Why Yes, We Have Had A Fantastic Christmas.

And the business continues, but we've moved from being busy preparing for Christmas to being busy celebrating and having fun.

I prefer the latter. But boy was my house getting messy. We kind of took the day off today and just did some much needed chores. Haircuts, cleaning up Christmas messes, dishes, vacuuming, baths, laundry, etc.  And now... blogging before I get so far behind that I decide to just skip it.

At this moment I'm downloading all my pictures; 209 of them. Wow!

So anyway, Shane's parents and his Grandma are here from Ohio for the holidays and the kids have been soaking them up. Grandma has played more Uno, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders and War than I could ever stand to. Grandpa has filled them with all sorts of yummy treats and foods and taken us to the movies. Shane and I escaped for a night away. It's going to be a real shock when they leave and we are left to our own devices again. Thank goodness school will start again soon.

OK, I've narrowed it down to 41 pictures on Christmas eve alone.  So I may need to break this up a bit:

Let's see, a few days before Grandma and Grandpa came, old man winter came and left us with 19 inches of snow. They even canceled school (horrible day to cancel school, by the way. Roman missed giving out presents, the school Christmas Assembly where Santa was going to come and all that. He was bummed.)

I had to take Shane to work that morning because of our little car trouble, so we ended up going to the mall and visiting the old man anyway.  Even with the bad weather, I was surprised to find no line whatsoever. ALL three kids talked to Santa and got close enough for a picture. SHOCKER!

Look at all those men working on our one little BIG driveway. We LOVE good neighbors. Especially neighbors with snow blowers.  It was a LOT of snow.

Grandparents came and we went to see the lights in Spanish Fork again. Always a hit!

Christmas Eve was an all day party.

We did our annual tradition of making gingerbread houses. There just was not enough time/energy to make real gingerbread so we made due with crackers again and it was just as good.  If it breaks, you just toss it and grab a new cracker. I sure miss the smell of warm gingerbread though.

The kids enjoyed it as usual. I thought maybe Ezra would have a go at it this year but as soon as we broke out the candy he sort of lost it so he took a nap. Marisa, Ezra and two of their cousins had a good ol time decorating. I used the same icing recipe as last year. Again, it worked great. Once the houses were up, they stayed that way. That is always a plus.
 

Later that evening, we went to Shane's sister's house for candel light dinner. The kids of course liked the dinner and Ezra ate turkey like it was his last meal.

I enjoyed messing around with my camera in the low light. I'm horrible at it, but it was fun to mess around anyway.

A few games and fun

Then it was home for Christmas Eve presents (jammies of course) They loved them. Stories and off to bed.

And just before I got in my bed, Santa sneaked into our house and left a truck load of presents. SERIOUSLY TOO MANY!  But it was sure fun to watch the kids enjoy it Christmas morning.

More on that later because this is already dangerously long.

Busy Busy Busy

Sometimes I HATE being busy.  I usually hate it when I'm busy doing things like, laundry, dinner, cleaning. You know... all those rotten chores that just keep coming. Or something that I never wanted to in the first place.

But I LOVE being busy for Christmas. I love last minute shopping, wrapping into the night, baking through the day. (at this very moment I'm waiting for some caramel corn to cool so I can make another batch). And all the stuff that goes along with Christmas.

I love getting my lists checked off leading up to Christmas day.

Sew Christmas Jammies. Check!
Finish Christmas Shopping. Check!
Finish Sewing orders. Check!
Clean Sewing room. Check! (what a chore)
Gifts for Roman's class. Check!
Send Christmas cards. Check!
Try to make the basement habitable for guests. Sure... I guess.
Clean house.... wait WHAT?
Neighborhood gifts, half of a check
Wrap presents, quarter of a check
Laundry. Nope.
Dig our house out from under the foot of snow that appeared this morning. Nope again.
Vacuum the stairs that haven't been vacuumed in MONTHS! No again
Figure out what we are going to do about the car that won't start. SERIOUSLY!?
Get off the computer and get to work! OK, OK!

Alright. I hope you are all having as much fun as I am getting ready for Christmas.

Back to baking and watching the snow fall.

A Tree For Me, A Tree For You

I'm not sure why I'm this way, but I'm one of those people who is very particular about her Christmas tree.

I always feel bad because the kids want to help and Roman wants to put all his ornaments he's made over the years on the tree and I can't do it. I like a pretty tree, all matchy and oraganized. What can I say, I'm a little crazy. (or a lot) I would take a picture, but the camera doesn't do it justice.

But this year I decided I would find some kind of tree the kids could have all to themselves.

I figured it would be a real tree that I could find for cheep close to Christmas. I love real trees, but they are so pricey.

Well, I was in D.I. again the other day (for those of you who don't know what D.I. is, it's just a second hand store. You would think I go there weekly based on my blog posts, but I really don't make it to D.I. that often) and I found 3 perfectly good artificial trees to choose from for only $10 each.  I'm not totally thrilled about storing another artificial tree, but oh well.

I brought it home and other than stringing the lights, I let the kids do their thing. I didn't even re-arrange when they were done. And it has *GASP* colorful lights.  I'm a white light kind of gal.

It's covered in Roman's creations, a lot of ornaments we've received as gifts, and even some from when Shane was a kid. I'm glad the kids have no idea what tinsel is. :)

Ezra, in his normal way, didn't hang one ornament, but managed to break as many as he could get his hands on. I tell ya, the kid is not happy unless he surrounded by chaos. Order and neatness is his nemesis.

Other than the severe lack of furniture space, I love having two trees. I'm glad I scored a cheep one.

Christmas is coming!!! I'm so excited I can barely sleep already.

My Latest Project: Reupholstery

I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned before that I've been wanting to reupholster something lately. I was always just waiting for the right furniture item to fall into my lap.

Ever since I was pregnant with Roman and we visited my sister-in-law's in-law's home and sat in their lovely overstuffed chair and a half I have wanted one. So roomy, big and fun. But ,one never really caught my eye. Or should I say, the price tag never really caught my eye, so I never got one.

Well, I was roaming around D.I..  I stop in now and then, usually when I'm dropping things off, to see if there is anything interesting and I found this:

I know... not exactly pretty, but the only thing wrong with it was the upholstery was outdated and worn out. So I bought it for $30 and smashed it into the back of my car.

I started looking for fabric to use and anything that I found for a reasonable price was just the wrong color.

You see, It is going in my piano room and the carpet in there is a dark hunter green. Everything I found had olive greens in it. I love green but the two just clash horribly. All the brown colors I found were either too light or too gross so I thought I was going to just have to wait another some odd years before the fabric fell into my lap.  But then, I was checking JoAnn's clearance section AGAIN, and I saw this burgundy faux suede. And I thought, "maybe burgundy will go well with the carpet." And then, if we ever re-carpet, it will surely go with whatever neutral color we choose. So I got it. 8 yards for $35. Woo Hoo!

So I bought this book on Amazon (excellent book by the way)

And tore into it.

Here is a slide show followed by all the same pictures if for some reason that doesn't work:

It was so much fun! Not hard at all and I can't believe it turned out so well.

Now... I've got to find, or have my dad build an ottoman because I found 7 more yards of the fabric.

The only downside is the feet. I thought they would just be interchangeable. It turns out, they are part of the chairs structure, so just taking them off and replacing them isn't exactly as easy as I thought it would be. Still, for under $100... does it matter?

Doesn't it look lovely next to our tree?

Now it is here by the computer in our Piano room and it looks grand.

Seriously, if you have ever considered reupholstering something... Try it. It's fun and not so hard as it may seem.