New Tradition!

This year we welcomed Elfie into our home and family! 

This is a tradition I am so excited to start! I watched friends do it last year and couldn't wait to start it for Bailey! She is still a little young and doesn't have a full grasp about what's going on but she likes little Elfie and I was excited to see her looking for him this morning on the tree which is where he was yesterday morning!

This morning I had to lift her up to find him.... 

  

He was enjoying a nice dip in a bowl of giant marshmellows! 

Cute little guy, isn't he? 

For those of you who aren't familiar with this tradition, it's called Elf On The Shelf. A little Elf that you adopt. He (or she) was sent by Santa to watch over your little ones the month leading up to Christmas. The Elf flies back to the North Pole every night (using magical powers of course) to report back to Santa. When he returns the next morning he gets into some kind of mischief!

Sounds fun right?! I thought so! 

The fun part for the Mommies and Daddies is coming up with the "mischief"! I think our Elf, Elfie will save some of his really good mischief for later when Bailey is a little older! ;-)

Sick, sick, sick! Thanksgiving and Black Friday!

I have been sick for 4 days now and am absolutely miserable! :-(

Sinus infection, and possible bronchitis. I ended up at the ER on Thanksgiving and they said they don't really treat either so they sent me home with cough drops. I was not happy. I went to Urgent care the next day and was told I am not sick enough yet to be treated so to come back in a week! Ugh! Really? Why can't you help me now!?! Again, not happy! This Dr. did prescribe a good cough suppressant and tell me to take mucinex. 

I am only getting worse so I guess I will be seeing the Urgent Care Doc again in a week. Grrrr! 

Even though I am feeling like I am I still did my best to enjoy Thanksgiving! I spent all of Wednesday afternoon baking! Pumpkin bread, chocolate cake, cheesecake, rice krispie treats, and potato salad! 

All morning Thursday I did my best not to sit down because I knew that would be it! I cooked and cleaned all morning. We ate turkey around 3:30 then I finally sat down and that's when it all caught up and we headed out to urgent care which turned into the ER since they weren't open! 

This is our Thanksgiving photo... 

Not too bad considering how I actually felt! 

My friend and I headed out to catch a few Black Friday deals around 10 Thurs night! Probably a bad idea since I was already super sick! We got back around 12:30 I think and I went straight to bed!! 

The next morning I was paying for it. I was seriously miserable ALL day yesterday :-(  I did a lot of sitting around and napping! Patrick was great doing stuff with Bailey all day! 

Patrick was excited to get out a little so we did all head out for a bit. We bought my Christmas present!! 

A DSLR CAMERA!!! Wooo hooo!!! You will be seeing some wayy better pics from me soon as I learn how to use it! I will share this journey with you all! 

After another nap yesterday evening we went out and picked out our Christmas tree! I got through it much better than I thought! It is beautiful! We plan to decorate it Sunday when Patrick is home! He is on duty today. Blah! 

  I love this picture! Even though it's blurry, it captures the excitement and fun she was having running all around looking at the trees!

Well, that's what's been going on around here! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Christmas is coming!

I am getting very excited for Christmas decorating, shopping, baking, music and crafts!! 

As soon as the Turkey has been eaten, it's ON!!

I have been noticing all of the felt ornaments lately on Pinterest and on some other blogs I follow! I love it! I have been making felt ornaments for YEARS and it's fun to see that they are so popular now! I considered selling them years ago but just never got around to it but I may add some to my ETSY soon, we'll see! 

I thought I would share a few of my favorites I made a while back. {when I say a while back I mean a lot of years ago, haha I was in my teens!} 

So fun! I have a few projects ahead of these but I'm excited to make some more this year to add to my collection! 

What fun Christmas crafts are you making this year?

Busy Bee!

I've been such a busy bee lately I have completely forgotten to blog! ..Fail! 

I do have some cute new things to show though! These are all up on my ETSY!

The snowmen and Santa owl are garden flags made from burlap and hand painted! The necklace, earrings set in the bottom corner are rosettes and really cute on! The picture doesn't do them justice! 

Patrick was in the field for 3 days this past week so I turned my kitchen and dining area into a craft work zone! I made a huge mess but had fun doing it! 

I started some other projects also that I haven't finished and as always made a couple things that didn't make the cut! haha! 

That's it for today! I will try to get back to blogging everyday again! 

Happy Friday!! Have a great weekend! 

How to decorate your home for fall for under $20.00!

The answer my friends is...

CLEARANCE SALES!! 

Yes, I hit the clearance sale at Michael's this week and got everything for 75%-80% off!! 

I don't know about you but for me once I take down my Halloween decor there isn't much just fall stuff left until it's time to put up Christmas so this year I wanted to work on my fall decor so I thought I would run to all my favorite places to find a few things, Ross, Kirklands, Pier 1, Kohls, etc.. 

At Kirklands I ended up buying Christmas decor (that I love!) but that didn't help in the fall decor department, at Ross I got a cute dish for $3.99 that matches a cake stand I bought earlier this year! 

Isn't is cute? I love that I can change the ribbon to go with anything! 

The pumpkins were included in the clearance sale items I got from Michael's!! 

I headed to Pier 1 next and although I found lots of stuff I wanted, nothing really fit the price range I was trying to stay in so Michael's was my next stop and..

JACKPOT!!

I got everything pictured below for $18.00!! 

I grabbed a couple handfuls of the silk leaf stems, eucalyptus, and some other pretty stems to mix together. They were about $.70 a piece (approximately), A net bag full of pumpkins, and pears (around $2.00), the silk leaf garland ($3.ish), an individual pumpkin (dirt cheap), and the super cute straw girl (only $3 something!) 

I used some vases and burlap I already had around the house to pull it together! 

  

It really makes my house so warm and fall-ish, I LOVE it! 

 I'm really not sure why the quality of this photo looks so bad :-/ I'm sorry about that! 

A nice camera is on my Christmas list!! These are all Iphone photos now. 

I light my sweet cinnamon pumpkin candle from Bath and Body Works and voila! Fall! 

Even though my clearance method won't help you before the whole fall season begins, it will definitely help now and save some $$ for next year! 

Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving?? 

I need to come up with a couple Thanksgiving projects! Hmmm...

     

 

 

Goodbye Halloween Decor

We got back from FL early this morning (around 2:30am but with the time change it was 1:30.)

 My sleepy baby girl and crazy eyed puppy watching Dora during the last hour of the trip

 

 We got ourselves in bed pretty quick after unloading the car. Today was supposed to be a lazy, watch football all day kind of day but I can never do that when we get back from being gone for any length of time so I was a busy bee taking down all of the Halloween decor around the house.

The house seems so bare now. I always hate taking down holiday decor!

 Tomorrow I will be putting my fall/Thanksgiving up though {hopefully!} so it won't be bare for long! Might not get it all done tomorrow, I have a long list of to do's after being gone!

One exciting thing about today was picking up my mail from my neighbor and getting my necklace I have been waiting for! 

Please excuse how exhausted I look! The necklace looks great though! :) 

I must get some sleep now so I can get life back to normal tomorrow! 

Maybe soon I will get my new blog up and running! I am super excited about it just haven't gotten to do it yet. 

It will happen soon though and then hopefully I can get more organized with my blogging as I learn more about this world that still confuses me! 

Happy November!

Wow! 

I can't believe it's November already! It has been a whole year since we closed on our new house! We had NO idea then we would already be thinking about selling it now. Still sad about that and still no final decisions have been made.

This was last year on Halloween when we did our walk through

Ok, I got completely sidetracked looking at pics... I'm back now though! 

Look at the difference in Bailey in just one year!
 

Amazing how fast they grow isn't it? 

She is talking SO much now. We've been in FL a little over a week and it's crazy how much more she is saying in just the week! She is talking like a 2 year old already! 

Ahhhh!! Where'd my baby go??!

This was tonight at dinner

She looks like such a big girl!

 My Mom and Dad eat at Tijuana Flats almost every Thursday so when we're in town we join them! It's yummy and Bailey always has fun there!

Ohhhh....!!!!

I almost forgot... 

I went on a shopping spree on Tuesday! I NEVER shop for myself and seriously hate it usually but something got into me and I went crazy! I am so excited to have new clothes!! I actually love fashion but just hate the shopping part and the trying on part! If I had personal shopper I would look adorable all the time! Ha! 

Who doesn't want that right!?

Tomorrow I am going shopping for a gown for the Marine Corps Ball so wish me luck!