It's patched!

Just a little update on our massive hole in our wall. My in-laws were nice enough to come over and patch our drywall. Hooray! We repayed them with pizza. They still have to come back and mud some more and then sand it down, but then I can paint over it and pretend like it never happened. I love having family that can do stuff like this.

Festival of Trees

Last Saturday we went to The Festival of Trees. This is a fun tradition that my family has done for years. Two years ago I volunteered to work for the festival. It was so much fun! My best friend and I were assigned to work in the gift boutique. We were honored to do it. They offer all of the volunteers an opportunity to take a tour of Primary Children's Medical Center and see what they're all about. That experience made me cry! Did you know that they have a special gathering every year for families that have lost a child at PCMC? They get to watch them release one butterfly per child that has lost their life. What could be more fitting than a butterfly? The symbol of hope and freedom. Howie and I have decided to make it one of our traditions to attend, too. We love getting a special treat when we go. This year we got the same things we got last year. Some Oreo's dipped in chocolate and a green apple smothered in hot carmel. Yummy. Howie's favorite part is the gingerbread houses. They had some pretty impressive ones this year!

We had a lot of fun even though it dumped snow on us on the way back to our car. We love The Festival of Trees.

Temple and Trolley Square

Tonight we went with our good friends, Steve and Genelle, and hit the town. First we went to dinner at The Spaghetti Factory in Trolley Square. Then we headed over to Temple Square to see the beautiful lights! We had so much fun. I absolutely love downtown at Christmas time. The only thing thats missing is the candy decorated windows at ZCMI. We absolutely LOVED going to see those when we were young. Ah, memories. Lucky for us the boys didn't whine too much. They were afraid it was going to be too cold. What a couple of sissies. This evening was absolutely perfect for walking through Temple Square.

Favorite Childhood Christmas Gifts

I read a recent blog post from a friend of mine (Julia!) and decided to share some of my favorite childhood Christmas gifts, as well. There are so many, but these are the ones that stick-out to me the most. The first would have to be our McDonald's Drive-Thru. Yes, one year Santa brought us a McDonald's Drive-Thru to share.It had a cash register, fake food, an opening drive-thru window and even a patty "burner" that made sizzling sounds. We all loved our McDonald's Drive-Thru. I found these pictures on Ebay. They are advertising this as a "Vintage McDonald's Drive-Thru Set". Hahaha.

Vintage indeed.

Next on my list would have to be our Barbie Camping Tent sets. They came with sleeping bags and pillows, too. You can kind of see the tip of mine in this picture:Don't I look so excited? :) I believe Santa had my Grandpa help him with these. My Grandpa used to reupholster furniture for a living so, he was pretty handy when it came to stuff like this. We used to take our Barbie tents with us every time we went camping. We loved them!

And last, but certainly not least, my She-Ra get-up! I was so excited to get this!

My brother had a thing for He-man so, naturally, I had to love She-Ra! Dang, look at all those Christmas presents! I was so spoiled. What can I say, Santa loved me. This was a fun trip down memory lane. I encourage everyone else to post what some of their favorite Christmas gifts were!

Getting Ready!

We put our tree up on Saturday night and had a lot of fun! Last year I did it all by myself so it was nice to have Howie help me out. He got to put on the Santa topper.Voila! Our beautiful tree for the Christmas season. We've already had to kitty proof it by putting tin foil around the bottom, but oh well. Onyx is a climber so it was to be expected. We just don't want them tipping the whole thing over and getting hurt or breaking something. I love our little tree! I also love that it's pre-lit. Nothing sucks more than untangling a bunch of crappy lights and having to string them onto a tree. We have quite a few activities planned for the holidays (yay!) so I'll be blogging a lot this month. Hopefully, you all think that's a good thing!

A Candlelight Christmas

Last Friday night Howie, my Mom and I took all of my nieces and nephews to A Candlelight Christmas at This Is The Place Heritage Park. The kids absolutely LOVED it! Just look at all the fun they had... They had every house lit up with Christmas lights and inside they got told a different story about why we do different Christmas traditions. Like why we hang a stocking by the fireplace, etc. We told the kids there would be a train ride and they could not wait to go on it. We walked up one row of houses and they were bugging us the whole way "When do we get to ride the train??" We finally got on the train ride and then they were all complaining about how cold it was! Haha, oh well. You can't always win when it comes to kids. One of the houses had 5 different crafts for the kids to do. I made a Christmas Spider. There was a story they told in one house about why we hang a spider from the Christmas Tree(?). We never did that growing up, but far be it for me to deny anyone else the fun of doing it. We now have our very own Christmas Spider.They had a live Nativity Scene to go and see, too. I felt so bad for Mary and Joseph because it was SO cold!To top the night off, the kids got to watch a puppet show about Angels. They laughed through-out it because one of the angels kept accidently eating their halo. It kept falling off the puppets head and going into it's mouth. It was quite comical. We headed over to my Mom's house afterwards for some hot chocolate. Perfect ending to such a fun day!

New Moon Necklace

Howie and I have tickets to see New Moon tonight(YAY!), so I made a necklace to wear that would be appropriate. I have just named it my "New Moon Necklace".I was hoping the bead store would have something that said "I Love Edward" on it, but all they had was "I Love Jacob" or "I Love Bella". So, I went with "I Love Jacob" because New Moon is mostly about him anyway(even though Edward holds a special place in my heart). Here are some close-ups of the beads:Yay! I found an apple charm!
It's so fun making jewelry. A friend of mine sent me the link for a lady that sells her jewelry on her blog. She also puts up recipes once in a while. http://savvygirlcompany.blogspot.com She has some super cute stuff and some stuff that I would never wear, but her items are unique and one of a kind. It was fun to browse her posts and get inspiration. Thanks Lisa! It got some ideas going for me.

Latest Creation

I received some inspiration from a necklace I spotted at Wal-Mart. Here is my replica of it: Okay, okay, so it didn't turn out anything like the one at Wal-Mart, but I still love how it turned out! It's my favorite thing I've made so far. I did earrings to go with it, but they don't picture very well. I guess I'm going to have to get a better camera if I'm going to start selling my creations online. Well, at least that's what I intend to do someday. I've already reserved a spot on a website. I just have to make enough items to open it. I'm very new to this so I feel like a lot of my stuff is very rookie. But, the more I do it, the better I get at it. It's a very fun, but expensive hobby. You almost have to start selling your stuff otherwise you have no way of funding what you love to do. C'est la vie.

Who Doesn't Like Free?

Thinking about making up Christmas photo cards to send to your friends and family this year? Well, I have the perfect deal for you! If you visit http://www.seehere.com/, you can create 50 Free Photo Christmas Cards w/Free Shipping! All you have to do is use this code during check-out: freebies4mom-1109. You can make either 5x7's or 4x8's. Whatever you want! This offer is only good until November 30th.

Now, I haven't tried this myself yet, but I got an email from a friend, who got it from a friend, etc. who tried it and it worked. She got the entire order for free.

I went to the website and kind of played around a bit. They have some cute templates or you can design it exactly how you want it! We'll probably be doing one this year so, keep an eye on your mailbox!

UPDATE: A co-worker of mine tried this and was not able to do the 5x7's for free. Just the 4x8's.

Sundays at Tiffany's

This book was...interesting. I've never heard a story like it before. Did you have an imaginary friend when you were little? Did you ever hope that they could, somehow, someday become real? Well, Jane did. And this book is all about her and her relationship with her imaginary friend, Michael. Michael was her imaginary friend until she turned the age of 9. When you turn 9, apparently, that means that your imaginary friend has to say goodbye. You have officially become too old for one. Michael tells Jane that she'll forget all about him, but for some strange reason...she doesn't. She remembers everything about him. She, coincidently runs into him 23 years later and hopes that the same feelings still remain between them. Again, yes, Michael is imaginary. That's what makes this book so weird! If you're in the mood for a weird read, pick this one up. I actually listened to this book on CD so I got to listen to all the different kinds of voices the reader gave the characters. It made me giggle in a lot of parts. Oh, and you'll love the other guy in her life, Hugh. He's a real keeper!