Wow, that was fast

My last post said that Christmas is nearly here. Well, here we are on Friday following Christmas, and I'm wondering how it came and went so quickly. We had a nice Christmas day. The girls didn't wake too too early, so our day began about 8 am. They noticed immediately their Santa presents. We don't wrap Santa big gifts, and this year, they got the Little People Castle and each a baby doll and baby stroller from Santa. They loved them, but boy, those Little People sure are popular here! The Castle set is especially loved because it has hee-haws in it! The girls have nice wooden rocking horses they ride that were gifts from Oma and Opa. I used to tell them, "EEeeeeee-haaawwwwww!" when they rode. So now, they call horses hee-haws. Go figure. Other gifts were loved and admired and being played with, used, appreciated, eaten, cooked, munched, you get the picture. Especially popular are the Dora DVDs that seem to play non-stop now. And you know they now loop? I don't even have to hit play; the darn things just start themselves! Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it's good when I"m trying to do something like clean the kitchen counters off or take a shower.

Let's see, what else....Oh, I gave up my charming little scrapbook room so the girls can have a playroom in the basement. Our house needs for them to have a playroom! Way too many little things everywhere.....so now my sb room is in the more open basement room. Not happy with the current configuration, so this weekend we'll try again. Also some painting in our immediate future, because I just can't stand the yellow that's been there forever. I want fresh and bright. I want my Behr Asparagus paint back!!

In the meantime, I did get to do one layout using some of my BG Blitzen paper finally. Also used some BG Holy Cow rubons, my new QK Olivia alphabet, and a Creative Imaginations Santa metal plaque from a package I won. Not sure I love that, but will go with it for now. Big Heidi Swapp alpha at the bottom - just love those! The thing at the top is just a clip holding the page; also some glare on photos from camera flash.

It's nearly here

Christmas, that is. Three more days! Not sure if my girls can hold on that long, having no real concept of days, it seems, but it'll be ok. They are talking about Santa, saying "I love Christmas," and such. Real 3-year-old fun stuff! They turned 3 this past Saturday. I can't believe how they are growing.

So it's holiday week....still got presents to wrap and a couple of little scrapbook projects to do. Hope the next couple of nights are productive! I'm not working again at Archivers until Saturday, so I need to be working here, not to mention trying to clean house for Christmas day. Oh, gosh, and we need to take the ham and the chicken (for the cornbread stuffing) out of the freezer! I better get to work.

Super busy weekend

I hate when the weekends pass too quickly. It's nice to get things done though. Seems like we are just plummeting towards Christmas! I cropped with Tina on Friday night, and that was really fun. Not only is it my favorite store at which to crop, but it was a potluck dinner, and there were some really tasty foods and treats! Also, I worked on a Christmas gift and got it completely done with time to spare at the end of the night. That's really cool. On Saturday, we had family Christmas pictures made at Penneys. That went over as it usually does with the girls (like the proverbial lead balloon), but I think we got some passable portraits. Hopefully, by the time Easter or the next photo opportunity comes around, the girls will be past their dislike of the process!

I put in a few hours at Archivers after that, and after getting our Christmas card photo taken here at home. Again, the girls didn't get the concept, but I got a cute photo, don't you think? I just wish their faces showed more.

The rest of the weekend brought some scrapping time, when I worked on more Christmas gifts and our homemade Christmas cards. Just about finished with those and hoping to make the mail tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. We'll see.

December already!

I am a bad blogger. I can't believe how long it's been since I blogged and also read blogs. So I've been catching up this morning, at least on the reading. The girls are playing house, so we'll see how much I can type before they decide they need to be on my lap.

Let's see....we travelled for Thanksgiving. Had a very nice time with family on Thanksgiving day and the day after. Hi, Oma, Opa, Tori and Tim! We miss you and all the family! We brought home a truck load of gifts for the girls from the family, both birthday and Christmas. They are all still sitting in our living room in the bags and box from the car. We did get the tree up, but that's as far as it goes so far. Just the tree, no lights or anything yet. My 29 cent poinsettia sits on the dining room table, and my $5 Santa on the entry table. Story of those: I shopped the 90% off sale at Hobby Lobby after Christmas last year. The santa was $50, and the poinsettia was $29.99, but it was marked down to $2.99, and the sales person (even though I told him it was marked already) said, 90% off marked price - 29 cents! Cool, huh? I also got some stocking holders on that sale that aren't out yet.

The husband and I received very nice gifts from family ~ gift certificates to Lowes and Home Depot. We desperately need some things done around the house, and we are very grateful for these gifts!! We decided that we would enjoy the fruits of those gifts in time for Christmas, so over the past week and a half, we have put down a new kitchen floor, rearranged the stove and refrigerator for a much better, roomier look, and installed a new light above the sink, a pendant light. Cool, huh? We also worked in a clearance-priced rechargable Swiffer/Red Devil power handy vac and a pack of batteries for just $13 total over our Home Depot gift card.

And this past weekend, with the help (mucho help!) of a friend's husband, we installed a brand spankin' new potty! Our old potty had a leak into the basement. It was not a huge leak, we could catch it with a bucket, but what a pain, right? It leaked only when flushing, so it was a toilet problem. That, combined with a crack in the tank and just general ugliness of an old potty all added up to one thing: we needed a new one! We didn't go super designer or anything, but we got a nice basic American Standard "toilet in a box" that had all pieces and parts in one package. That and a new halogen bulb for the new pendant light in the kitchen took care of our Lowes gift card and about $4 extra.

We really made those gift cards work for us. For an additional investment of $10, we put a new bathroom floor with the leftover kitchen tiles (a cottage wood look, so it also works in our gardeny bathroom). The final spending was about $20 at Ace to cover plumbing pieces that friend needed to fix the stupid pipe thing that was wrong with old potty. Now we have nicely installed new potty that won't give trouble to any future moving or changing either. Of course, if we had much more money and tools and ability, the floor would have been these wood plank (think Pergo type) floor, and tile in the bathroom. But this is good; we like it; it was affordable; it's a good thing.

Also news: I'm working at Archivers! We decided that the family could use a little steady extra income, and if I could get a job at this fun store, it would hardly be like working! Well, that's not exactly true (after 6 hours yesterday, lol), but if I gotta work, it's a total blast to also be surrounded by scrapbooking while doing it! I get to see new stuff, talk sb'ing, and get paid. Even more cool beans, especially right at the holidays.

So this is how far I made it. The girls are now in my lap. Well, Maddie is. Emily is serving me coffee in her Little Tikes cup and saucer. So cute.... Ok, off to more of my day. I will try to add a pic or two later on, but the coffee pot (the real one) is calling my name for now.