Christmas, Weekend Round Up and a Turkey

I've been MIA lately, with a lot going on. Last week we received some upsetting family news, and the end of the week was spent processing it. 

Work has been crazy lately, we are consolidating our office with our Denver office and everything is moving to our office here in Phoenix. So work life has been busy in interviewing, hiring and planning for this transition. Oh, and it is year end, and I am an accountant. 

I have been working a lot of hours lately, and seeing my family less than I would like. But, I know I am lucky that I will still have my job after this transition. 

And because of my busy work schedule, at home it is beginning to look....

a lot like.....Christmas.....

(p.s. the picture for the frame is being printed today to go with the Christmas theme)

Yes, we put up our tree and decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving. I have to work the Friday after Turkey Day and we host the meal every year. So several years ago we stopped trying to do it all after Thanksgiving and moved the inside decorating to a week before. I have a few finishing touches to add after a trip to the store, so I will share some more photos soon.

It was sad putting this away.

Turkey does really get the short stick. (Although the Halloween stuff was gone a few weeks ago).

Friday night this crazy boy....

...crawled out of his bed....twice. He hasn't tried it again. But we did buy a toddler bed over the weekend just in case. Unfortunately the crib tent doesn't work on his style of crib. Stinker!

Mike put all the trees up last week (yes, all means 3, 5 if you count the small ones in the boys rooms).  On Saturday he took the boys out during the day so I could do all the rest of the decorations. Then Saturday night we all enjoyed the tradition Mike and I have had for years. Munchies and snacks while enjoying our now decorated house.

Sunday we just hung out and rested.  I have picked up the cold that the rest of the family is getting over. So we just laid low...

As we head into the home stretch for my two favorite holidays of the year, our challenge at ScrapTiffany this week was Food/Recipes. So on honor of the big bird I'll be cooking later this week, I featured Turkey My Way.   I have perfected my bird over the past 15 years that I have been the holiday host. And I am pretty proud of it.

I'll give you two of my secrets, a fresh organic turkey and Reynolds Oven Bags. The rest is my secret, ;)

Head over to ScrapTiffany to see what the other designers did.

Just a peek at one of the pictures from our recent photo shoot with Maggie Holmes. We are lucky that she lives nearby. We met Maggie a few weeks ago and late last week picked up our photos. 

I'll share some more tomorrow.  Have a great Monday. 

Birthday Boy Weekend & ScrapTiffany Monday

Last week got away from me, and I didn't get a chance to post the winner for my drawing from the ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop.  So without further delay the winner is (as picked by Random.org)...

 Scrapfaire said...

Red Velvet Cake is a must for Christmas! Love your recipe file!

November 8, 2010 4:58 AM

Congratulations!  E-mail me here to claim your box of goodies.  

Mike and I did some Christmas shopping on Friday night at Toys R Us. Our first date night in about a year. Santa will be making 2 little boys very happy this year.

After shopping, we did get to go out to a grown up dinner at Dvine Wine and Bistro. It was fabulous. We splurged and had bruschetta for an appetizer, shared a bowl of potato bacon soup, and then we both ordered the filet mingon for dinner. We finished it off with a Kahlua Mouse Chocolate Cake.  And to go with dinner we had a fantastic bottle of wine, Opolo Moutain Zin - '06 Paso Robles. Oh to be a grown up again.

Jackson's birthday party was this weekend.  He really loves the Yo Gabba Gabba show on Nick Jr. I bought tickets last week to take him to the live show coming in a few weeks. When the music starts for the show, it doesn't matter where he is in the house, he comes running to watch.

I had the "brilliant" idea to make Yo Gabba Gabba the party theme. Of course that was before I realized that there were no themed decorations to go with said theme.  Add this to the ton of hours I have been working, and it leaves me in a jam. I didn't have much creative time to make decorations, but I had bought a couple of things to go with the theme already.

So we improvised with printable decorations from the Nick Jr site, a few scrap supplies and some colorful decorations from the disco and general birthday sections at Party City.

I attempted to make the cake match the theme.

I was pretty happy with the banner.

Even the birthday cards were Yo Gabba Gabba (printables and wrapping paper on a card base, with StayzOn ink for the stamped message).

Party time...while Daddy grilled dinner, we played outside...

Nicholas worked on his picture taking skills....

As taken by Nicholas....

After dinner was presents....

Then of course cake....

I made a pumpkin spice cake with pumpkin cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Jackson ate 2 pieces. So I guess he liked it as much as the rest of us.

And I need to dig out the camera manual because of all the pictures that should have been great turned out blurry. I am blurring the focal point and getting the background sharp. Not sure what I did to the settings to make that happen. But it is frustrating.

Last week the ScrapTiffany team participated in the Hippity Hop Blog Hop, which was a collaboration of a few challenge blog sites. The hop is over but you can still check out the posts starting here at the Sassy Lil' Sketches blog.  I didn't have any time to post anything as the week progressed. But I will now share the layout I did for the Blog Hop challenge. 

It was a recipe challenge where each blog added one ingredient to the "recipe" to use for your layout:

Ingredients:

Sketch from Sassy Lil' Sketches

Use 3 of the same thing from ScrapFit

Use ink paint or mist or all 3 from Crop Suey

Use some Lace from ScrapTiffany

Use some texture or embossing from Cuttlebug Spot

So here is mine....

How I made mine...

Sketch - Kept the overall general design in tact

Use 3 of the same thing - Stars were my pick for 3

Use ink paint or mist or all 3 - I chose some Studio Calico Mr. Huey's for my banner with a base coat and a spritz of white on top for a splattered look.

Use some Lace from ScrapTiffany - Lace designed paper

Use some texture or embossing from Cuttlebug Spot -  Circle journal spot embossed with my Cuttlebug

And finally, this weeks challenge for ScrapTiffany was to use crepe paper. So I bought some to decorate for Jackson's party so I would have some for a layout.

Here is what I did...

I stitched the crepe paper down to make my sky background. I thought it would rip, but it worked just fine. I found some vellum in my stash and used my new Fiskars Cloud punches to make my clouds.

I also played with some new Martha Stewart punches I have recently picked up on clearance and during last weeks Veterans Day sale at Michaels.  Martha Stewart now has some punch anywhere punches in some basic shapes and designs so I punched out my journaling spot and added some paper behind it. There are a few other newer Martha punches I am going to have to get my hands on one coupon at a time, of course.

Now it is time to get ready for work, and another busy full week. Hope you have a great one!

2 Years Ago Today....

This adorable little guy came bursting into our lives....

and today this sweet hearted, lovable, rambunctious little guy is two....

Happy Birthday my Little J.  I love you!

ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop

Welcome to the ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop. We are so excited to share our Holiday Ideas with you on Monday and Tuesday this week. 

You should have arrived here from Laurel's blog. If you arrived here first, head back to the ScrapTiffany blog.

I am so excited to finally share this project with you. Every year around Chirstmas I do some holiday baking. I always make the same line up of treats, but every year I end up hunting around for my recipes. I needed to get them all in one place. I had this box leftover from a mini album project and it was the perfect size for a recipe box.

I used some Pink Paislee and some fabulous music note fabric from a Color Me Daisy kit (no longer available). I added American Crafts Thickers, a splash of paint, a dab of ink, a trip through the sewing machine, some punching and the outside of my box was decorated....

Close up (I told you that fabric was fabulous)...

Backside of box...

The tabbed recipe cards were cut from the Cricut From My Kitchen cartridge...

I typed up the recipes and labels and added a couple of paper strips (Lettering Delights Going Nuts font)...

And what would a recipe be without a yummy picture. On the backside of the recipe card I added a picture, a couple of paper strips and another tab.

Thanks for visiting me for the ScrapTiffany Holiday Blog Hop. 

Leave a comment telling me what your favorite holiday treat is and I will draw a name to receive a box of some scrappy goodies that will include some things I have left from a few past Studio Calico and Mosh Posh kits, as well as some holiday scrappy goodies.

The next stop on the ScrapTiffany Blog Hop tour is Norazah.

And if you get lost here are all the ScrapTiffany ladies to help you get back on track:

Sheri

Abby

Becca

Jackie

Jennifer

Jessica

Katie

Kay

Keely

Kristi

Kristina

Laurel

Michelle (me)

Norazah

Rebecca

Summer

ScrapTiffany

Happy November!

We had a very busy and very fun weekend with all the Halloween festivities.

I baked pumpkin spice cupcakes and burned sugar cookies on Saturday morning.

We went to the pumpkin patch at Schnepf Farms

And played in the train park at the farm

We decorated the burned sugar cookies. Nicholas likes to decorate but doesn't like to eat cookies with frosting on them. So Mike will eat those, and I set aside the cookies I did not burn for Nicholas to eat, sans frosting.

I carved the pumpkin and Nicholas had a chat with him

The boys dressed up in their costumes

Jackson really didn't like his at first, but he got comfortable as the night wore on

And went trick or treating, we made it through 4 blocks in our neighborhood. One more than last year.

Then came home and checked out our haul (and maybe had a pack or two of M&M's.

This week at ScrapTiffany was a Color Challenge. The colors worked well with my October Mosh Posh kit. The title came from a song they sang on Glee while I was making this page.

Wednesday is my turn at the ScrapTiffany blog and I have something fun to share for fall.

And next week is our Blog Hop at ScrapTiffany. So check back next Monday and Tuesday for some Holiday inspiration and a chance to win some goodies.

Also, the design team at ScrapTiffany was asked to participate in the Hippity Hoppity Blog Hop as well. So check us out next week over on the ScrapTiffany blog.

Have a great Monday!