The Magic of Christmas

Awww, the Magic of Christmas does something to the soul, especially when one has young children this time of year. My oldest is just captivated by everything he sees. This is my favorite year with him for sure!







My tree is adorned with so many Christopher Radko ornaments, too many to count, but this very simple silver bulb with a small white deer stands out amongst them all. It is my favorite ornament. This bulb hung on my grandmother, Honey's tree, which means my mother hung it it too as a little girl. It is surprising it lasted this long because my mother did not care for antiques or anything old. I of course love everything old. So funny how opposite we were. When my mother was a little girl, she went to bed with nothing Christmas and woke up to a fully decorated tree and very few handmade presents. Her mother must had to work very hard all night and through the weeks before to sew and make all their presents. She was quite a talented lady and made everything they ate and wore.

Pinterest!

If you haven't joined Pinterest, what are you waiting on? I cannot tell you enough about this site! Seriously, every party or shower or school function I have attended within the past few months as been greatly enriched thanks to Pinterest! What do I mean? Well, it seems everything I go to now has the yummiest desserts or the most beautiful crafts because everyone is Pinning. Just the other night I was at a Christmas party with such delicious food. Where did the recipes come from? Pinterest of course!

Merry Christmas Brothers

Well, I never know how these boys are going to behave in front of the camera. I am still AMAZED that I managed to snap 3 great pictures for our Christmas card. My oldest of course had a stomach ache in the middle of Micanopy and no bathroom in sight. My youngest had no desire, what so ever, to be photographed. The weather was typical Florida winter weather and these boys are dressed for, well, not 80 degrees type weather. My husband just kept giving me this very irritating look, he wasn't irritated, I was irritated looking at him stand there watching it all happen. He pretty much had thrown his hands up with the boys but I was not leaving Micanopy after all of this fuss in ironing their clothes and driving 30 minutes there without some great pictures!





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Sweet Dreams Nutcracker Party

Recently, I had the splendid opportunity to put on a "Sweet Dreams Nutcracker" themed Party. Pinterest was of course the first source of inspiration in which I found all my glorious ideas. Having a very small budget was a small source of contention but I found ways to borrow and improvise as I have done for each Family Times issue. In keeping with my budget, I outsourced to a few wonderfully talented friends that came to the rescue in the form of a fondant cake in the shape of a perfectly wrapped present as well as pink frosting sugar cookies.








It was beyond exciting for me to work on this pink laden party since I am the mother to two boys. I found myself covered in pink glitter as I adorned just about everything I could find in some perfect form of pink velvet ribbon or satin fabric. Wow, how many times have I mentioned the work pink?








Thank goodness I did not have to work alone in dreaming up all of these delightfully sweet party items and decor. Our friend and stylist, Cathy Clark, was just bursting at the seams with great ideas such as the snow on our cover. It just adds such a magical feel to it all.







My friend and photographer, Kristie Griggs, of Pure Joy Photography dreamed up the entire cover. It is as if we all happened upon these beautiful ballerinas hosting a tea party in a secret garden. The ballerinas in fact are the actual Nutcracker performers in our local Marion Ballet production. Their hand sewn costumers are just divine.







Needless to say, things were a bit stressful when trying to pull of the details together but once again it all paid off as you can see.

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Christmas is approaching

Christmas is approaching it seems these days at a much faster rate or maybe it is just that my list of things grows each year. There is much fun and excitement in our home with a five and a half year old tracking Elf on the Shelf's every move. That Elf has gotten even more mischievous this year, doing things like fishing in the toilet! Anyway, thought I would share a cute picture of my cuties taken the other day in Micanopy. Not exactly what I envisioned, rather wanted them holding one another smiling, but this is the wall I had in mind. Anyway, I have decided the younger one is impossible to photograph but now the older one seems that way too. They are still so stinking cute.

Halloween

Wow, Halloween has come and went so fast it seems unreal. My oldest wanted to be Toad from Super Mario brothers which was quite a success. Toad was my favorite character when I played as a little girl and now it is his. He had 2 costume parties and a costume parade to attend the weekend before Halloween and so he was apprehensive about wearing his costume. Needless to say, we got into quite a fuss about him wearing this costume that I tracked down and purchased and he was so glad he did! The second party we attended, as soon as we walked in, a little boy was dressed as Luigi. He approached my son with a smile and said, "Hi Toad, I'm Lucas, what is your name. Oh and my brother is Mario." And so, a new friendship ensued and off he left me and his little monkey brother to play pretend with Luigi and Mario. All that was missing was Princess Peach

Social Life

So, it is a new reality for my husband and I, we have no social lives! We find ourselves invited to many things here and there but it is so much work to get a babysitter and go that we would rather not. That being said, my boys' social lives have increased greatly since the eldest started preschool last year and so we I find myself constantly attending their events. Birthday parties are constant as our any Holiday type of gatherings. This past weekend I snapped some very cute shots of them @ Coon Hollow, a local corn maze chalked full of fun old fashioned activities for the kids. Here I will share a few pictures of my boo's (yes, you read that correctly, it is my new term of endearment for the boys). I will leave you now to go finish cutting out ghost eyes for the big Halloween party on Monday.

A few months ago I starting working as a contributing editor for a local magazine, Family Times. Each month, I get to choose a craft and then write about it. I have the pleasure of working with a dear friend of mine, Kristie Griggs from Pure Joy Photography. She is the amazing photographer behind these gorgeous Thanksgiving pictures. Kristie and I had a blast with this session since we chose the perfect family and location, the Fore's. Jill and her mom Cathy set the entire scene complete with haystacks and pumpkins and opened her gorgeous home to us to use for our shoot! The little ones pictured were so easy to work with and really enjoyed getting to eat the sweet treats I made too.

For your free printables, visit Shindig Parties to go on Facebook. She had all of these wonderfully free printables and ideas.

Two May Babies

My oldest son has an OBSESSION with Angry Birds and therefore my iPad gets hijacked often. So, I decided to do an Angry Birds party for him. I found a free template online for the balloons and ordered his invite through Etsy. I also ordered some digital images to make banners with to hang from the door. I wish I can say I took pictures of everything but I didnt! I even had angry birds aligning our front walk way with balloons attached. I also forgot to snap a picture of the favors but each child got an angry bird balloon attached to a beach pale and candy inside. A friend made the wonderful cake for Angry Birds.

Funny how it was so much work but so worth it because my five year old was so happy and so many of his friends remarked that it was the best party ever. They just loved that water slide. A very good friend and neighbor let me set the slide in her yard since she had more room. She even supervised inside the bounce house the entire time!

Oh yeah, Angry Bird cupcakes were sent to school the next day since it was his real birthday. The kids loved them!

For my one year old we just gave him his very own cake in the front yard. It was a photo shoot and I had a blast with it! I ordered vintage bloomers from sweetlittlepeach.etsy.com and made a vintage style birthday hat that he really didnt want to wear!


I ordered this invite from Etsy for my son Christian. It was perfect!
















Wow, things have been quite busy around here lately with my oldest turning 5 and my youngest turning 1. Such opposite birthdays of course and quite stressful getting everything together but in the end very worth it.