Homemade with Love

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Our main tree. It is in a new spot for us this year, as we got a huge couch after Christmas last year. It is in such a visible spot this year. I love it. I had lots of help putting it up too. It takes so long to decorate that Wayne and the girls usually get bored and "find" something else to do. They stayed until the very end and kept the complaining to a minimum. There are something like 400-500 ornaments on this tree. It is insane. My favorite ornaments are the ones the girls have made. I also love that the girls put the Christmas tree lights on first thing in the morning. :)

This is our white and silver tree. It is in the dining room and really warms up the area.

This is also in our dining room. I put a live tree on the buffet, as well as a big basket of walnuts and a kraft-colored NOEL sign.

Have I mentioned how awesome my hubby is? I had this idea of wooden sleds that I wanted built. So, he made me a couple. One is rather big and this one sets perfectly as a centerpiece on the dining room table.

Here is our mantle complete with stockings, one of our two advent calendars, our Christmas reading, and a fresh wreath that smells ah-mazing.

This is our entryway and a couple of my Nicol Sayre pieces. Can you see the tip of my elbow in the mirror? This is the best picture I had. ;)

Let's go outside, shall we? Let me start out by saying that all of our decorating was done BEFORE Wayne's emergency appendectomy. I did not make him do any post-surgery decorating. With that said, I envisioned a "Christmas in the Country" theme for our outside decorations. My sweet husband just went with it, and by went with it, I mean he made me a 24-foot fence to go along with my theme and that beautiful sled on the porch. Did I mention the fence will be taken down and stored after Christmas is over? I have a friend who told me that I am *gasp* spoiled. Me spoiled? Maybe.

I bought the ice skates at an antique store a couple years back and love how they compliment the sled. I pulled stuff from the garage (like the metal basket with fake gifts and all the galvanized buckets) and the house (baskets and black table). I also like that we used found objects, like pine cones, to add to the live tree.

I know I have mentioned this before, but my guy made this chalkboard for me! He is awesome like that.

I love all the fresh greens and poinsettias all around the house.

That is the fence Wayne built. I hung fresh wreaths and he built a green box to cover the two spotlights that shine upon them at night.

I have been a bow-making maniac around here too. I filled the topiaries with pine cones we hunted for.

I LOVE how everything turned out. Inside and outside. It was loads of work, but we had fun working together. :)

Grateful

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year at my mom's house. My mom did an outstanding job cooking a yummy meal for us all to enjoy. Of course, after we ate, we planned our Black Friday shopping. Abigail joined us this year, as 12 is the magic age in our family. It was awesome to shop all together. Wayne teases me that I will get up early for only two things: Disneyland and Black Friday. He is totally right. ;)

She's ready to go! Her first Black Friday! We left just before midnight to hit Target, then Kohl's, Wal-mart, and out to eat doughnuts. We went home to sleep for a couple of hours then hit the stores again!

Here is a pic of the girls right in the middle of all the madness at Target. Oh my! It was CRAZY....but fun too!

A Happy Halloween

Although both of our beautiful girls dressed up for Halloween, Hailee decided not to trick-or-treat this year. Instead, she accompanied her sister, dad, and our friends, the Rhoades family, as they walked through the neighborhood.

This group of Giants players joined us this year. Weird thing is that I caught the bearded one kissing the long-haired man. Hmmmmm.

I probably shouldn't post this picture. I have no make-up on. Although I had no intention of dressing up to pass out candy, I am proud of how our Potato Head costumes turned out and glad that we wore them a second time.

My baby's haul. I love that smile on her face. :)

Pumpkin Carving

We had our annual Halloween pumpkin carving party the day before Halloween. We hosted family and friends for an afternoon of tricks and treats. Okay, mostly treats.

I spent A LOT of time preparing for our guests. My color scheme was orange, black, and blue. I LOVE those colors together. Wayne made me the BEST A-Frame chalkboard to greet our guests as they arrived.

We had a pumpkin taxi out front for our guests to use.

We set up a libation station outside with the tables. The swamp punch was a big hit. Can you tell I have a bit of a chalkboard obsession?

I set up the treat table inside the kitchen. I made cake pops, caramel and cheese popcorn, cupcakes, and a HUGE chocolate cake. I sewed the banners and made pom-pom wands. Wayne and I made the chalkboard cut-outs a couple of months before. Thankfully, I had the table cloth from our 4th of July celebration. That thing took so much fabric to make, I am pulling it out for EVERY holiday! ;)

Here is a picture of all of our guests. Love them all.

I am so disappointed I didn't take more pictures of the girls. I was running around like a crazy woman...I mean hostess. There is always next year. ;)

Disney's Halloween Party

In October, we visited Disneyland and went to Mickey's Halloween Party. Oh my! We had so much fun. We met our friends, the Giottas, and spent the evening with them. We trick-or-treated A LOT, went on lots of rides, and enjoyed the fun nighttime atmosphere.

The girls were Jessie and Sally. They looked adorable! Wayne and I went as Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. Things we might do differently if we are lucky enough to go again: 1). Go to the park fed! We used up about an hour of our time eating dinner. When the party is only five hours long, time is precious. 2). Make a mental list of everything we want to ride. There were virtually no lines for the rides. 3). Try something new. The people at the dance parties looked like they were having a blast. Wished we could have spent more time at one of those. 4). Pick a single character we want to have picture with. We only got in line for Jack Skellington, but I wish we would have gotten our pics with Mickey and Minnie instead. Those lines were really long. 5). Bring or buy extra strong bags for trick-or-treating, because you end up with LOADS of candy!

These are our pirate friends. Meet Tony, Dawn, and Andrew. :)

We went into the park the next day as well. We got to enjoy all the beautiful and festive Halloween decorations throughout the park. We love seeing the Haunted Mansion decked out in the Nightmare Before Christmas theme too.

Biggest disappointment? We found out that they no longer offer cookie decorating kits at Halloween or Christmas. This was one of our favorite activities to do. We could just sit for awhile and relax. We still had a wonderful time together. :)

Halloween Things I Love

1. New Halloween colors for me this year. My inspiration comes from a line of scrapbooking paper. I just love the addition of blue to our Halloween decor. In addition to purchasing some coordinating candies, I made pompom wands to include on the mantle.

2. Halloween Joe Joe's from Trader Joes. Any Joe Joe is a good Joe Joe. ;)

3. My skeleton "Jenga" game. I have had this for a few years, but what I love about it is that each time the girls walk past it, they remove a bone. There is usually a little pile of bones beside it. Yes, it has already fallen.

4. Halloween twine. Who am I kidding? I love all twine. Makes me happy.

5. Jack O'Lantern chalkboards. I went crazy during summer cutting out chalkboards. I finally get to use these! I glued knobs on the back, so we can use them as speech bubbles in photos too.

 6. Holiday-themed Legos we purchased at the Lego store in Downtown Disney earlier this month. I LOVE these little themed packages! I bought a package for our living room and one for each of the girls' rooms. They are awesome.

7. Baking supplies. I found these at Michael's and can't wait to use them to make cupcake spiders.

8. My camera strap cover that I made last month. I love how festive it is and how simple it was to make!

9. My creamy white and black dining room. Love that it doesn't scream orange and black.

Hailee's 15th Birthday

 
My sweet girl turned 15 in August and we celebrated at Disneyland. We left right after school and went to the park all day Saturday. We started the morning with her opening gifts in the hotel and a quick stop at Starbucks for breakfast and energy coffee. We made it to the park bright and early to get a jump on things.

 

Our first stop in the park was City Hall. Hailee got her birthday badge and a special birthday phonecall.

 
A few quick pictures on Main Street, then we headed to the rides. Did I mention it was starting to get very warm? Like scorching hot actually. By the early afternoon, we required ice cream, new baseball hats, and a spray bottle/fan (that was completely overpriced and an indication of how hot I really was).

 
 
 
 
 

We went to Storytellers Cafe for her birthday celebration dinner. It is at the Grand Californian Hotel and it's pretty yummy.
 
 
We ended the evening with fireworks (per Hailee's request). The fireworks are just so much better when you are actually in the park and listening to the story and music. So awesome. :)

On our way home, we stopped at the mall in Valencia, so that Hailee could use some of her birthday money to buy "Butt Jeans". That's what we call them. 'Cause they make your butt go "Ka-Pow!" Giggle-giggle.

She wore them the next day to school on her actual birthday.

 

We went for sushi (a meal that her sister takes VERY SERIOUSLY) for dinner, then ate the Sprinkles cupcakes we brought home from Beverly Hills. Mmmm.

 
We had an amazing weekend and hope our sweet girl had a wonderful 15th birthday!

 

What a trip!

I was reading a new blog recently and came across a post that made me laugh. The author's father told her once that you can't call a vacation a vacation if you bring kids, it's just a trip. This goes for bringing along other family as well. What a trip we had! In July, we roadtripped to Portland, Oregon. My mom and cousin Misty joined the four of us to make for one FUNky adventure!

Day 1:

Our first day consisted of driving. Lots of driving. We left our home around 5 a.m. and rolled into Portland around 8:30 p.m. Of course, that wasn't driving straight through. We made a few stops.

 
There are so many gorgeous covered bridges in Oregon. We stopped to snap a few pictures of a couple of them.

 

I snapped these two pics of the girls in the cutest little town. Oakland, Oregon. It is such a lovely little area with gorgeous old buildings.  
 
 
The last covered bridge we stopped to see before making it to Portland was Centennial Bridge.

 
 
Do we look tired yet??

Day 2:

 
 
During the morning, we rode the tram up to an observation deck to get a better view of Portland. It is such a beautiful city. We fell in love with it right away!

 
Next, we drove downtown to visit Powell's Bookstore. WOW. We spend a lot of time at our Barnes & Noble. I can't imagine how much time we would spend at Powell's. It is incredible. It has multiple floors and there are maps (which we first-timers needed) to help you navigate the store. My biggest disappointment about the visit.....it was too short.

 
 
 

After Powell's, we went back to the hotel to get dressed for the afternoon nuptuals. Wayne and I will celebrate our anniversary this week. It is our 20th anniversary and we wanted to renew our vows. We knew the girls would be back in school and we couldn't renew on our actual anniversary. So, we planned to do it in Portland at a doughnut shop. Not just any doughnut shop though. We went to Voodoo Doughnuts. It was fun....to say the least.

 

It was awesome having our daughters be the "young maidens" of honor, my mom be the "old maid"of honor (a role she embraced, btw), and Misty serve as matron of honor at our wedding a second time.

 
 
 
 
 
 

What did we wear? Although some people who marry at the doughnut shop dress formally, we opted for a casual cohesive look. Black and white.

 
The girls and I put together our bouquets from tootsie rolls pops and hand-cut paper flowers. Each "attendant" had her own color bouquet and I had a mixture. We even made Wayne a boutonniere. We gave out the lollipops to people in the shop as wedding favors. Why? Wayne and I are "suckers" for each other. Even after 20 years. :)

See our moustache sign that reads "The Weirdest Thing Ever!"? Wayne and I are always asking each other when we find ourselves in strange places or situations, "Is this the weirdest thing we've ever done?"  This was definitely Top 5 material. ;)

No cake this time, but obviously doughnuts. Each of us had our own voodoo doll in our own image and a giant heart with our names on it. Oh my goodness. Their doughnuts are the best. Seriously. They were insanely good. We also brought our bride/groom troll dolls that served as our original cake topper many, many years ago. :)

 

 

Our officiant was also one of the doughnut makers. He was so funny. We were married under the patron saint Kenny Rogers (who looked down upon us from a black velvet painting on the wall). That's normal, right?

 

 

After we took loads of photos, we drove back downtown. Wayne and I bought our "wedding gifts" to each other there. We each got a new pair of Doc Martens. :)

We then headed over to my favorite place to eat for our reception, The Old Spaghetti Factory. While we eventually got to our destination, I may have initially input the address incorrectly into the GPS. We found a gorgeous area of the city though....and stopped to take some photos before making it to our destination.

 
 
 

 Day 3:

We started off the morning with a nice little hike way uphill at Multnomah Falls. This was spectacular.

 
 
 
 
 
Next, we went to The View Point Inn. For any of you Twilight fans, this is where the prom scene was shot in the first movie. There was a fire there just a week or so before our visit. The owners will most likely not be rebuilding, so I am glad we got to visit when we did.

  
 
 
We then headed to Vancouver, Washington for lunch. Just because it sounded awesome to say we did that. In reality, it was just minutes from our hotel. ;)

After lunch, we headed back to downtown Portland to explore a different area. We cooled our feet in a fountain, shopped a bit, then headed to the Rose Garden. Can you tell we didn't stop at all during our trip?

  
 

This is either a really good deal or a really weird man. Maybe a combination of the two?

 

The Rose Garden
 
 

My mom. :) 
 
 
 

Day 4:

We started off the morning with a visit to the beautiful Japanese Gardens. I am so glad we chose this as one of our stops. It is simply stunning.

 
 
 
This is such a beautiful picture of my Hailee. 
 

For those of you who really know Abby, you totally get this picture. Am I right?
 

Let's find our happy place, shall we?
 

Me and my mom. :)
 
 

We were starving after our Japanese Garden visit, so we followed Hailee's suggestion and went to Slappy Cakes. We are so glad we did! It was delicious. There is a griddle in the middle of the table and you order different toppings that they bring out to you. You make your own pancakes while waiting for your meal. Mmmmmm.

 

 
 
 
 
 

After our breakfast/lunch, we stopped at the Urban Farm Store. My urban farmer and I LOVED this place. Made us want to live in Portland even more.

 
Misty requested we take a trip to Roloff Farms. She loves Little People, Big World and was hoping to see one of the Roloffs. Sadly, we only got to see their sign. :(

 

We made our way back to Portland and to the biggest and awesomest fabric store ever, Fabric Depot. This place was HUGE! I sure wish I had more time (and an unlimited budget) to spend here. I have never seen so much fabric. Ever.

We made our way back to an awesome shopping area near our hotel and had dinner. Even though there was so much left to see, we needed to get back to our hotel to ready ourselves for the car ride home the next morning.

Our trip was officially over. We had such a wonderful, fun, and awesome adventure together. This is the kind of vacation where lifelong memories are made with the people we love.

Oh, and one more stop at Voodoo doughnuts for some sugar for the road. ;)

First day of school 2011

 

Hailee walked on the MHS campus today as a sophomore. Sigh. She had a great first day of school. She has friends in all of her classes and likes all of her teachers (so far). She anticipates lots of extra homework and is not looking forward to AP Euro History. Personally, I don't blame her a bit.

 

My baby, Abigail, started her first day of seventh grade. She also had a great day at school and likes her teachers. She is nervous about her algebra and science classes. She accidentally got into colorguard this year, but will change over to yearbook in the next day or two (something she is excited about).

All-in-all it was a successful first day back. I am excited about the structure and routine the new school year brings, but can't help feeling a little sad at the ending of a great summer together. :)

Abby's Disney Birthday

 
We left the day before Abby's birthday for Southern California. We made a quick stop in Beverly Hills for cupcakes and craft supplies. We then headed to our hotel to decorate the room and relax a bit. Then we were off to DCA. Abby chose all the rides we went on. While the girls went on the Symphony Swings (no thank you), Wayne and I headed for the midway. We won them each a big stuffed Mickey (<----that was me) and a sea animal "boobie" prize (<------courtesy of Wayne). After the girls saw what we won, they wanted to play too. They each won another "boobie" prize and Abigail won a big stuffed Bullseye.

We rode the rapids before walking around Downtown Disney awhile, having dinner, then going back to the hotel.

 
 
We woke up at the crack of dawn the next morning for an early start to Abby's special day. I had to snap a quick pick of her cupcakes before we left the hotel. Love Sprinkles.

 
Next, we were off to Disneyland. We stopped at the picnic area for her to open her gifts.

 
One of her gifts from us was the chalkboard she was holding up in the picture. I drew it out, painted it, and glued on the bow. Wayne cut it out, sanded it, and adhered the handle on the back. A great team effort!

 
 
Love this picture of the birthday girl and her sister. :)

Next, we stopped by City Hall for a birthday badge and a quick birthday phone call from Goofy.

 
 

Abby's favorite meal is breakfast, so she chose Breakfast with Minnie and Friends as her special treat. It is awesome. We enjoyed our delicious breakfast, while characters come around to every table for pictures. No standing in line. :)

 

 
 
 
We were all super excited to see Minnie. She saw and held Abigail's chalkboard, turned around and quickly walked away with it! We all looked at each other in shock. Where the heck did Minnie go with the sign? Minutes went by and we figured she wanted to use it for someone else's birthday. Then she comes around the corner back to our table and turns the board around for Abigail to see. She had autographed it! Such an awesome treat! So awesome, in fact, that I will overlook the uncrossed "t" and lack of comma after Love. ;)

 
 

I thought this picture was funny.
 
After breakfast and pictures with the characters, we sang Happy Birthday to our sweet girl.

 
Wayne and Hailee went to the lockers to put everything away, so we could start our adventure in the park. Abby and I had time for a quick picture or two. My beautiful girl is growing up so quickly. :(

 

 

Love this pic on Big Mountain Thunder Railroad. This was probably one of the last pics of the day too. We were too busy having fun. Although the park was packed, we rode loads of rides at Disneyland and DCA. We also stopped in Downtown Disney to buy Abby a souvenir and then we left for a very late dinner. A perfect ending to an awesome day.

 

Before heading out the next morning, I grabbed a picture of Abigail holding up the birthday sign I sewed to decorate the hotel room. Good thing is that I am going to use that again next month when we celebrate Hailee's birthday in Disneyland!

 
We didn't get to ride Pirates (my favorite ride) the day before, so we went back to the park for one last ride before heading north.

 
Don't we look tired? The cast member who took our picture must have thought so too. She told us that we looked defeated and that we should grab some coffee. What the heck? ;)

 
We also needed to grab a treat for the long car ride home. Aren't those apples beautiful? The girls ate them a few days after we got home. They are tasty too!

 

 
 
We are so happy our birthday girl had a wonderful time! We love you, Abby!