Our Week in Review - Nov. 28th to Dec. 6th

Ok, so it's a little more than a week, don't be picky. ;)
We have been SUPER busy despite the fact that Colin's allergies are back in a big way. I swear, can't we have everyone in the house healthy at one time??? PLEASE?? What would it take???

Here's crazy Cloud. She still thinks she's a tiny kitten. I find her all over the house in the weirdest places!!! 

How he manages to get his food all over his face is a mystery to me. LOL

We went to pick out our tree the day after Thanksgiving. Colin got to help cut it down. 
I love the little tree farm! The elderly couple that own are super nice! The kids always get a candy cane and the gentleman always helps tie the tree to the top of the van. 
SO glad to be living back where we can go to them. 

Cailey and Colin helped decorate the tree. They LOVE that part so much!!!! 
BUT, can you see the tree listing to one side??? Right after this picture the tree fell over. EVERY single thing fell off except for one drum ornament. 
SIGH!!!!!!! 

This is how it looked the second time we decorated it.
Notice I said how it LOOKED.... Well, now it seems that we have a leak in our tree stand. All the water that we thought was sustaining our tree was actually pouring out all over the presents. 
ARGH!!!!
I bought a new stand but I haven't been able to talk anyone into helping me switch it out. It needs to be done quickly, though... Our tree is drying out!!

 We went to the Home Depot kids' workshop. Cailey and Colin love them so much. They got to make garden stakes for Christmas! They are now lining our walkway. ;)

We went to Bass Pro to see Santa. BUT (there's always a BUT) when we went to get in line we were told that they were handing out passes to see Santa at 3. It was 11:30. :/ Soooo, we went over to watch the fish feeding. After that we stayed for the craft.

I didn't want to drive home just to drive back to see Santa so I took the kids to get something to eat and do a little Dollar Tree shopping. 

We got back to Bass Pro at 2:30 and went to get in line. Here is where I had a "Christmas Story" experience....
We walk up and it looks like there's no one in line. I show the lady my Bass Pass. She says, "That's great but you need to get at the end of the line," and points behind me. 
I kid you not, the line was to the back of the store. 
INSANE!!!
An hour later the kids had finally gotten to see Santa.

They were SOOOOOO happy!!!!

Tomorrow will be the December edition of Blog with Friends!! WOOO HOOO!! The Jolly Jinglers!!!
My part will be a tutorial for the elf hats that the Cs are wearing PLUS elf shoes!! WOOO HOOO!!!

Then coming up soon, the tutorial for the houndstooth circle skirt that Cailey is wearing in the Santa pic. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

Secret Subject Swap - December 2014

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week, 12 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

 

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

                         

Baking In A Tornado

The Momisodes

Spatulas on Parade

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

Stacy Sews and Schools

The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

Evil Joy Speaks

Juicebox Confession

Confessions of a Part-Time Working Mom

Silence of the Mom

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

Climaxed

Your “Secret Subject” is:
If you could change one event that took place in 2014, what would it be?

It was submitted by: The Momisodes

If you've been following along this year, then you know exactly what kind of year I've had.

There's been some good stuff:

 -we moved back to VA

 -we joined 2 great homeschooling groups

 -we've had lots of fun

There's been a lot of bad stuff, too:

 -we moved, AGAIN... the 4th time in just over 1 1/2 years

 -we've had some car trouble

 -I've had some health issues, including an unexpected surgery

But there's one thing that I wish I could change. Just one. I will take all the bad that I've been through this year and multiply it by 100 if I could change just one thing..... I wish I still had my Dad. 

I miss him so much every single day. Most days I can deal and just keep myself very busy but then there are days where I just can't.... 

I know that it will get easier with time but I wish I didn't have to go through it at all. I wish he was still here. 

I've had 2 dreams about him since he passed away in August. The first was just about 2 wks ago. In my dream I was told he was dead but I didn't believe it. The whole time I searched for him all over the place. 
In the 2nd, which was just a couple of days ago, I get the call that he died but when I get to TN I find out that it was a mistake. He was at the hospital but OK. 

I miss my Daddy.

Christmas Coasters Tutorial

I am SOOOOO behind on my Christmas sewing!! ARGH!!!!! I have so many things that I need to make!! I need a longer day, people. 

After I dragged out my Christmas decorations I realized that I realllllly needed something for people to put their drinks on, water rings make me crazy. So I decided to whip up a couple of coasters and then I decided to add a mug rug. 

This is so fast. I mean SUPER fast. Like 10 minutes for a few of them fast. 

You can even use up scraps! Perfect!!!

These are the fabrics that I used for the coasters. 


STEP 1 

Find something round in the size that you would like and cut circles from all the fabrics. 


STEP 2

Layer the fabrics together and pin. You want the right sides facing out.


STEP 3 

Zigzag stitch allllll around and run a couple of lines of straight stitches down the center.

Press it and you're all done!!!

The mug rug I made was just like THIS ONE, only I didn't add any trim. The fabric was busy enough. ;)

The back of the mug rug was done in the pretty poinsettia fabric. 


HAVE FUN CHRISTMAS SEWING!!!!!

Christmas Crafts for Kids

Well, it's December 1st!! YAY!!! Time to get ready for Christmas! :D Over the years the kids and I have had a lot of fun with our Christmas crafts. I thought I would round them all up and put them in one easy post. Of course, we will be adding new ones at some point in the next few weeks. 


 

Christmas Crafts 1

Christmas Crafts 2

   

I actually have these trees on my coffee table right now! They held up well since last year!

Christmas Crafts 3 

Not really much on the below link. Well, there's a really good cookie recipe! ;)
Christmas Crafts 4

Christmas Crafts 5

And here's a list of Christmas Homeschooling Resources

Have fun getting ready for the holidays!!! :D