Santa and his elves...

I love this time of year.  I love the music, the smells, the sparkly decorations, baking, shopping (yes, I am one of those nuts that actually enjoys it),  the spirit of giving and generosity, little children's smiles and most of all the Christmas energy swirling.    We spent our Saturday decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music while the kids giggled and talked about what they wanted to ask Santa to bring this year.

We worked on some homemade ornaments that our family's elf brought with him from the North Pole when he arrived.     I love these homemade ornaments because each year when I unpack them I get to see how much the kids have grown.  Here are a few of the past ones that I have that I just love.

A few from their preschool years....

 

A few of my daughter's as she grew...

One of my favorites...her fingerprints in a snowman.

Some of those we made at home....

Ryan's from last year...

Isabella's from last year...

And this year...I just need to add some hangers.

I can't wait to see what comes home from school this year.  I love the handmade ornaments!!

Here is our finished tree....love it!

We also spent some time writing to Santa and to our elf.   My daughter is asking for a puppy this year.  I encouraged her to write to Santa directly because I know he doesn't bring animals...or at least not at our house...lol   She wrote him a nice letter and left it with our elf and this morning we found our elf with a letter in return.  Unfortunately for her Santa said the same thing...

I have found some really great printable letters to Santa that I wanted to share.  I love the ones that are fill in for my little guy since he is just learning to sound things out.  This way the majority of it is done and he can just fill it in.  A few of these are repeats of what I shared last year because I think they are so cute.

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I love these that the kids can color and personalize too.

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Our elf "Honey Boo Boo" has been bringing letters right to Santa for us.   Santa wrote to us and told us he was a bit silly and to keep our eye on him....I think these elves are pretty silly too.  I thought these were some really great ideas and had to share.

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If you don't have an elf visiting your house this year, consider yourself lucky!

I have lots more ideas, crafts, recipes, etc. to share so come back tomorrow!

Poshed Up

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere we go....

We have really been trying to get into the Christmas spirit at our house.   We spent a night at ToysRUs making our Christmas lists with the kids and visited Santa...well by visited I mean waved..lol   My kids are not much for taking pictures with him anymore.    When my husband told my son that Santa was watching, his response was, "no he's not Daddy, he's at the mall giving out autographs."  Love that kid, but it shows you what he thinks about the whole "be good for Santa" thing.

We ventured into NYC for the day to see the Radio City Rockettes.  This was their 85th anniversary and my first time.   It was amazing.  Of course on our way to the show we stopped by the giant ToysRUs in Times Square which was crazy and we stopped by the Rockefeller Center tree for a peek, but it had not yet been lit for the season.

Such a beautiful place!

It was a very festive day and we all enjoyed the show.  It's truly magical!!!

I have been busy working on getting our fall decorations down and Christmas up around the house.  So far, I have tackled the mantle (or at least the 1st round of it).  Yes I'm nuts and I change it in mid December.  Really because I have so many decorations and I love them all.   Here are some pictures from last year.

First round -- I went with my glittery fruit theme last year.

Second round-- As always, this is when I put up our family stockings.  I don't know why, but I didn't take a picture of anything but the stockings last year.

And here was our tree last year.

And this is the first round this year which I am loving.  I love all things red and snagged these decorations at Target this past week with a great coupon.  Not that I needed any new decorations!!

Here it is during the day....I love the red berries, the flocked garland, mercury glass and pine cones.  My favs for sure.

And here it is at night....sparkly...

Our yet to be decorated tree.

And our tree is a work in progress...so far just twinkly lights which I love at night.   I love candlelight, twinkly lights and low lighting in our house at night.  Weird, but I love it!!

Of course our North Pole elf has returned as well.   We seem to get a different one each year and each year we take turns letting the kids name them.  Last year he was named Jaden after the red Power Ranger and this year my daughter has named the poor thing "Honey  Boo-Boo".   Most families have sweet names for their elves...not us.  TV influence all the way.   

My husband and I take turns and obviously have a different sense of humor.

His humor...

My humor...

The kids are more in line with my husband's humor though which is to be expected.  Honey Boo-Boo is up to much mischief already this year.  

I have a lot of work to do to finish up the decorating this weekend and a crazy weekend ahead on top of it. Thankfully I am done shopping.  I am crazy person when it comes to getting my shopping done so that I can relax a bit towards mid December and just wrap presents.

I have been just trying to get the house together, finish up stocking orders at the shop and get ready to celebrate my daughter's 11th birthday!  Not sure how she grew up so fast, but I guess I have to just be ok with it.   She and I are going to see Carrie Underwood and Hunter Hayes tomorrow night and we both couldn't be more excited.  Being able to enjoy these types of things with her is the ONLY perk of her getting older.  

Speaking of being busy with stocking orders--- tomorrow is the last day to order custom monogrammed stockings via the shop if you are interested.  I have decided this year to cut off orders so that I can wind down by mid-December and just enjoy the holiday.  Last year I was working way too late into the month and resented it.   I have been SO SUCCESSFUL this year with orders and I feel very blessed so I have made the decision to cut it off as of December 1st.  Here are some pictures of some of the orders I have filled so far.

If you are interested in ordering, please message me from my shop which you can visit by clicking HERE.

I have been a Pin-aholic lately and have found some creative and very fun ideas for Christmas that I will begin sharing on Monday.    I am going to try my best to do a them each day up until the 24th...we'll see.   I have enough things to share to do it, but we'll see if I can keep up.

Until then...

Poshed Up