Randoms...

Happy Christmas season everyone!

Have you been busy decking your halls? I know I have...with a little bit of organizing the decorations and purging some of them too!

I have a lot of decorations....mostly ornaments. I thought I was only going to put up 1 tree this year- in the great room...but 2 more have been put up (one in the guest room and one in the big girls room) And one more is slated to go up tomorrow!

Speaking of trees...I really wanted to buy a new, big, beautiful, tall, the most realistic artificial, pre-lit tree you could find this year. But those babies are expensive! So, I've decided to save for that through the upcoming year and make due with what I have. What I did have was the 6 1/2 foot slim tree of our married-student housing days. But, now that tree will reside in a 9+ foot room. So...I had to come up with a solution.... I'll post a picture later of our solution. I ended up really liking it...so even if I get that big tall tree for next year, our "solution" tree will still have a home here at our house!

Another solution I've come up with for decorating with what we have is making wreaths for the windows on the front of the house. I used the cheap garland that we had...and those turned out nice too! (Pictures later!)

I started and finished a lot of Christmas shopping on Cyber Monday! Yeah for free shipping and shopping during nap time with a cup of coffee!

I'm hoping to share some great gift ideas and retailers in the upcoming week!

Speaking of gifts...this year the girls are making gifts for each other.

Hannah and I went last week to the fabric store to buy fleece for her to make "fleece tie blankets" for her sisters. And I made a mental note of the fleece she liked for herself...mom's homemade gift to her!

Ella will be dying silk with kool-aid that I will help turn into capes with a little fabric and velcro.

Sophia too will be dying silk with kool-aid. We will be making homemade play-silks for her to give her sisters!

I'll share the process when we complete it!

Jacob and I will be giving the girls homemade gifts too.

Because of all this crafty gift giving, I've been working on getting my craft area in order. It's still in process...but I've made big time headway!

There's lots that needs to be done and just as much that I would like to get done.

But mostly I'm just excited to enjoy the holidays and start some new family traditions of our own!