Christmas Craftiness

I neglected to share the card that I made for my nephew's birthday. I used some old paper that I had on hand, added a little stamping and lots of die cuts!

Next here is Jena's Christmas stocking. Yep, Jena has a Christmas stocking... She got presents from Santa too. I made the stocking completely out of scraps of felt, added some trim, AC Thickers, and woolies from Basic Grey "Max and Whiskers."

Next, here is the annual Christmas ornament. I make one of these every year with photos of the kids. This is a simple design... I cut six circles using my largest Spellbinder's circle; folded the edges of the circle up and glued them together. Then I cut some photos out using a Spellbinder's square die so it will just fit on each side. A Shrinky Dink star (with date) and a jingle bell top it all off:

My next share is a crochet hat. Yep, I decided to crochet a hat... RED and FESTIVE!

My last share today is Candy Cane Biscotti. I got the recipe from Mara's blog. They are just as yummy as she promised they'd be! Mine aren't are pretty as hers... I think I need more practice, hehehe.


This is more Christmas Craftiness than I've done in years!

Merry Christmas - the day after...

I hope you all had a great Christmas! We usually take our family photo when we are all dressed up just before leaving for my Aunt's and Uncle's house on Christmas Eve, but forgot all about it this year in the rush to leave. So here we are in all our glory (and PJs) on Christmas morning.

And Jena too... good morning Jena!

Time for presents!!!

Jena got a present from Grandma. She opened it all by herself!

Poor Jena... being terrorized by Cheryl's Zu-zu pet.

What did you get, Jim?

The FUN continues at Grandma and Papa's house. First here's Chris with a great BIG box! I had a photo of Cheryl too, but she made me promise not to post it on the blog, hehehe...

Hana and Papa waiting patiently.

Noah is digging right in!

Jacob getting distracted by one of his presents. Open now, Jacob and read later... Cathy is catching it all on film.

Leah LOVES her new shirt!

Merry Christmas to all, and God bless us every one!

Christmas Eve!!!

Look Santa left us a puppy!

Santa Pup!

Happy Birthday, Noah!

Saturday was Noah's 14th birthday! Where does the time go! He's already taller than I am, with a deep manly voice. I bet he shaves too.

Isn't the cake beautiful?... a spectacular creation of my mom and sister-in-law!




Here's the birthday boy... Make a wish, Noah!

And here's Cheryl with her new FABULOUS hair! She LOVEs it, and I think she looks GREAT! I asked her what everyone at Noah's party thought of her hair. She said, "They all said they liked it, but no one is going to say that it stinks!"

My baby has always had long hair... she doesn't look like my baby anymore. My baby is all GROWN UP!

Bunco Babes

Christmas Bunco! Our neighborhood Bunco group meets every month for a girls night out. December has always traditionally been Kate's month. She puts on a wonderful Christmas party and gift exchange in place of our monthly bunco.

I was assigned dessert. I made Oreo Truffles; the easiest dessert EVER! Go HERE to find the recipe. They don't look too different than the picture.

Since I made such an easy dessert, I decided to try something else a little more ambitious... Snowmen Cake Pops! If you go HERE, you can find the recipe, directions, and a picture of what they are supposed to look like.

I didn't use sticks.... As a result, the chocolate puddled around the bottom, and our snowmen look like they are melting. I couldn't find the matching cookies or the candy coated sunflower seeds for the noses, so we substituted moon and star sprinkles. The cookie hats were replaced with Butterfinger bells.

Here are my snowmen helpers hard at work! Chris was putting on the hats and the arms. Cheryl was putting on the nose and the buttons. AND this all needed to be done before the chocolate hardened. They were purposely getting in each others way. We laughed and laughed! Then we ran out of white chocolate and had to use milk chocolate, so we have racially diverse snowmen. Cheryl tried giving the milk chocolate snowmen dreadlocks! lol!

On to Bunco night where there was lots of food, fun, and laughter. Kate's tree (posted above) was beautiful, and her entire house was decked out for Christmas! Look at the great appetizers shared by Stephanie, Tina, and Anne.

Kathy, Julie, Connie, Anne and Kate are digging in for dinner! Dinner was pot luck and everything was WONDERFUL! I was so stuffed!

Here's our Bunco Babes. First there's our Bunco queens, Stacy and our hostess Kate!

Lorraine, Tammy and Kathy, all with beautiful smiles!

Anne and Iris, looking very festive!

Another picture of Stephanie and Tina... Looking gorgeous, ladies!

It's me getting into the picture with Nora.

Here's a few photos after the gift exchange... First of all, here's Kate getting FIT!

And Tina, looking FABULOUS in her new wrap!

And here are Julie, Connie and Lorraine admiring Tina in her new wrap... or is that smile on Julie's face from the chair?

I don't know what time I stumbled back home from next door, but Chris said it was at least 11:30pm. A wild late night for me, hahaha!

Merry Christmas, Bunco Babes!

Jena's new bed!

It's been over a week since I've shared any Jena pictures. I think it's time for an overload of Jena cute-ness!

Jena is such a cuddler... she LOVES to sit/sleep in our laps! I don't know how much longer that's going to last. She is getting to be a BIG DOG!



When we were at Costco, we found a dog bed with a fluffy fuzzy pillow. It is perfect for our cuttle-bug Jena. As you can see, she didn't have to wait until Christmas! She LOVES her new bed!

Creative Share!

Okay... again not my share, but Chris's... Is it bad that my son has more crafty shares than I do?

First share is this darling snowflake pendant. Oh, if I didn't mention it before, the kids design their own jewelry. No patterns are given out in this class!

Chris didn't like how this came out, and he said that he lost points on it because the design was so simple. I said that I LOVE it, so he gave it to me! Won't this go great with my Christmas outfit?

Next share is an AMAZING surfer-themed cuff! He cut out five shapes from three different types of metals and riveted them all together into a SUPER COOL bracelet. He got 45 out of 40 points on this project. The teacher said that it's the BEST project she's seen all year. She took a photo of it to use as an example for next year's class.

It's kind of hard to get a picture of since it's curved, but the front is the word "surf." There are two scroll design elements on each side of the word. Then layered on top of one side is a plumeria flower.

And layered on the other side is a sea turtle.

Cheryl said that she wants one, and placed her order, lol! Too bad, Cheryl, this is a one of a kind "original"!!!

Chris is also turning out some great art work in his drawing class. I wish he'd bring some of his pictues home so I can see them, but I guess the teacher displays the students' work on the walls. I'm going to have to wait to the end of the semester to see what he's been doing.

12 more days until Christmas! Can you believe the days are flying by so quickly?
Christmas will be here before we know it!

Dana Point Turkey Trot 5K

There's nothing like a quick little race on Thanksgiving morning with 2500 of your closest friends, ugh! BTW, say "Hi" to Flat Stanley (this was taken before his "unfortunate incident" which I will tell you about later).

Our plan was simple, Chris was going to pace me to an under 25 minute finish. But, he said that he didn't factor in all the people... granted that 2500 isn't that big of a race, but it was a group start (not staggered) and some of the roads were pretty narrow. It was hard to get by when the person in front of us suddenly slows down to a walk... there was also dodging strollers and repeated groups of Santa with eight reindeer (sometimes nine).

Well, we tried... but, I ended up finishing in 25:26. Chris sprinted ahead on the last stretch so that he could watch me and get my time right when I crossed the line.

My Time:
Women: 86 out of 1246
F 40-99: 11 out of 243
Age/Grade: 66.75% Place: 137
Finish: 25:26 Pace: 8:11
Tag Time: 25:26
Gun Time: 27:08

Chris's Time:
Men: 226 out of 1046
M 16-19: 39 out of 87
Age/Grade: 53.93% Place: 462
Finish: 25:03 Pace: 8:04
Tag Time: 25:03
Gun Time: 26:46

Bad Dog, Jena!

We went to a pet fair today (sorry Mary, I forgot to bring the camera AGAIN!) The advantage of being so darn CUTE is that everyone gives you free stuff! One booth gave Jena a free squeeky cat stuffed animal. As you can see, Jena is very hard on her toys... That cat lasted just over an hour in Jena's clutches.

Doesn't she look proud of herself? She really got that Cat! I gotta keep reminding myself that she's just a puppy...

It's not all her fault... I think Cheryl and Chris encourage her, lol!

She's such a goof-ball! At the moment, she's sitting next to me watching the Christmas tree... she looks like she's ready to pounce on it, if it makes a wrong move.

It will be interesting how the Christmas tree will fare against Jena overnight! We shall see... lol!