Christmas Breakfast...Cinnamon Baked French Toast

Photo from Pioneer Woman

When I saw Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Baked French Toast on Pinterest I almost drooled on my keyboard. I am SO making this for Christmas morning! Nothing like being preggo with twins to make a girl extra excited about Christmas breakfast! If you haven't ever made anything from The Pioneer Woman you need to! I swear everything is delish!

*We're also going to have our traditional eggs & bacon because my boys love their bacon! We all should be rolling away from the table Christmas morning and that should lead to a fabulous Christmas nap. I've just created this pregnant woman's dream!

Merry Christmas!

Hope you are all enjoying time with your loved ones during the season that we celebrate our Savior's birth!

Lots of Love,

Shelly

Oh Christmas Tree!

For the past 3 years or so we've done the Griswold Family Christmas thing and made the trek up to the mountains with friends to get our Christmas tree. Some years are better than others as far as trees go, but it's always a great time! This year the tree was by far the worst we've ever had. Ash was SO done with the experience by the time we made it up to the top (should have gone after nap time) and so we just kind of grabbed a tree that we figured would work. Did I mention that I everything was covered with a really icy snow that wouldn't shake off so we couldn't really see what our tree looked like!?! But.... the bottom looked really nice. After Thanksgiving we had our tree stand all ready in the corner of our living room expecting a nice pretty tree, that wasn't what we got....



I was feeling a bit sassy and asked if we needed a tree stand or a vase. Micah swore that he had a plan and so the tree makeover began.

Micah brought in the drill and started drilling holes to transplant the pretty branches that were from the bottom of the tree that we lost when we cut this guy down to size.

So she's not the prettiest but that's quite a makeover! Move over Martha...we even craft our Christmas trees!

Pottery Barn Inspired Votive Holder

I think this Pottery Barn inspired votive holder from Shanty 2 Chic is super cute! You should make one this weekend! Or maybe two and gift me one! Can't blame a girl for trying!!

*Here is the original from PB. 

Christmas Memory Game

For any of you who are snowed in (or rained in depending on where you live) a nice quiet game of memory may be just the thing you want to get your little ones into. Moo Moos & Tutus has a free printable game just for you! Hope you all are staying warm and dry!

Noel Sign

Oh my goodness I was gone for so long! I have been fighting off some nasty little thing lately (and with my super kindergarten immunities you know it has to be nasty to drag me down!) and it had completely wiped me of all energy. I got a lot of you don't look good. Or the one that made me really laugh was, you're so quiet you must not feel good. Can you tell I am a chatter!?! The best was that I had lost my sparkle...how perfect with my love of glitter!  Finally, it turned into a silly cold and I'm happy as a clam to be on the mend! So....hope you all have been busy with your advent countdowns. I was really sneaky last week and traded in some holiday movie and game nights instead of the more high energy plans I had. So that means we're doing Santa prints, reindeer prints, making cookies, decorating graham cracker houses etc. all next week. Good thing it's break and I'll be able to sneak in a few naps!
Anyways...back to being crafty!

There is lots of love going around blogland for this really cool Noel sign and I totally see why! I love it! I really want to make one of my own. I am putting it on my project list for winter break. I just hope mine can come out as good as hers! The Stories of A 2 Z (one of my long time blog loves) has a full tutorial on how to make this Pottery Barn inspired sign.

Counting the Days till Christmas Activities...

The holiday season is so full of magic and I enjoy adding as much extra excitement to the season for my boys as I can. I wanted to have something special for the boys to look forward to each day so I created this counting the days till Christmas.
The bags were beyond simple to do. Just plain white bags with red numbers stamped on them.
Once I had the bags I looked at our calendar and typed up things we were planning on doing to put in the proper date bag. For example we're making wreaths with some friends on the 8th so that card was put in the #8 bag. After I had everything that was on the calendar in a bag I filled in the rest with fun holiday things like decorating gingerbread houses, having hot cocoa with marshmallows, watching a holiday video, making cookies, painting an ornament, going sledding, etc. I only have bags 1-10 on the mantel right now. I like mine to be spread apart so I didn't put all of them out at once. It just looked too cluttered to me.
We did our first bag this evening which had a strip of paper that said hot cocoa with marshmallows. The boys were so excited to enjoy their hot cocoa after dinner and are already pumped about what the bag will say tomorrow. We're visiting Santa right after school so we'll let them check it in the morning. It's as fun as I had hoped it would be!

Here's what we have coming up if you need ideas for this week:
1: hot cocoa with marshmallows
2: Santa visit
3: Dinner & a Movie Outreach *our church is having a community outreach evening where we're serving soup, having a movie, and making crafts with the kids.
4: Decorating our Christmas tree (I can't believe it's not up yet!!! Poor thing has been sitting on our back porch for over a week!)
5: Advent Wreath Family Reflection #2

Homemade Advent Wreaths

Our church does the coolest thing....after the service on the first Advent Sunday they have supplies for all families to make their own Advent wreaths. We love this activity and look forward to celebrating Advent with as a family every year.

These wreaths are super easy to make all you need is:

some floral foam, a tin pie pan (any pan or dish would do), evergreen boughs, 4 candles (traditionally there are 3 purple candles and one pink but our church used white because you can get them super cheap at IKEA), and some pretty ribbon for a bow.

First, you put the foam in the tin and pour plenty of water on the foam to keep the greens fresh.

Second, you push the candles into the foam.

Then, you start putting the greens into the foam. I like to start at the bottom and go all around then build up another row, go around & around until it's all full and pretty.

There will be a few holes on the top so we cheat and just lay them across.

After all the holes are filled in, we find the perfect place for the bow.

Don't worry if you missed this last Sunday, just do it this week and then get on track this Sunday.
Week 1:
Light one candle. This candle represents Christ as the light of the world.

Scripture Readings:
John 1:1-5
Luke 1:26-38

Family Reflections:

• Did you know that the "word" is a special name for Jesus? It means that Jesus tells us what God is like.
• Mary must have been afraid and confused at first but she trusted God. Sometimes we're afraid  to do what we know God wants because people might laugh at us or be mad at us. Has there been a time where you trusted God and did the right thing even though you were confused or afraid?

Prayer:
Thank God for coming as one of us, offering us forgiveness for sin and an opportunity to spend eternity in God's loving presence.

Activity:
Take time this week to be Christ's light to others. Bring food to a food bank, bring a neighbor a treat, let your brother or sister have the first turn, help your parents by doing an extra chore.

Here were some of our friends' finished wreaths...

Rosette Christmas Tree

Shanty 2 Chic is one of my blog loves and here is their latest and greatest...the Rosette Christmas Tree! With all the snow outside this color scheme seems perfect! Did I mention that it's a snow day tomorrow!?! Sorry, the first snow day always makes me a little giddy!!!

Pottery Barn Advent Calendar

I love this advent calendar from Pottery Barn but it's a bit more than I'm willing to spend. So this year I'm going to make one of my own. Homemade by Jill has some ornament templates for the project. I just need to get my MIL to make this our next sewing class. My MIL is giving me sewing lessons...bless her heart. I am a bit of a slow learner with sewing, but she's so sweet always telling me I'm doing a good job even when I am pulling out all my stitches.

Faux Snowballs

I am SO making Susie's faux snowballs to go on my mantel in my glass cloches! How fabulous is it that they can go in Dec. 1st and stay through winter!?! I l-o-v-e, love it when I can use crafty little touches for more than just one month.

Subway Art Inspired Christmas Pillow

I just love everything Jen at Tatertots & Jello does! She's so crafty!!! Here is her fabulous subway art inspired Christmas pillow that was featured on I ♥ nap time. I really do need a Silhouette...hint....hint! (I keep dropping little hints like these...hoping my husband will pick them up!)

Glitter Trees

It's no secret that I L-O-V-E love glitter! eighteen25 came up with these uber fabulous glitter trees! I love these trees and can't wait to make my own!! Thanks I ♥ nap time for these super fun trees!

Great Magazines for Kiddos

I know, I know...we haven't even had Halloween yet and here I am thinking about Christmas gifts! I won't start even decorating for Halloween until Oct. 1st but I am always on the look out for a good Christmas gift for those on my list. My boys love to get mail (who doesn't!?!) so I thought it would be fun to get them magazine subscriptions. I ordered Ash Your Big Backyard and Gray Ranger Rick, I highly recommend both. I can't wait for them to start arriving! I ordered ahead so they would have a couple of issues to open on Christmas morning and get them pumped for their future magazines. *I ordered from the National Wildlife Federation website.