spreading the joy of goodies!

Each season, I enjoy blessing our neighbors with a little treat. It gives me a chance to do a little baking and also to feed my gift giving joy. This year I decided to make some peppermint bark (easy, but so delicious!) I also added my own little touch by decorating a glass jar to put them in. I decided to go simple and put a holiday saying (sticker) on the jar with a little extra touch of Christmas ribbon on the top. I used this idea for a MOPS craft back in October. These cute little jars are the best and are only $1.99 at IKEA. What a deal! Half the fun of giving these goodies is enjoying the wrapping process. We only have 4 neighbors that we are close with, so that means I go a little more extravagant since I don't have to create too many.

Here are some other past neighbor gifts:
Happy Fall pumpkin chocolate chip bread (from last year)
Happy Halloween pumpkin shaped sugar cookies (this year)

12 Days of Christmas rescheduled for next year

Well, my grandiose plan of having "12 Days of Christmas" activities for each day starting on the 14th until Christmas has yet to work out. Would you like to know what I am blaming? The snow! As much as I love the beauty of this white stuff and that it reminds me of when I was teaching and hearing those much loved words "snow day", I'm over it. We don't see it often here in the Pacific NW, and normally it doesn't stick around long, but it has these past few days. I guess I shouldn't blame it entirely on the snow. I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things since returning from a week long getaway with the hubby, and I'm a little less motivated than I thought I would be.

We returned from vacation on the 13th and I was going to schedule some fun activities for the rest of the days until Christmas Day (which just so happened to be 12 days, which of course is how I got the unique name 12 Days of Christmas). My plan was to write each of these activities on a slip of paper and then put them in cute little boxes that I was going to make. Then Mikayla could open one each day and see the surprise for the day. Most of the activities I was planning on doing were going to be simple and cheap, not complicated and expensive.

Just for the fun of it, here are some of the planned activities for my 12 Days of Christmas. I still plan on doing some of them, but not in the same format as originally planned. As much as I don't want to admit it, it might work better for next year anyway since the kids will be a little bit older and they both will be able to enjoy the daily surprise! This year Austin is not quite at the age of fully experiencing the fun.

12 Days of Christmas Activities

Christmas tree (hasn't happened yet, and we're only 1 week from Christmas!)
visit Santa
Zoo Lights or drive around to look at lights (with hot cocoa a.k.a. "warm chocolate milk")
build a gingerbread house
make a Christmas craft
cookie decorating with friends
open a new Christmas book
special date with my friend Ambria and her daughter Ellie as our gift to each other
make a Christmas craft
special Christmas movie with popcorn
open a special present (from Grammy & Papa--pajamas!)
Christmas Day fun!

I suppose since the kids will be older next year, I can come up with some more fun things, and who knows maybe next year I'll be even more ambitious and try to do something every day for the whole month. Yikes!


**As I'm writing all of this out, I'm realizing that even though my plans have changed a bit, it's not about things being perfectly planned out. Even if we don't have our tree yet, and we didn't get a chance to get all of the Christmas decor up (like the garland I purchased for cheap, cheap, cheap last year and was hoping to use as decor for outside). It's OK not to have everything done like I want it...as long as I don't give up completely. I was just about to bag everything since I couldn't do it the way I wanted to (sometimes I'm too much of an all or nothing kind of gal), but then that would be giving up some of the things that make me happy. I still plan to do some of these things in the next 7 days before Christmas...snowed in or not.

But, you know what, as long as my kids are happy and we're spending time together the details don't really matter!


I do have to say that before I left for vacation, I had our Christmas card and letter completed and delivered, and all Christmas shopping finished. Thank goodness for that or else I would be doing even more complaining.

I really do love the Christmas season! Time to get it together and to kick my holiday spirit into high gear! Who cares if it's snowing outside!

WFMW - snowman gift bag

In an effort to contribute some sort of Christmas craftiness to the blogging world, I thought I would share with you a simple, yet super cute idea for a gift bag. I used this particular idea as our December MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) craft.

This would be the perfect little bag for some yummy homemade goodies that you could give to the neighbors or your friends. These bags would be easy to make in bulk. I found the white bags at Michaels craft store in a package of 12 for less than $4.00 and then all you need is black, orange, and red cardstock and some snowflake embellishments (I used glitter foam snowflakes). For the directions and template for the individual snowman pieces, visit this Family Fun link. Remember, I'm pretty good at duplicating projects and this one is no different. (Although I do take credit for making it my own by tweaking the directions a bit.)


Visit Rocks in My Dryer for more Works for Me Wednesday!

nowhere to go

Updated on 3/5/09: This post is part of The Masked Mommy's Closet Pow Wow! Head on over for more inspirational closet makeovers.






Although I would much rather be decorating my Christmas tree (that we have yet to get because of being on vacation last week and it snowing the next day we got back being forced to stay in) or I would love to be baking some yummy goodies (but, of course groceries are needing to be bought and I'm not making the trek out in the cold and icy roads just to get a few eggs).

So, I guess those things will have to wait and instead...

Why not do some tackling?

I decided I would tackle both of the kids' closets since they were starting to get taken over by clothing that is too small for them. I have containers for all of these clothes, but once I realize they have grown out of them or the season changes, I usually just toss them in the closet in hopes that I will "get to it later". Well, now is later...finally!

First up, Austin's closet...

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE
AFTER

Then, came Mikayla's closet, which wasn't quite as a mess...

BEFORE

AFTER

And just like most of my tackles, the kiddos didn't let me down with making just a little more mess to tackle. Thanks, my sweet ones.

Check out 5 Minutes for Mom for more Tuesday Tacklers.

baby, it's cold outside

Snow! Don't you love it??

Sunday, we got snow "around these parts" and it has stuck around since then, which is quite unusual in the NW. The temperature is cold outside and that means some icy roads. So, we're stuck indoors and we just might be going a little crazy!!

On Sunday morning when the snow first started to fall, we ventured outside to have a little taste of the first snow of the season. (I'm sure you can all relate how it takes three times as long to get everyone all bundled up as the length of the time you actually spend outside.)

This would be Austin's first "real snow" experience as well, but as you can see this was his preferred view of the magical white stuff.


I guess he didn't find this stuff so "magical"...


Since we don't get that much snow each year, we've yet to invest in a real sled, and the two saucers we do have are for downhill sledding and were in the attic, so Ryan created a makeshift sled with an empty Rubbermaid container and some bungee cords. That's my MacGyver!


Although Austin didn't care for the snow too much, Mikayla was our little trooper and attempted to help create a snowman. Realizing that might take longer than the warmness would allow, Ryan and Mikayla decided to enjoy some good old fashioned snowballs instead.


Aren't these the faces of some happy snow bunnies?

welcome home to reality

We're back from our week long vacation and into the land of reality.

Interrupted sleep.
Crabby children.
Cooking.
An "independent" toddler.
Cleaning.
Picky eaters.
Laundry.
Diaper changes.
A long list of things to do that keeps getting longer.
And...
Snow?


As much as I enjoyed my getaway, this is where I'm meant to be.

In reality.

it's a wrap!

For our final day of vacation, we headed back to Disneyland & California Adventure to wrap up any rides we hadn't gone on yet or wanted to do again. With the City Pass we had purchased, it included a 3 Day Hopper Pass to both theme parks. I think three days of Disneyland is quite a lot, especially when you don't have kids to slow you down, so we decided to sleep in and head that way a little later in the morning.

We didn't arrive until about 10:30, so we headed straight toward California Adventure since it had just opened a half hour earlier. There was only one ride we hadn't gone on yet, so we did that one first and then made a loop around the park catching a couple of rides we had already gone on our first time there. We rode Muholland Madness again, and Ryan got me to try out the MaliBOOMer! It's the one that sky rockets you into the air. I wouldn't do it the first time, but he talked me into it. Boy, did it make my stomach do some jumps! (And I found out that the shield was not for those unlucky ones who lost their lunch, but to drown out the screams.)

We also decided to endure the line and ride California Screamin' one more time. I have to say out of all the rides this one is my favorite! Who would have guessed?

Our last ride we attempted for the second time was the Hollywood Tower of Terror. I actually really liked this ride, too, which is surprising since I was resistant in the first place.

just a few more pictures from the sights of
Disneyland & California Adventure

We grabbed a bite to eat and then headed over to Disneyland and decided to relax a little and rode the train around the park. We felt like we had already done what we wanted to do at Disneyland, so we decided to do something that didn't take much of us having to stand in line and we got to sit back and just enjoy resting. We were exhausted after 6 days of running around!

After grabbing a few souvenirs for the kiddos, we decided to stake a place along the parade's route for one more time of the Disney Holiday Parade. We had already watched it on Tuesday, but my sweet friend Tenley was going to be in it this time, so we wanted to watch her. This time I decided to take some video so we could show the kids when we got home. I tried uploading a clip of Tenley looking so beautiful in the parade, but it is not working right now, so I'll have to play with it again later.

One of the only things we hadn't done at Disneyland was watch Fantasmic (a spectacular show at night), but it was only 4:00 and the show did not start until 9:00. We were exhausted, missing our kids, and tired of standing in line, rides, and lots of people, and just wanted to finish our vacation off with something low key, so we left the park for the last time.

On our way home, we decided to grab a bite to eat at California Pizza Kitchen (probably the nicest place we had eaten all week!) and called it our anniversary dinner (the 13th). The pizza was delicious and hit the spot. We ended the evening watching a movie, packing, and obviously I got in a little more blogging.

We are SO EXCITED to go home and see our little ones. We have missed them terribly (although I just realized today that I haven't changed a diaper in a week!) We have talked with Mikayla a few times and have heard grunts from Austin, which I know means I love you! I told Mikayla we had a surprise for her (we're bringing her back a souvenir) and she got so excited and said, "thank you mommy!" I can't wait to give my babies hugs and kisses! I'm ready to take back the roll of mom (I'm sure my mom is ready to hand it back over, too).

a little traffic can't slow us down

It felt like half of Day 6 of our vacation was spent in our car sitting in traffic. We headed to Universal Studios in Hollywood. As much as I love to "catch a glimpse of fame", I figured we were in for some much needed patience as we had quite a bit of traffic on the way there, and we knew we would be in for it on the way back also.


We started off the morning by taking the Studio Tour, which is where you get to ride around on a tram and visit the back lot full of real life movie stages and sets, along with some "pretend" props that gives the ride a bit of a thrill. I remember how scary this used to be when I first took this ride when I was younger. This was my third time, so it had begun to lose its "newness" and I knew what to expect. So, this time I was more on a hunt to see if I would see anyone famous. Although they were doing some filming of various projects, I didn't see anyone I recognized.


For some reason, I wasn't very picture happy on this particular day...


Things we conquered while at Universal:

*Studio Tour
*Simpsons ride (new)
*Mummy Returns ride - which believe it or not I went on TWICE!! My eyes were completely closed the first time, but the ride was a roller coaster (with creepy things of course), so it was an amazing thrill! The second time, I peaked, but just a little
*Special Effects Stage
*Backdraft demonstration
*Jurassic Park ride
*Animal Actors show
*Shrek 4D
*ended the day with Waterworld, which is an amazing live show with lots of special effects


Of course, we couldn't leave the park without snapping a picture with Shrek & Fiona. Mikayla's going to love this!


Our evening ended with sitting in traffic for 2 1/2 hours when it should have taken us just a little over an hour to get back. Thankfully we both were quite patient since we knew there was nothing we could do about it. (I think these long lines we've endured this week have helped with our patience!) So, we just turned on our radio and listened to Christmas music.

a little rest and relaxation

A much needed day of rest was gladly welcomed on Day 5 of our vacation. We were so glad that we made sure to fit in this one day to do nothing. We slept in late (gotta love those blackout curtains), grabbed some brunch at Coco's in Newport Beach, picked up a few more groceries (including some frozen ravioli and french bread to fix for dinner later...definitely not gourmet, but budget friendly!)

After we got back to the resort we decided to walk around and check out some of the amenities it had to offer. The pool area is amazing and it was very quiet since it's the "off season". Next time we come back (and we definitely hope to!) we can't wait to make better use of the resort facilities. They have many activities for the children. While I took a little nap, Ryan played some Guitar Hero in the owner's lounge with a few other families. After that he headed on over to the ping pong tournament.

view from the main lobby's balcony

just ONE of the pools...there are a total of four!!

Later in the afternoon, we headed to Crystal Cove which was just a short 1/4 mile down the road. There was this cute little restaurant on the beach called Beachcombers Cafe, but the entrees ran about $18 minimum, so we decided to pass (remember we bought that frozen ravioli and bread to indulge in).

Christmas tree on the beach in front of the Beachcomber's Cafe

Just a few pictures from our walk on the beach

We ended the evening with a movie we had rented, and just relaxed (of course a little blogging was involved). I was so thankful for this day off, and rejuvenated for another two days of amusement park fun!

this is the part where our legs start to hurt

Day 4 of our vacation found us back to Disneyland & California Adventure. We awoke a little earlier than our first day to Disneyland since we knew the parks would be closing a little earlier. We arrived pretty close to when the park opened and got the most coveted tourist picture at Disneyland as we entered the gates (don't mind the construction equipment in the background... bummer).

We decided to head to the Indiana Jones ride first since we knew there would be longer lines as it got later in the day. We were able to get right onto the ride with no waiting! It is amazing to see how long the lines could be. Sometimes it takes us a good 3 minutes just to walk to the front. I can't imagine having to wait that whole way! I was willing to go on the ride, but had to do it with my eyes closed (I know I'm a wimp!) I hate scary things, but love the rides and this was a mixture of both. I told Ryan that if he wanted to ride it again he would have to do it without me. So, I waited for him as he did it one more time to get it out of his system.

Next we took the Jungle Cruise where the "tour guide" was actually pretty funny, which made it a little less boring. Although it was a pretty low key ride, it's always a classic!

We decided to head toward the Small World ride next since that's a must when you visit Disneyland. They had redecorated the ride with all things holiday, and it was so beautiful. I've decided that I would love to be on the Disneyland decor team, especially for the holidays!


We also hit Thunder Mountain Railroad one more time, took a quick ride on Winnie the Pooh (for the kids...oh, wait, they weren't with us) and visited Santa's Reindeer Roundup, where we saw Santa's reindeer. Although I didn't see Rudolph...



Since we had been on most of the rides at Disneyland (except for Fantasyland), we headed over to California Adventure, where we took in the Sesame Street 3D show, rode the new Monsters, Inc. ride and Ryan even got me to go on the Tower of Terror, which I actually enjoyed!

We also briefly watched the Magic of Disney show, where we saw Cinderella, Woody, and Mickey.


We rode the Muholland Drive roller coaster, along with California Screamin' (our favorite ride) and Ryan took the sky rocket plunge. For some reason, I didn't want to join him on this. I wonder if it had anything to do with the puke shields that made me a little nervous.


We ended the day heading back over to Disneyland to take in the Holiday Disney Parade. This definitely got me in the holiday spirit!

It was another fun day, but our feet and legs were definitely aching and we were longing for some down time, so we were so glad that the next day was our day off and our chance to sleep in, lounge around, and take a look around the resort. If we keep going like this we'll need a vacation from our vacation!