Grammy's Apron

For Christmas this year I wanted to make my Grammy an apron. Originally it was supposed to be her birthday gift, but the pattern my Mom and I started using just was not working. It was really difficult and I was not impressed with how it was turning out.

So I went to JoAnn's and found a pattern with fabric for an easy apron. I loved the fabric, at first, but then I found this cute dog pattern and decided I would use the pattern for this apron! I am so happy with how it turned out. I just wish I could see her open it on Christmas day!

The pocket

And here it is :-) You can't see the straps but they aren't anything special LOL

Christmas Wreath

I was so worried that I wouldn't have time this year to make a new wreath for our home. I made our original one back when I lived with Jenny in our apartment. So the other night I sat down and just put it together.

Here it is waiting to be decorated:

My supplies

The old one:

And our new one :-) It's bigger than the other and so much prettier!

I love how it turned out! It is very glittery too so the porch light hitting it makes it sparkle :-)

BAKING DAY 2009

Every year since I can remember we've held a Baking Day. When I was younger it was always at my Grammy's house and it would be all the Aunts and the cousins. We'd bake all day long!

Since my Grammy moved we no longer have it at her house. But My Mom, My Sister and I still do our own Baking Day at my Mom's house!

I just had to share some of the pictures :-)

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies :)

Party Peppermint Patties

Egg Nog Thumbprints - These were a big hit at my office

All the cookies from one side of the table

Fromthe other side of the table

I made these Chewey Caramel bars. As good as they look they were not that good. I threw them all out :-(

My Sister, My Mom and I with all of our cookies

And the grand total (minus a few eaten before being counted): 41.34 dozen :-)

It was such a fun day! I love baking!

Christmas Tree and Lights

I also needed to post pictures of our tree with the gifts underneath it! Here are some pictures!

And here is apicture of the lights from our back patio. We got icicle lights around the front fence and around the back door. Our back patio is what everyone uses as our front door because it's right off the street (Chuck and I are the only ones who use the front door) and it's the part of our condo that people can see from the street so we made sure to decorate it really nicely. Next year we are planning on putting up more icicle lights :-)

Sugar Cookies for Work

Christmas Decorations

So this is extremely picture heavy but I wanted to show off some of our decorating :-)

Here is a couple shots of our living room standing in our dining room!

This is right above the fireplace. The two up top are Chuck and I's and then the four on the bottom are ones I did this year for the pets. Each has their name and a christmas tree pin that I made (from a kit I found at Michaels) and pinned on to give a little more decoration!

Here is a cute little Santa I've had for a few years that sits on our DVD holder!

3 of my mini snowglobes! I love snowglobes!

I got this cute nutcracker at Michaels on thanksgiving! He's perfect for Chuck and I.

Here is one of our walls!

This has got to be my favorite! It's in the middle shelf on our wall above! It's actually salt and pepper shakes but I just love them!

This is our dining room wall. I have some cute themed snowman figurines and 2 of my snowglobes that Chuck got me the last 2 years! And a cute minnie musical doll that came from his Grandma's house.

This sits on our breakfast bar. in case it's not clear those are pinecone candles on the sides!

This little guy came from my mom! It's a candle holder, but he's so cute! The sign says Noel.

And here is our Mini tree! I have one at the office and one at home. The ornaments are from Rudolph and Santa Claus is comin to town (the movies) and then of course the new South Park ornaments we got! HAHA. This sits on a shelf on the first landing of our stairs!

Our house is so festive! I have a bunch of other decorationst that I haven't taken pictures of that I should add later. And I still have to make our new wreath for this year! Looks like I'll have a busy weekend! Speaking of the weekend I am so EXCITED. We have Tree Trimming at my parents on saturday night! I cannot wait!

Our Christmas Tree and New Ornaments

Our new tradition (2nd year) is gifts from Santa Claus. It landed on the right day this year for the German tradition of the shoe in the window. But we got new pajama pants. And with as cold as it's been getting these flannel pants will be so nice to have :-) Chuck also got a new fleece hoodie! Santa probably saw how much he steals my sweatshirts :-)

Here is our beautiful tree we got at Home Depot. 2nd year in a row of Home Depot tree and it's a gorgeous tree! It's probably at 7 ft and is really bushy :-) Quite a bit bigger than our tree last year! Don't think we can go any bigger in our condo without it taking over the living room!

Chuck and I also get each other a new ornament each year (this came from my Family's tradition) and this year he got me another kitty ornament. it's the next one in the series he started buying me last year! It's so cute! I love cats!

This year Chuck got two ornaments from me! I found this little guy at Big Lots for $1.00 so I bought one for him and one for his Dad who has a specific 49ers Christmas tree each year!

The front view!

Here is Chuck with is ornaments. The other ornament I got is on the right. When you push the bottom it plays Christmas songs :-) Figures he'd like the cheaper one the best!

This ornament is one my Mom bought us awhile back. The business was closing (I think I remember that correctly) and it was in the same area as her old job so she went and bought us this beautiful ornament! I love him, he is so pretty!

And here is the tree fully decorated. I was so happy because this year we finally got to stop having to put on our "cheap" ornaments LOL. We finally accumulated enough nicer ornaments that I absolutely love. We have some glass multi color balls, some glass ornaments I got this year and then our ornaments we get each year. And I am so excited because my Mom has a bunch of ornaments from my Grandma's that are mine from when I was a kid! I can't wait to put those on the tree!

Here it is all lit up :-) I am going to try and take some better pictures of it lit up but my camara was dying so I had to take them quickly :-) But I got some new batteries and tonight my plan is to get a nicer picture!

I love our tree so much! We got new beautiful glass ornaments, a brand new tree skirt, and our wonderful tree topper we got last year that I still love :-)

Happy Holidays!

Tree Hunting!!!!

So today we went and got our Christmas Tree :-) I was so EXCITED! We had some errands to run and then we went to Home Depot to get our tree!! You may laugh or say Home Depot isn't a tree farm but two years now we've gotten an AMAZING tree!

Here we are after we bought it, some nice gentleman offered to take a picture for us :-)

In the back of my HHR..I love my car! It fits our 7 ft tree, granted the top rides up front with us but it's not in the way at all, just the tip of it!

Chuck taking the netting off to free the branches!

Me trimming the tree branches at the bottom! It had a few branches that were looking pretty sad!

And here it is!! It's actually a lot bigger than our tree last year! It's about the same height but it's a lot fuller! I love it! It has made the house smell great already! And I bought the tree skirt last year at target when it was like 75% off so I was really happy to have a nice tree skirt this year!

Tomorrow night we have our Tree Trimming to decorate it! I am so excited! I can't wait to give Chuck his ornament and get the tree nice and decorated with some new nice ornaments we bought this year and get rid of the cheapo ornaments I've had for years!!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

2009 Christmas Projects

So Friday night I started a few Christmas Projects I need to get done!

The first one is these trees made out of Pipe Cleaners. My Mom and I went to a craft fair and saw a really cute idea. You make trees out of pipe cleaners and attach a little satchel of candies to the bottom! I started working on the trees friday night. I got 3 of them done but here are two of them! I bought button gold stars for the tops!

I also found this cutie at Michaels for $1. It was a Christmas Tree pin the you put together yourself. I got all the "Decorations" added and glued the flashing lights on. I was going to originally wear it as a pin but then I had a better idea. I bought 4 stockings and put the animals names on them to hang at the fireplace with our stockings and thought this would be a cute accessory to add. So today we went and got 3 more to make and put on the stockings!

I plan on finishing up the trees and the stockings tomorrow plus finishing up a few more small Christmas projects but we shall see :-) I'll post more pictures once I've finished it all up!

Danielle's Christmas Wreath

One thing I love doing is putting Christmas wreaths together! I haven't had a reason to make one for 2 years now but this year I got to make one for my sister's best friend Danielle and I am making a new one for Chuck and I. But I sat down Friday night and worked on Danielle's.

Here are the supplies I got from Michael's Crafts :-)
The wreath with the ribbon wrapped around it :-)

A close up of some of the wreath!

And here is the wreath all day! It's not the best picture of it but it really sparkles! It's quite glittery and I was worried it would be too much, but she loved it! Now I am excited to get ours done and hang the old on on our back patio and the new on the front door :-)