Happy New Year!!

I hope your 2010 ends on a fantastic note & your 2011 begins better than you can imagine!!!

No big grand plans for us....thinking we might just have to plan a big bash for next year since it will be on a Saturday and all!!!!!!!!!

For 2010 I will be partying with these 2 little rockstars!! We have big plans of painting nails, making homemade twinkies & trying to stay up till midnight!!! I will last as long as they make me stay up ;)

Girls bathroom update!

OK, so this is the 3rd time I have redecorated our girls bathroom upstairs!?! The first time we had literally just finished building the room...sheetrock, plumbing, everything! Savannah was just a baby and I quickly found some angel motif to go with and made it work........I quickly tired of that since I really wasn't in love with to begin with but just lived with it since we had way to much else going on with a new baby 7 finishing the house.......then she was about 4, time flies!?!? I did a country outhouse theme complete with chickens painted on the walls and pictures of Savannah looking into outhouses on a preschool field trip! At that time I knew we would have at least 1 more baby and didn't want to do a girly bathroom in case we had a boy come along! Well now that we are done with kiddos and have 2 girly girls I found some super cute ideas for a bright fun and colorful bathroom!

I used these awesome products by http://www.wallies.com/ cannot say enough about their stuff!! Of course I didn't pay full price, got both of these @ 1/2 off sale so it was under $20 with shipping & all!!! Frilly dots & Green Garden are the 2 I chose! I love that site and all the amazing wall treatments that are super easy to put up but sooo not permanent because lets face it, I change my mind a lot (just ask Dave!).

Another shout-out for Lowes Valspar Hi-Def Ultimate Hiding paint! Its paint and primer all in 1 and since I (A) never have tons of free time & (B) hate to paint, especially coat after coat this was fantastic! I was covering over the sponged golden color it was before with a bright white?! I know, there are 0 white walls in our house so this was a shock but I knew I was using the bright flowers and accents so didn't want the girls to have to wear sunglasses when they were in the bathroom ;)

I had a plan for quite awhile and started purchasing items as I came across them, like these amazing lights my sister and I found when we went to the Bouckville Antique Show this summer! Here is Dave installing them, much to his dismay since he hated them from the moment I brought them home! Can't you see the joy on his face?!?!? He had to basically rewire both lights entirely and install ceiling plates since the new lights were not as big as the old fixtures!

See how thrilled he is???

Now, we just need to get the master bathroom vanity redone & we can move those 2 vanities upstairs and complete this room! Remember when I mentioned here about the buffet that will be turned into a master dual sink vanity...well we have the buffet, sinks, faucets (thanks mom for our Christmas present!) & are just about ready to tackle that project! But for now, here is the girls bathroom & they are both totally in love with it!!

First, here are the lights in all their gaudy glory!!!

Bright crisp white walls with fun pops of colorful dots & flowers! Super hot pink shower curtain and still searching for a rug, holding out till the 2 vanities are up here & have a few little treasures saved to add once they are in place!

MERRY Christmas!

WOW!!! Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your day was filled with family and/or friends and lots of joy!!! We had a great laid back day which is my favorite way to spend Christmas..the girls did not even change out of their pajamas at all!! We used to host Christmas dinner or have to haul them out somewhere midday but last year we started the new tradition of having just a simple family Christmas at home and its so nice!! I grew up that way and have great memories of Christmas at home and want the same for my girls!! They can play with their new toys all day, the house is a disaster with wrapping paper and cardboard all over & it doesn't matter! We still love to celebrate with the rest of the family and will do that tomorrow, our 3rd Christmas!?! We have a skype celebration with my family last weekend which was so fun to see my nieces & nephews & my mom and sisters!

My most favorite part of Christmas day is seeing the girls faces in the morning and hearing the excitement in their voices!! There is nothing else like that and nothing can top it! Here are a few pictures of our Christmas 2010!

That first view of the santa surprises!!!

Santa left Nintendo DS for Savannah & the famous doll bed & highchair for Emerson!

YUMMY breakfast, cinnamon rolls from one of my favorite food blogs!!

Now I have to run and make the red velvet cupcakes for our 3rd and final Christmas celebration tomorrow!

WOW, nothing like waiting till the last minute...

Ok, so remember waaaaaayy back when I gave a teaser about this great find @ Salvation Army for Emerson's Christmas gift....promised to have before & after pics sometime before 12/25....well its 12/24 and literally just finished it this morning!?!? Of course I had both pieces for months and planned to be so on top of it and get it all done early, well I started working on it Monday so I guess considering my track record of being up all night Christmas Eve finishing Santa's projects like a little elf I am doing pretty well! :)

Here is the before shot...loving the blue paint and super bright birds aren't you?!?!

I also scored this FREE great vintage highchair from someone on freecycle.org as the other part of her big Santa surprise!!

Sanded, primed and getting a nice coat of shiny pink paint!! Almost ready for their big reveal Christmas morning, just need a few finishing touches & of course a baby w/ accessories!!!

Here they are waiting by the tree for Emmie to see tomorrow morning.....

cannot wait to see her face!!!!!!!!!

Teacher Christmas gifts!!!!

Christmas this year we have been trying to really make a point of the giving part, not just the receiving with our girls! We started at Thanksgiving with the girls giving little gifts to their teachers and I really like homemade gifts & everyone seems to really appreciate the extra effort and thoughtfulness so after lots of searching online and looking at WAAAAYYYYY too many blogs I came up with hot cocoa mix & marshmallow candy cane stir sticks! So fun, we made 8 of these and it really was pretty easy & inexpensive! Savannah gave them to her bus driver, teacher, nurse, principal and front office ladies & Emerson will give them to her 2 preschool teachers tomorrow! Nice to be able to check something off my list with 3 more days till Christmas!!

First we made our cocoa, I used the recipe from here Hot Cocoa Mix but I added a bit more cocoa to the mix since we didn't think it was chocolatey enough ;) I used their cute little Snowman Soup poem too.

Printed free gift tags onto white cardstock from here Snowman Tags. Inside the tag was the poem & a little note to say Merry Christmas from the whichever girl.

I also made these super cute stir sticks from here Hot Cocoa Stirrers , I have to say that hers look WAY better than mine & I should have gone with the brand of markers she said because I just grabbed Wilton food markers @ Joanns and they didnt work well at all, even though they were fine tip :( I ended up writing "brrr" on one and drawing the cup of cocoa on the other because the markers were not easy to work with on squishy marshmallows!

Then I packaged them all together in pint size jars with super cute red/white checkered lids by Better Homes & Gardens I found @ Walmart. I used cute little treat bags for the stirrers & finished off with ribbon!!

Oh Christmas Tree........

We went and got our Christmas tree over the weekend...every year we hike out and cut it down and every year we say, next year we will get a fake tree to avoid the hike in deep snow, freezing cold with 2 girls whining they want to be done and go home.......but we always end up doing it again!?!? This year at a local farm they did a fundraiser for one of the area preschools -any tree, any size $20 and 100% of the profits went to the preschool! We got a really gorgeous 9' blue spruce! Of course we had to cut off about 2' to fit it in the house but that's better than normal considering I almost always pick a 12-14 foot tree but to my defense its really hard to judge the size against these 20'+ tall trees in the middle of a field of trees! Dave LOVES it, I mean absolutely loves it too because I will not let him bring his chainsaw...there is nothing Christmasy about the roar of a chainsaw & smell of oil & gasoline...no way..bring on that old handy bow saw for our tree!!!!

Enjoy some pictures of our adventure! Oh yea, & there was some guy walking around with a chainsaw to cut it down for you....I thought Dave was gonna come unglued when I passed on his kind offer ;) I did however get him some help dragging it outta the field to the road!!!

{Can you see Savannah's little head sticking out there, she is quite the helper!!!}

Here it is all lit up & decorated!!! The flash really shows the blue hue on the branches but makes it look a little crazy too..My crappy camera does not do it justice...I have asked Santa to bring me a fancy DSLR camera this year so we will see!!!!!

Jeff Foxworthy on living in upstate NY!!!

I can seriously relate to several of these......sad but true?!?!?

LIVING IN UPSTATE NY:

If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 36 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by, you might live in Upstate New York .

If you're proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights a year because Saranac Lake is the coldest spot in the nation, and Syracuse gets more snow than any other major city in the US , you might live in Upstate, NY.

If your local ice cream stand is closed from October through May, you might live in Upstate
New York .

If you get 131 inches of snow in a week and you comment that 'winter's finally here', you might live near Oswego in Upstate New York .

If you instinctively walk like a penguin for six months out of the year, you might live, bundled up, in Upstate New York .

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance, and they don't work there, you might live in Upstate NY.

If your dad's suntan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead, you might live in
Upstate New York .

If you have worn shorts and a parka on the same day, you might live in Upstate New York .

If you have had a lengthy phone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you might live in Upstate New York .


YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TRUE UPSTATE
NEW YORKER WHEN:

"Vacation" means going South past Syracuse for the weekend.

You measure distance in hours.

You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.

You often switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again.

You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.

You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend/wife knows how to use them.

You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.

You can identify a southern or eastern accent.

Down South to you means Corning

You go out for a fish fry every Friday .

Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.

You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.

You find 10 degrees "a little chilly." and 55 is shorts weather.

Hooray for our 1st snow day of the season!!!

Since the start of this week Savannah has been wishing and hoping for a snow day!!! PJ's inside out, icecube thrown out the back door, pencil in the freezer.....she has been doing all these tricks the kids come up with & finally today she got her wish!! We have over 3 feet of snow since the weekend and more coming...then they forecast a noreaster for Sunday...WOW...all I know is with all this we better have a white Christmas or I will be so MAD!!!!

We started out with a 2 hour delay...then updated to CLOSED and she was over the moon!

{notice the inside out jammies!!}

Our little snow bunnies!

Silver & Gold!

That song on Rudolph (at least I think its rudolph, with that little old man singing it?!?!) was running through my head the other day while in the midst of dragging out my Christmas decorations.......I have too much but yet didn't want to use 1/2 of it!?!? I have been in a whole "less is more" mood lately and then suddenly I remembered a blog somewhere this fall that had used branches to decorate their mantle.....We just had a crazy windy rainstorm come through so tons of branches around the yard for the taking! Hubby thought I was a little crazy but happy nonetheless since I was cleaning up the yard at the same time decorating and it was not costing him anything!! WIN WIN!

So...here is what I came up with........silver & gold metallic spray paint, a few branches....a vintage white hobnail vase I had picked up @ a rummage sale over the summer for only 25cents! Voila..I am pretty happy with it and now on the search for pine cones.....we do not have any pine trees in our yard so if you do I would be happy to come by and clean up some of those dropped pine cones ;)

Here is a little picture of it on the buffet in our dining room which is not quite complete yet...

FUN Thanksgiving snack for the kids!

Here is a super fun and easy dessert for the kids this Thanksgiving!! My friend posted a picture of some that her kids made on facebook and they were so fun we had to try it out!!!

Yesterday afternoon my girls made some after school and it was super easy! :) All you need is OREO cookies, whoppers, candy corn & a little tube of icing (we used white for the eyes and pink for the waddle since that's what I had on hand)

Take 2 OREO cookies per turkey, separate 1 and use the side with cream for the base of the turkey, take the other OREO and prop it up near the back of the base OREO. Stick the candy corn in the middle for feathers and use the whopper as the head, dot on eyes & waddle with the icing and you are done!

Teacher gift ~ Thanksgiving Thank You!

Teachers...they play a HUGE part in our kids daily life and while we should thank them daily I am sure we don't! This time of year, Thanksgiving, is a time for showing our gratitude and realizing just how much we have to be thankful for! I wanted to put together a little thank you gift for Savannah's 1st grade teacher and her bus driver (they have an incredibly important job of delivering our kids to school and back home safely everyday!!) and Emerson's 2 preschool teachers. As always, little $$ to spend so cheap yet thoughtful was my goal!

I have TONS of these vintage canning jars in the attic (sshhh..don't tell Dave because I don't think he knows exactly how many are hiding up there!) I grabbed 4 and cleaned them up with some multi-surface windex & scrubbed the metal part with some steel wool. I found a fabric quarter @ Walmart over the weekend ($1) and a roll of thick jute type ribbon ($1.97)...combine that with 3 bags of candy (on SALE & with coupons of course!)

Candy into the jars, cute fabric on top under the glass lid, clamp them down and tie a piece of the thick jute ribbon around the neck of the jar, then I used a leaf template I have for scrapbooking and cut out 3 colorful leaves to write our thank you notes on and attached those using leftover garden twine!

I put together 4 nice gifts for under $10 TOTAL!!!

Declaration!

Ok....so if I put it in writing for whomever reads this blog to see then I feel more accountable and will hold myself to it right?!?!?!

WHAT you are asking is this life changing declaration??? Simply 3 words....LET IT GO.......

I find myself feeling overwhelmed 98% of the time and I cannot live up to the expectations I set for myself. I guess it comes from being a stay at home mom...I do daycare part time to bring in extra $$ and my share of the bacon if you will but I just put this enormous amount of pressure on myself to have to earn my keep! Perfection?!?! What a joke!!!

My house does not need to be perfectly clean, sometimes dinner is not going to be this amazing meal that arrives on time, my kids can watch more TV than "the man" says they should, enjoy my girls - they are 2 & 6 already and they will be 16 & 20 before I know it! Embrace the craziness and chaos instead of fighting it, help out friends but don't be ashamed to receive help either! These are just a few of my new rules. I have made a promise to myself & my family for a weekly family game night...a monthly date night with the hubs (even if after paying the sitter all we can afford to do is sit at the lake and look out at the water).....spending less time working on the never ending to do list and more time savoring everyday moments.....taking time for myself to not be a mom or wife but just a woman with thoughts and ideas and hobbies and friends all of my own.......all of this is easier said than done for me...especially the last one........BUT I will not have a crappy marriage and I will not make my kids look back and wish things had gone differently and have to make this change in their adult life because I didn't make it in mine, I will be that example for them of how to live a full and happy life....so I will make this change and hope to see everyone benefit from it!

The saying - A happy wife makes a happy life - SO true...as women we wear many hats and expect so much from ourselves but just as I heard from a speaker at MOPS this morning who was talking about stress with the holiday season....she said - simplify.....a frazzled mom is no fun!!!

So there.......now its out there for the whole world to see....or at least the handful of people that read this blog ;) Hold me to it friends!!!!!

COMPOST!!!

So, those of you that know me, know that I am cheap and save money wherever I can! We separate our cardboard & recyclable items so we only have 1 can of garbage a week to take to the dump! I have looked into compost bins for awhile know but they are pricey! We have always had a vegetable garden and this summer took the time to fence it in (you can see that here) and make it a really nice area! So, aside from saving $$ on garbage every week the compost thing would work great to make our garden soil even better for next year!

Not to mention for all you tree huggers out there, "hooray, go green be kind to your planet yadda...yadda..yadda" Not that I am not a fan of being good to our earth and doing my part, I just don't go all crazy over it...but with this project we get benefits on all points!

Today was the day! I looked online to find basic plans for a DIY composter, grabbed an extra storage tote I had in the attic and ran outside! With a drill we made several holes in the lid and sides of the tote and a few on the bottom for drainage. We got super fancy and even spelled out "Compost" on the side of the bin! Dave even jumped in & helped, as much as he makes fun of my "blogland" he likes to make the picture roll occasionally ;)

We then put some leaves and dirt in the bottom of it and now have our very own compost bin! So now we just take our food scraps out and toss them in the bin, give a stir occasionally and Voila, so easy...took literally 5 minutes to do and the rewards will be fantastic!

$0 project, gotta love that!!