It's A, Family Tradition

I love knowing what's to come, what to expect, routine if you will.  It soothes my soul :)  I think this plays into my love of traditions, especially around the holidays.  Growing up, I remember doing the holidays a specific way.  Thanksgiving was always spent at my Grandma & Grandpa Schindel's house in Aurora (we didn't see them as often as my other grandparents, so we always went up there for Thanksgiving).  Christmas eve we went to evening church and then over to my Grandma and Grandpa Snyder's house to celebrate with all of my aunts, uncles and cousins.  It was loud, it was sometimes (probably most times) obnoxious and it was always fun.  Christmas morning we opened Santa presents at our house and by 10:00 a.m. we were on the road to Aurora to celebrate with my mom's family.  I never minded opening presents and leaving, it was our tradition and I was good with that :)  I loved (still do) spending time with our extended family and celebrating the holidays.  My husband shares those values with me.  We are starting to get into our own routines around the holidays.  With my work schedule thrown in, it tends to make for a crazy Christmas day for us.  But we get to celebrate with both of our families and that's what is important to us :)  Leading up to Christmas we have started some traditions around our house too.  Pumpkin is our "elf on the shelf"-don't judge me!

Our elf doesn't get too crazy, no great pinterest ideas here, but the kids (especially Alyvia at this point) get so excited to see where he is each morning.  Pumpkin was too tired to move a couple of nights though, lazy elf!  And we celebrate Christmas with Santa.  In our house, Santa just adds to the "magic" of Christmas (we always talk about Jesus being born and what the true meaning of Christmas is also).  Santa sends an e-mail message to the kids about a week before Christmas (thanks to the portable north pole or pnp.com) and lets them know if they are on the naughty or nice list.  Again, something fun that they look forward to!

Livi anxiously awaiting Santa's verdict!

And of course, we have a mad dash (usually the day before we celebrate Christmas) to make Santa cookies for his visit and reindeer food so Rudolph can find our house!

Oh Colson, "cheeeese!"

It took a few tries, but Livi got the hang of rolling out the dough

Who gave green food coloring to the 3 year old?!

So proud

The finished product

And that night, while it was 1 degree outside, we spread our reindeer food on our front lawn-brrrrr!

I hope my kids look back and remember these traditions leading up to Christmas as fondly as I remember mine growing up.  They'll probably not do a thing because I tried to pack in too much-ha!  Happy Holidays!

2013 PGS Christmas Program

Alyvia's Christmas program was this past Thursday.  After school, we hurried to gymnastics (as usual) and then we hurried home to be back at school by 6:30!

I love these 2 so much!

 Alyvia's music teacher is Mr. Delbridge.  Alyvia is always talking so excitedly about music class and how fun he is!  I love that she loves her music teacher.  She is such a lover of the arts already :)

"Fives" with Mr. Delbridge

 The first grade class sang 3 songs, the only one I knew was Jingle Bells-ha!

She's singing her heart out!

Livi did a great job performing.....the girl is in her element on the stage (or risers in this case)!  Her grandparents all came to watch her too, she was so happy :)  Way to go Livi, you did a great job!

Princeville Christmas Walk 2013

A couple of weeks ago, a lovely lady from the Princeville women's club called and asked if we would be willing to open our home for the Christmas walk.  Foolishly,  Bravely, I said "yes!"  I honestly love decorating for the holidays and thought this would be a fun event to be a part of.  This past Saturday evening , the "walk" took place (after 8 inches of snow fell Friday night!) It was impossible to get everything done with all the 'help' from our 3 little elves!  So, Alan took the kids to my SIL's house around noon on Saturday and we got down to business with the final decorations!  My mom, dad, MIL and FIL all came over and pitched in.  We are so lucky, because we never would have made it without our families help!  My dad put handrails on our basement and main floor staircases that day, my FIL painted said handrails, and my mom and MIL loaned me Christmas decorations and helped me place them in the house, whew!  It was a crazy day!  It all came together in the end though and our house turned out beautiful (I thought).   Here's your personal tour...

Our Front Porch

 On the left side of the porch was an old sled with ice skates.  My chalkboard has a quote from the movie Elf on it "The best way to spread Christmas cheer, is to sing it loud for all to hear".  On the right side is my palate Christmas tree that Alan made, I loved it!  I need some more burlap to wrap around the trunk next year and maybe put some glittery, burlap ornaments on it.  The wreath on the front door is the same one from fall.  I added some Christmas ribbon & berries and a  little "We believe in Santa Claus" sign and it turned into a Christmas wreath!

The entry table 

 The snowman basket hold our Christmas cards.  There are a few candies in the tree dish and our family picture in a red frame.  Two snowman reside there as well.

The first floor view as you enter our home

Our home is very "open concept", as in there are no walls on the main floor separating the rooms!  As you walk in, you see our living room, dining room and kitchen all in a row.  

Our Living room- my Mom decorated the post and it turned out so cute!

Our upstairs Christmas tree-we had a few wrapped gifts beneath for the tour

     

An armoire in the corner that we use for toy storage

Walking by our stairs,  a closet is on the left

Our closet is where I display our picture Christmas cards that we receive.  We set up a table and had Christmas cookies for guests to take (I wish I could say I baked them, ha!).  The candles and tablecloth were both from my MIL :)

Our Dining Room

The dining room was my favorite!  The chandelier has greenery and burlap ribbon woven through it and ornaments hanging down.  I got my table runner from Hobby Lobby (love!).  The snowflake place mats were a borrow from my mom and my MIL loaned us her holiday dishes.  The napkin rings were made from jingle bells (also my mom's), so cute!  My Tiffany champagne flutes completed the set up. 

Cranberries with the green ribbon really "popped"!

The center piece is a steal from Pinterest (another love!).   The chairs were wrapped in burlap ribbon and then I hot glued a sparkly (dollar store) ribbon to the center of each, I love how they turned out!

You then walk immediately into my kitchen.  Alan bought me some beautiful flowers that day to display <3

Chair ribbons courtesy of my MIL

I made the NOEL letters and the jingle bell tree
A set of snowmen salt & pepper shakers, cookie plate and snowman hang out on the counter  

I had big plans for this window....unfortunately, what I wanted didn't turn out.  It still looked pretty though!

After the kitchen, we turned toward the basement.  My shelf by the back door had these wood blocks displayed, courtesy of my mom!

 The little office/art area on the right had the books Baby's First Christmas and The Night Before Christmas books displayed (I know, I needed something over the couch-I ran out of time and decorations!).

Looking into the basement family room, such a cozy room!  My village houses were set up on the shelf to the left and I'm just realizing Sonja (one of our dogs) photobombed me, ha!  The wreath in the window was lit, so it glowed at night.

On the way to our upstairs, I put this impulse buy tinsel tree from Target.  I got so many compliments on this silly, little collapsible tree!  I may go try to find a few more after Christmas!

We wrapped some old canvas pictures and hung them on the walls for decoration
(This picture looks TERRIBLE, our walls need some to be repainted!)

The upstairs railing

The plant was a gift from the Princeville women's club for hosting and the jingle bell wreath was my Grandma's

The girls room

Colson's room

I didn't do much upstairs, but I let people check it out anyway.  Alyvia loves that little tree and has it set up in her room every year :)  We may have to get Cole a tree next year, we keep telling him the big one downstairs is his!  I made "Santa Claus" letter for their doors with jingle bells on them too.   All the bathrooms had Christmas candles burning and the house smelled delicious!  After the tour, our guests departed back out the front door :)

We had a great time hosting the tour of our home!  It was a lot of work, no lies.  But, we got to meet new people and we enjoy sharing our home with others.  I don't know how eager I'd be to do it again next year, but if we get asked in a couple of years, we're in for sure!  Merry Christmas!

Santa Lives at Bass Pro!

Even though poor Colson was not feeling the best,

we rallied (with the help of Ibuprofen and Tylenol!) and went to visit Santa last Thursday.  We had never seen Santa at Bass Pro, but we didn't want to wait until the weekend when he was at our mall, so we headed over the river and through the strip mall to see him!

We had to wait for about 30 minutes, but the kids got to do some fun stuff while we waited.

Colson isn't much for riding the carousel (Mommy either), but he is into driving XUV's!

I can't get it to go! 

When we finally saw Santa, everyone did so much better than I anticipated!  The plan was to quick throw Kendall on Santa's lap and snap the picture before the water works started :)

She is looking worried, but she didn't lose it :)

 Livi is so sweet.  She had her list all ready for Santa!  Colson did pretty good too.  He wasn't very talkative, but no tears and he told Santa he wants a "green bike"!  We'll see what he gets on Christmas day :)

While we were waiting for our dinner reservation, we drove more toys and checked out the gigantic fish!

Kendall was done by this point, she was NOT going to join the picture!

We ate dinner at Texas Roadhouse afterwards, yum yum!  Kendall rallied once the food started coming and she had so much fun dancing to the loud music :)  It was a fun night and we can't wait until Santa visits us in a few days!

Cousin Sleepover!

Last weekend we had our nieces Reagan and Rylie spend the weekend with us while my SIL & BIL were in Chicago.  If we were going to have 5 kids, why not have 6?!  We had to have our other niece Kinsley spend Friday night too :)

We had Little Ceasars pizza, made ornament crafts, and had a slumber party in the basement (complete with a movie and popcorn of course!).

Everybody slept in the basement....except for Mommy and Kendall, we got to sleep in our own beds!  Kendall definitely enjoyed playing with the big kids before bedtime though :)

The next morning, we had breakfast and then I went downtown for the Jingle Bell Run......it was a brisk 10 degrees outside.  It was fun to run with this group of girls from work despite the cold weather!

Lori, Heidi, Liz, Alyssa, me, Danielle, Michelle, Kelly

After the race, I raced home and we ALL went to Adam & Liz's new house in Chillicothe.  They picked the coldest day of the year to move in!  Such a cute house though and I can't wait to see it all put together :)  We had to leave fairly quickly because Alyvia and I had a bridal shower for my friend Caroline!  Poor Reagan had been complaining that her ear hurt since Friday night and Alan and I decided we should have it checked out.  So when Livi and I got home, I took Reagan to the Peds after hours clinic.  Luckily her ears checked out fine, but what a CRAZY day it was!!!  I had to work Sunday, so Alan had all 5 kiddos by himself.  He's such a good daddy and uncle though, it didn't even phase him.  It was so fun to have all the girls over and they get along so well, they even let Colson in on their fun.  I love that they are all such good friends!