Simple Yet Timeless Ornaments

I saw what Kimba, A Soft Place to Land, did on her blog a few weeks ago with these wooden cut outs and card stock. I just fell in love with the idea of making something so simple yet so timeless.

I'm hoping my mother doesn't check my blog for a few days b/c then she'll be seeing one of the gifts that I made for her and my dad. Oh well, mom if you're reading this before Christmas then.. Merry Christmas to you.. early!! I made them for my in-laws as well.

They're not only affordable to make but also ornaments that will be treasured for years to come.

Christmas Open House

Around the house @ Christmas time.

This little scene is situated on one side of the mantel.

This green star is by far one of my other most favorite finds at the thrift store.. love it and just so happens to be one of my most favorite colors as well.

This is my baby girl's stocking.. last year I took advantage of an after Christmas sale that a cute boutique had and got us all matching stockings with our names monogrammed on them.

This is an angel wreath that I purchased a few years ago... love the Christmas theme.

This is a special ornament that my mother gave me.. it's called a blessings basket and you write down your blessings and put them inside and then year after year you read your blessings to remind you to be appreciative of all that you have.

I absolutely love this metal G that I found at the Christmas village.. I painted it red and used it in my Christmas wreath, but you could repaint it any color and use it in any season to decorate. I just haven't done it yet!!

Has it been a whole year???

Our beloved home


It's so hard to believe that it's been a full year since my grand idea to make my very own crunchy onion topping for my green bean casserole turned into a complete disaster.


This is all that remained from my iron skillet and my favorite rudolph oven mitt. The firemen put out the fire and decided to leave the charred mess on my outdoor table.. how nice of them, huh?


This time last year we were frantically moving out of our temporary hotel "home" and into a rental house wondering what Christmas would be like in a strange new place.




With such a wonderful, helpful and loving family our Christmas turned out to be an amazing time spent together... no matter whether we were at "home" or not.


As Christmas approaches I'm reminded that it's not about US anyway.. it's about focusing on Jesus and celebrating his arrival into this world. Because of His birth we who choose to believe have the incredible opportunity to accept Him as our Savior and live with Him forever one day.


Rejoice... our King is born!


Merry Christmas!

My Favorite Thrift Store "FIND"

THE CHAIR



This has to be the cutest high chair that I've ever laid eyes on before.. and I was so lucky to have found it at the thrift store. I can't imagine who would ever have just given this away.. but you know the old saying.. "One person's trash is another's treasure" and this is such a treasure to me. It will be in the Gray family for generations to come.




My daughter absolutely loves it and sits in it all the time.. we have to take it from room to room so she can sit in her chair. I'm so glad that I didn't just walk by and leave it at the thrift store.

Bike Fun @ a birthday party

We went to a friend's Bike birthday party. The kids decorated their bikes and she had the local fire department that was just down the street to come and lead us in our bike parade.



The kids thought it was loads of fun and they got to ride behind the fire truck on their bikes while all the neighbors came out to watch our parade... fun, fun, fun!!

My Little Class President

Alright... I am so stinkin' proud of my son that I had to post the news on my blog. This precious child is in Kindergarten and is more like his father than he truly knows! (for those of you who know his father you know what I mean)

Well, because we are in an election "season" and there's so much talk about the candidates... there was an opportunity to teach our kids about politics and doing our part as citizens of this great country.

So, we decided to participate in a class project that was optional. Each member of Braydon's kindergarten class was given the chance to "run for class president". We worked on our poster over the weekend and we made bracelets from pipe cleaner and beads that reflected our school colors for each member of his class.

I'm not going to claim that our poster was the best or that the bracelets totally won over all of his classmates but I'm completely convinced that it is the extraordinary personality of my son that won him this "election".

By the way... he doesn't have a shy bone in his body. He knows more people in his school from just the few months that he's been there than his older brother knows and he's been there a whole school year ahead of Braydon.

I'll finish by just stating that I couldn't be more proud of my son for taking a chance and having the opportunity to experience a positive outcome.

Too Much??

Alright, this is how my Saturday started out... yeah.. that would be my daughter playing peek-a-boo with me using her croissant. We are some Panera Bread lovin' fools.. well let me correct that statement... I AM A PANERA BREAD LOVIN' FOOL and my poor family is sometimes just along for the ride.

My husband had to go and give a few estimates before my son's soccer game so I was fully intending to head straight home and just chill out for a while. Well, wouldn't you know that I passed a yard sale sign on my way home and decided to stop.. which lead to a moving sale and then yet one more yard sale.. oh and my kids were super happy about all of that... but can they really complain with a DVD player in the van and a belly full of yummy panera bread??? I don't think so!

Then Braydon played soccer at noon with his team from last season as a fill in b/c one of their players was sick... Well, he was smokin' and scored the only 2 goals for his team and was even invited to stay for the "end of the season" party for a team that he wasn't even on. At the party they were giving out trophies and of course they didn't have one for Braydon b/c he's not even on the team but they gave him an "honorary" team member medal and he was super happy.

After the soccer game and party my sweet husband said, "Hey, honey why don't you go have some Mommy time and do a little shopping".. God love him.

Off I went fully intending to go to Target and TJ Maxx, BUT.. I made what was supposed to be a quick stop at the thirft store to just look at their furniture and this is what I ended up with...



So.. is it too much????

I'm divin' in

Official member of the famous "Mistreatment" Club






Alright my Nester friend... this one's for you. I'm officially divin' in and becoming a member of the mistreament club. I've lived in my house for almost 6 1/2 years and have never done a single thing to my bathroom that is downstairs in the basement. It was hideous with its striped wallpaper and just bland overall appearance.

So.. when construction was going on in the house after the fire I decided that I was going to start stripping the wallpaper off and make some changes. How I wish I had taken before pictures b/c the wallpaper was awful.. I think I've mentioned that already. So in Jan/Feb of this year I began the painstakingly tedious task of removing the wallpaper.

BUT with life and children and living in a rental house that was 15 miles away... I didn't quite finish. Then at the end of March we were able to move back into our house so at that point I was more concerned with other areas of the house.. not to mention unpacking hundreds of boxes.

WELL... here I sit in late October and I am finally getting off my butt and finishing the bathroom in the basement. And I must give all the credit to my adorable and precious friend the Nester who has completely inspired me to make my home a place that I actually want to live in... thanks dear friend.


SO... here's my first official window "mistreatment"






Below is the shower curtain that's not complete yet but I had to add this picture b/c it's one of my most favorite fabric choices... and it was on sale (50% off) yippeee!













These next project isn't completed yet either but I'm needing some advice on color choice...



This is the boy's room and yes.. this is the way they left it last night b/c their mother was busy cleaning out the garage ALL day and so I had no idea of the devastation that awaited me when I climbed those stairs.



Anyway... back to color choices... they have lots of blue with splashes of red.. do you think this stripped blue fabric on the right blends into the wall too much?? Should I change it up since their other window treatment is the darker blue?? Any suggestions??

My Wooden Pumpkin

My surprise!

Well, I walked out onto the front porch a couple of nights ago to water my mums and to plug in my pumpkins and I found this... my husband made me a pumpkin from an oak log that was bound for the firewood pile but my thoughtful and creative husband decided to make me this cute little wooden pumpkin.

My creative middle child

Alright.. my middle child's name is Braydon and when he was a baby my husband gave him a nickname... Bray Bray.. well yesterday when he was having his snack after school he decided that while eating his pretzels he would spell out his nickname and this is what he came up with.. is that not the funniest thing you've ever seen??? a nickname spelled out with pretzels that my son so creatively crafted... this was too good not to share.

Boo At The Zoo

Boo at the Zoo

Boo at the zoo was fun but we couldn't fully experience the whole thing b/c the price for the rides (haunted train, ghastly carousel, ghost roller ride & hay ride) and the Planet of the Apes Haunted House experience was just a little too costly for our family of 5.. bummer!

But it was a great excuse for the kiddos to get to wear their costumes and do a little trick-or-treating on a smaller scale.

Then there were some photo opps that created some memories with friends.

This had to have been the most voluptious Snow White character that I've ever met.. Emmie had to have her picture taken with her and I don't think Gilby really hated it too much!

We had dinner at our friends house before he headed to the zoo, so I took this chance to get a few pictures with my characters.. but my black spiderman didn't really feel like taking a picture b/c he was too upset that he couldn't play his friends DS before we left for our fun-filled evening.

Our cast of characters

A Must Have...

This is a great magazine that Kraft sends out every season... Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer!

It's easy to sign up and receive these for free..

Go to: http://www.kraftfoods.com/share and simply sign up and they'll send one to you.

These magazines are full of great recipe ideas related to the current season. I've used them often and there recipes taste great. Some have lunch box ideas for the kids.. they have great snack ideas for when the kiddos get home from school too.

HALLOWEEN IDEAS

Included in the fall magazine last year were the cutest halloween food ideas.. just visit http://www.kraftfoods.com/halloween to find these ghoulish goodies.

Another bonus inside includes these coupons that come tucked inside the magazine. Not too bad, huh? I hope you give it a shot and see what you think. I look forward to my newest food and family arriving each season. It's a pleasant surprise when it shows up in my mailbox.