HERE) to watch one I made for one of my twinners Simon!

Leave A Thank You Note

On Christmas morning leave a thank you note where those delicious cookies once were! Be sure to write it on never before seen stationary and disguise your handwriting because kids are getting smart these days! ;) 

Hide The Wrapping paper

Make sure the wrapping paper you use for Santa's gifts has never been seen by your children's eyes! It's from the North pole, silly! Or perhaps its tucked under a bed or inside a storage box! ;)

Hide The Santa Gifts

I don't know about you, but when I was a little girl I would search the house when my parents would leave for my presents! And lets just say finding one of my presents early and then getting it from "Santa" on Christmas morning was not the greatest surprise! (Thats the year I unfortunately stopped believing and Christmas Magic was lost forever!) Ha! Just kidding, but don't let your bad hiding techniques be the reason Santa isn't real! My parents began hiding presents at Grandmas house to keep this from happening again!

Elf On The Shelf

This is the most darling book and tradition and I can't wait for my little boys to be a little bit older to start this! On the first of December you read the book to your kids. It will explain that their holiday visitor returns to the north pole nightly to tell Santa if they've been naughty or nice. Each night you put the Elf in a new spot and every morning the kiddos have to find him! Go (here)  to get lots of cute ideas of where to pose your elf!

Leave Evidence Of Santa's Visit

Make sure to have Santa leave a little bit of evidence behind to prove he was at your house! Footprints in the snow, a few crumbs on the cookie plate, or heaven forbid he left a mitton! ;) Anything to keep kids entertained!

Emails

Send emails to your kids from the big man himself through out the year to keep them on the nice list! Maybe in one of the emails, ask them if it wouldn't be too much- to bake his favorite cookies on Christmas eve for his arrival (Maybe by coincidence those are mamas favorite to?) ;) 

In the Thank you note, thank the kids for remembering his favorite cookies! 

To get some darling "Santa" gift tags, go (here)  for free printables!

Grinch Cookies! (Mint Chocolate Chip)

mMmM could these possibly be the yummiest chocolate chip cookies EVER?! i'm sure just by looking at them you're agreeing with me. But wait until you try them!!

INGREDIENTS:

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

6 to 8 drops green food color

1 egg

1 package Andes Mints

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, extract, food color and egg until soft dough forms. Stir in chopped Andes Mints and chocolate chips.

2. Using small cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool for about 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack

Christmas Tree Tutorial

Some may think i'm a little bit nuts that my Christmas tree is already up but if I had it my way, I would never take it down! I LOVE the way festive Christmas tree's and decorations make you feel. Tree's are definitely my specialty. I decorate around 15+ every year for different family members and friends and I've been doing this for many years! I hope these pictures can help you get a visual of the steps I decorate my tree in but I may be doing a video tutorial on one of the other trees I will be doing!

Step 1:

If you don't have a tree already, decide on what kind you want. We had to go with a really skinny tree this year because our area is so tiny, our other one would have never fit in this corner! This one was bought this year at Walmart for $68! if anyone else is interested in this one, it was the letter D tree! We also have a flocked tree that I love but it wouldn't look good with the type of ornaments I have. I decorate my flocked one with fun bright purple/ pink/ orange colors. Just something to think about. 

The first step is string your lights! Don't be skimpy when it comes to getting lights for your tree! A full size 7 ft. tree I usually put on around 800 lights. This one is 6.5 ft. and is about half the size in width as my other one so I used 300. (If your using lights from previous years, be sure to check if they work!! I've been the unlucky person who had decorated her entire tree to find out my dang lights weren't  working. Long story short I had to redo the entire thing.)

Step 2:

If you're buying ornaments for the first time, decide on a color scheme. When I decided mine, it was because I scored some huge ornaments at a garage sale all for only $2! So I went with the traditional red/green/gold. Once you've got your color scheme, match your ornaments to your ribbon or mesh.

Start by decorating your tree by sticking one piece of mesh or ribbon at the top center of the tree and going straight down with it, bunching it deep into the tree every few branches so it stays in place. If you have a few colors of ribbon or mesh you'll be working with, be sure to distribute them evenly on the tree. Also, do them at different levels and heights to add some dimension. Cut all your pieces at different lengths so you'll have some variety.

 Step 3:

Once the ribbon is on, you'll start putting on your ornaments. If you have a variety of colors, try not to place the same colors too close together. If you have a few different styles, use the same technique and don't put them too close together. If you have anything big (like my ball ornaments) I try to distribute them evenly on the tree. I never put two that are next to each other at the same level either. The easiest way to explain what I do for this part is I use a zig zag technique.

 Once my bigger ornaments are on, I then start putting on my smaller ones. A little trick of mine is I don't actually hang them on the tree, I just shove them in. My big ornament balls are hung by branches but everything else on my entire tree is literally just shoved in between branches.

Step 4:

The last thing I do with my tree is fill it in with my sparkly twirly sticks and my little gift boxes. I had some pretty large gaps still so I got some plain little gift boxes, wrapped them and put cute ribbon on them. This really added to my tree  and was much cheaper then buying large ornaments. Once the entire tree looks full, I stuck my topper on! I got these at Michaels a few years ago but i'm sure you could find something similar at any craft store. I have 2 red, 2 green and 2 gold sticks with little balls on them and I stuck them in the top at different levels and then pulled them apart to add some width.

This next part doesn't have to do with decorating the tree but i'm sure every mom out there can relate. Curious little babies that think the Christmas tree is a toy put out for them to play with! The second my tree was up my little twins crawled right over to it and pulled everything off they could reach. Surly there had to be a way around this, and me and my husband came up with something great!

This little wooden box for the tree to sit in! My husband built it and then stuck a little stool in there to prop it up to make it stand off the ground a little bit. This solved our problem!! They couldn't reach the bottom branches if they wanted to! If you don't have a carpenter husband and aren't good with things like this, I would suggest getting some type of decorative stool to set your tree on! I've also had a lot of friends tell me they put a gate around it to block it. Hope this can give any moms out there some ideas!

Here's my finished living room! 

I will be posting tons and tons of decorating tutorials/ Christmas baking ideas/ party ideas and more so keep your eye out! ;)

Day 15: Halloween Decorations!

 Decorating my home is my favorite part of any holiday and gets me feeling festive! I'm the first to admit I do it a little early (Usually mid September) but I love that fall feeling and want to be around it as long as possible! 

I'm not giving any instruction on how to decorate because that depends on your personal style, but I have learned a few tricks when it comes to filling in that "awkward" spot and that is using garland! 

Most people think its only ok to use garland at Christmas time, but I use it for just about every holiday! 

Go get some green garland, wrap some orange lights and fall leaf garland around it and that alone will give you some beautiful fall decor!

Here's some examples of where I used garland

(I love having a table setting during the holidays and I always have this up!)

As you can see, basically every space had garland!

For the past 10 years I've decorated my parents house for every holiday, and since I have such a small amount of space to decorate I thought I'd show you some of the decorations I do at their house!

My favorite little trees! Remember, you can always dress up tree's for holidays besides Christmas to!

Dining room table setting

Little nook area!

My favorite part of the house! I LOVE this brick fireplace! And Halloween decorations are my favorite on it! I love the "Pumpkins" sign you can hardly see because it blends in so well with the brick. This little area just makes me feel so Halloweeny!

So! If you've decorated already but you still think somethings missing.. Fill it in with some garland! Orange lights also make a huge difference with decorating. I'll never go without!

Tree's make a great addition and you can see where I've used them through out the house to fill in areas! Even in my house, I've used mini tree's and stuck leaves and pumpkins in! Hope this helps!!

Day 14: Ghost On Fire Cake!

This cake has also been a tradition with our annual Halloween family night and we do it every single year! Kids look so amazed when they see it (including my babies!) But even if there are no kids in the picture, this is still a fun cake to bring to any Halloween event you might be going to this month!

ITEMS USED:

Cake mix

Chocolate frosting

Vanilla Frosting

Two egg shells

Sugar cubes

Lemon extract

STEP 1:

Frost your cake and design your own little friendly ghost.

Crack open an egg and carefully split it in two. (sometimes this takes a few tries!)

STEP 2:

Soak two sugar cubes in lemon extract and set one in each shell

STEP 3:

Light those suckers on fire!

(Be careful when removing the egg shells- they get hot FAST!)