A Merry Little Christmas

First up, here are two activities that kept the kids busy while waiting for Christmas to arrive!

Trivets

Made from clear glass stones used for vase flower arrangements.
(adapted from this image using river stones- gotta love Pinterest when looking for random ideas!)

We first tried with Elmers Glue- don't know what I was thinking, what a mess!  The felt got all gooey, and then I had to clean the film of glue off of the stones before we could start over with new felt and the glue gun!

By the 3 year old

 <---This photo was taken before I trimmed the excess felt.

We put a trivet in a basket with homemade sparkling holiday jam, applebutter, & pickles that I gave to my mom as a little hostess gift.

By the 6 year old



StarWars Snowflakes 

Some of the designs were a little hard to cut out, but my six-year-old really enjoyed working on them.

Having a good set of little kids' scissors was the key.


(Get the templates here)

The weekend finally arrived! 

My parents' Christmas Eve party had all the requirements...

Great decorations, Great food, Great company...



Pretty trees

(you can tell my boys didn't help decorate these!)







Pinecones stolen from my yard

(hee hee- just kidding, mom, you can have as many pinecones as you'd like!)

Sparkling wine

My aunt made her famous eggnog!

... And a visit from the big man himself (much to the delight of all the children!)

What a wonderful way to spend the weekend!

Almost Silent Night

My Christmas gift arrived a few days early- a new camera!

So, I ran outside to take some night shots of the house with the candles in the windows- since they didn't come out when I tried with my old point & shoot.  (Bear with me- I'm in the process of figuring out the best settings for different shots!)

Check out that crazy sky! 

Soon after I took this we had a torrential downpour with thunder (hence the title of this post) & lightening.  It got so windy that the tree on the porch was knocked over!

Porch tree and candle

Good thing I already snapped photos of it!

Porch tree at night

  

Candle and tree through window






Our other photos and posts about this year's Christmas decorations can be seen here and here.

And one last random photo- these guys crossed in front of the school bus the other morning! You can see five of them in the photo- there were seven in all! 

Decking the Halls

Well, I didn't get quite as much done as I had hoped, but figured I'd share the photos anyway!

 Family Room:



Love the nativity set- the figures are rubbery/plastic,
so the kids can play with them (and they do!) 

Collection of Snowmen from my aunt

Vintage Santa

These ornaments were
Mike's grandmothers

Silver Bells-After seeing "The Polar Express"
at age 3, my son asked for a sleigh bell
from Santa- So precious!

Collection of Santas from Mom

Foyer:

Hanging from the shelf is our card holder-
a Santa face that holds the cards in his beard

The cat keeps knocking these down!







Dining Room:

Not much else in this room... next year!

                                                  


 






Gates to the barn:

The previous owner left the greens for us,
I added the bows.

 





We also put electric candles in all of the windows, and decorated the front porch (photos here).

This year it was all about finding places in the new house for our old beloved decorations.

Next year, I plan to do a lot more with greens both inside & outside the house!

Plus, now that I know the areas of the house that need a little something, I'm going to shop those post-Christmas sales to add to the decoration collection!

Holiday Baking

With the holidays quickly approaching, we decided to take a little break from the house projects.

Here's what we've been up to insead, in this old kitchen. 

I wasn't feeling quite up to baking a bunch of cookies, so opted for some easy & less-messy holiday recipes this year.

Spiced Pecans

These are incredibly easy, and my boys LOVE them.  In fact, I baked them on Saturday & they were almost gone by Sunday morning.  So I'll be making more this weekend!

 Ingredients-
1 lb pecans, halved
1 Tbsp water
1 egg white

1 cup sugar
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp coriander

1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Whip egg white with water until fluffy.  Coat Pecans with mixture.
Combine rest of ingredients together.
Pour over Pecans & stir until fully coated.
Spread Pecans on baking sheet in a single layer.

Bake for 30 minutes, turning/stirring Pecans every 10 minutes.

Then it's just a matter of putting them in a pretty jar/container. 
I opted for old fashioned glass-lid canning jars.  They can't be used for real canning, so I've been using them for all kinds of stuff (one for old buttons, another for spare change, and now two for storing snacks!)





I used 4 oz. jars for gift baskets that
I'm making with other canned items.

Sparkling Holiday JamHere's another recipe I tried for the first time- SO easy.
The kids enjoyed it as a warm sauce on top of vanilla ice cream.

I got the recipe from here.  The only modification made was adding the lemon juice for a little tartness &  it supposedly makes a brighter red.  Judging by the comments on allrecipe.com, it's very forgiving/ tweakable!

 

Ingredients-This recipe makes 12- 8 ounce jars

• 2.5 quarts of strawberries, coarsely chopped (or if buying frozen, get ~54 ounces)
• 1 (12 ounce) package fresh or frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped
• 4 ounces powdered fruit pectin
• 1 teaspoon margarine
• 5 pounds white sugar
• 1/2 cup lemon juice

-Prepare jars & lids by boiling in water for at least 10 min.

-In large saucepan, combine strawberries, cranberries, pectin, margarine & lemon juice. Bring to a boil. Stir in sugar, and return to a boil. Cook for 1 min, then remove from heat.

-Fill jars to within 1/2 inch from top. Wipe rims clean, and put on lids.
-Process in a boiling water bath for 5 min.

Master Bedroom

Ahh- finally out of the plumbing posts!

After getting the rest of the house into fairly decent shape, we were finally ready to paint our bedroom.

Below are 3 stages of photos for this room...

On the left are the photos from before we moved in.

Interim photos- we moved in, but hadn't done much except clean it up a bit- in the center. 

And finally, the latest photos on the right. 

From the main hall:

Before



Interim Fix





After

From the back hall:

Before

Interim Fix



After

From the far side of the room:

Before

Interim Fix



After

Not quite as dramatic as some of the other rooms, since it was sort of a slow transformation.

But better, none the less!

Of course, there's still some more to do...

-Paint the radiator, or better yet, get a cover for it.

-Replace ceiling fan with light fixture.

-I'm still playing with placement of art & photos on the walls.

But in the meantime, I'm enjoying the new color scheme.

All the accessories I was working on  (discussed here) have been integrated into the room...

And finally, a quick mini project to add:

A few weeks ago the kids & I collected some pinecones in the yard. 

All it took was a little spray paint (purple & silver), and a clear vase!