The main floor is done

Here are a few pictures of our Christmas "set up".  I would say these pictures maybe represent 1/2 of what is on the main floor of the house right now.  ;)  I hope to work on the basement tree and decorations today.

The mantle--and you can see there are words above the windows and snowmen in the upper windows

Sofa table--a ton of stuff to the right that you can't see though

Even the water cooler gets decorated!

More words and snowmen

Foyer table/village

Tiny tree by the door

Big tree in the living room--it seems I need more lights ;)

Table and couches by the tree

Garland, lanterns and ornaments on the banisters--I should've turned the lights on first-oops

Ross children at around 2 years old and Santa? Bad mix.....

I took the kids to see Santa yesterday and as I suspected it didn't go very well.  Last year Brody was actually smiling in the picture but this year....not so much.  I told the lady beforehand just to take the picture--and she did.  lol

Yesterday's picture--Brody is going to be 2 next week

Travis when he was 19 months--the following year he would only sit on Santa's lap if I sat with him--lol

This made me laugh

Travis took this video at dinner last night and I found it on my phone today.  Not sure why I find it funny but I do--he was checking out his own eyes I guess.  Enjoy!

My creations are on the tree......

Bozo?

It has begun

When I got home from my hair appointment I immediately started to get out the Christmas stuff.  This is a task to say the least but thankfully I have a method to my madness.  Every year before I put the stuff away I take pictures of where everything is and then box everything up by room so the following year I just need to find the "family room" box and the correlating picture!  I have been working for about 2 hours and have gotten the family room, hallway and kitchen completed.  Hoping to get the foyer and living room done later tonight--the stairs and trees will get done sometime tomorrow I hope.  Here are 2 pictures of the beginning.......

Stuff is already up on the mantle

Overflow/staging area

Thanksgiving/Fall "Acorns"

How cute are these?  Seriously it took me maybe 10 minutes to make all of them and a bunch of that time was spent opening the Hershey Kisses (they need to sell them unwrapped if they don't already btw).  All you need for this tasty fall/Thanksgiving treat are the small round Nutter Butter cookies, Hershey kisses, chocolate frosting (you really only need a tiny tiny bit) and mini chocolate chips.  Put a little frosting on one side of the cookie and stick the flat end of the kiss to it.  Let it sit while you work on the others and then dab a tiny bit of frosting on the mini chocolate chip on top and TA DA!  They are done!  :)

Scrabble Christmas Ornaments

I found this idea on Pinterest (shocking I know) and it sent me to someone's page on "Etsy" selling them for $6.95 each.  Uh what?  If you have an old Scrabble set, some ribbon and a glue gun this project could be FREE or MUCH less than $6.95.  ;)  I am on the look out for some type of small greenery or holly for the tops of the ornaments but they are very cute as is.  This took about 5 minutes total and as of right now this was FREE since I had all of the items on hand--the person on Etsy would be charging me $35 for the ones I made.  lol

The supplies are ready to go!

Gluing the "hooks" to the back

All done!  If I find some greenery or holly for the tops I will post an updated picture.

It's free Junior Frosty time again!

Last year I got one of these Frosty key tags for $1 and we used it A LOT!  Basically you pay $1 and anytime you go to Wendy's you can get a junior Frosty for FREE with any purchase.  They normally cost $1.19 so it pays for itself in just one visit!  Last year the $1 went to the Dave Thomas Foundation--I like that the money went back to a charity.

Earlier today Brody I went through the drive through to get him some chicken nuggets for lunch and I ordered a Frosty to add to our collection in the freezer.  When I got up to the window the cashier asked if I wanted the new tag for next year--valid for all of 2012.  Of course I got one.  ;)  I believe they sell them until the end of the year for 2012 so make sure to ask the next time you are at Wendy's!  Who doesn't want a FREE Frosty anyway?  :)

The last one was the best one

The picture I took of my completed bottle cap snowman ornament yesterday was of the 1st one I did.  Rookie mistake.  I messed up the nose on the first one by not letting the paint dry long enough so you can see the cap a little and the mouth looks better as dots.  The last one I did if you ask me was the best one.  And here he is.....

Bottlecap Snowman Ornaments

When Evan asked for a case of beer the other day at Costco my very first thought was "YAY I will have a bunch of bottle caps for the snowman ornaments I saw online,"  Is that sad?  Yes it kind of is but it worked.  I had seen the idea on Pinterest and it led me here.  It is such an easy and cute idea I thought "why not?"  As of this morning-thanks to a Saturday afternoon/evening full of football I had enough bottle caps to make 4 ornaments.  This can be a very low cost or even no cost craft if you have things on hand.  I paid less than $4 for the paint and the ribbon and I still have tons left over for other crafts/ornaments.  So here we go!

Items needed--bottle caps, white paint, glue gun, ribbon and black and orange markers

Painting the bottle caps--mine needed 2 coats

Lining up the bottle caps to glue the ribbon on the back.

The four ornaments all glued up

Cute little snowman!

Cute Thanksgiving Craft

The boys and I (well mostly I) did this cute, easy, cheap and quick Thanksgiving craft today!  The idea is simple.  Take a pine cone, some construction paper "feathers", google eyes, felt for the head and you have yourself a "Thankful Turkey".  And a special thank you to my in laws who brought us some awesome pine cones from their yard.  You only see them around here in the craft store.  ;)   Here is the basic step by step:

The supplies are ready to go

Travis is writing what he is "thankful" for

The cute little face--just glue the eyes onto the brown felt and use orange paper in the shape of a diamond for the mouth.

Travis' is on the left and he is thankful for: school, family, xbox 360 and sports and Brody's is on the right and he is thankful for trains, kitties, scout the dog and his family.

The turkey family!  The one in the middle has feathers that say "I am thankful for".

Target clearance finds!

I was in Target this morning just for cat litter but I found these also!  They had marked a BUNCH of video games (I saw Xbox. Wii, DSi and PS2-maybe 3) 75% off and I got this Monster Truck game for less than $5!  Travis has one for the XBox but not for the Wii--until now!  They also had a bunch of cell phone accessories on sale.  Travis got my old 3GS to use as an iTouch when I got my new 4S but it still had the old and very beat up case on it.  Well now he can have a brand new case for his "brand new" iTouch for less than $4!  Score!

Neverending

I hadn't posted many pictures since the carpet first arrived in the basement and honestly it feels like a never ending project.  Most of the things are where they need to be like the TV, the toys etc but it's the little things like finding homes for all of the pictures, stuff on the walls in the play room and FINDING A NEW HOME FOR THE POOL TABLE!  Does anyone want to buy a beautiful pool table that has seriously been used a total of 10 times? It's currently in pieces all over the spare bedroom as you will see.  ;)  So we are still actively working on piecing it all together but other things around the house like laundry and the dishes seem to always get in the way.  lol

Angle 1 of the play room--only Hokie stuff is going on the walls

Angle 2 of the play room

The main TV/couch area

The spare bedroom with the parts of the pool table strewn about

The catch all side of the basement that will eventually house that fridge, maybe a bar and maybe a foosball and/or air hockey table.

Cute candy cane striped wreath!

Ok I finished this last night but I didn't get around to posting the pictures of it.  It was SUPER EASY to make but like I said yesterday it was tedious.  Keeping the yarn straight and looping it through etc was the tedious part.  I think each "stripe" took me about 10 minutes start to finish.  Maybe less but that includes measuring out the yarn, finishing the stripe by gluing it etc.  The "Snow" part on the bottom is a tree decoration they sold there and I removed the hanger part and the ribbon is wired ribbon I had around the house.  I think it turned out pretty cute--try to make one today!

Work in Progress

Just needs the ribbon!

TA DA!

I wish I still had my receipt since I can't remember all of the prices but I used a 50% off one item coupon for the ring-I want to say it ended up around $3 and the yarn was on sale for $1.99 and I had a coupon to take an additional 25% off and the ornament I think was around $2 but it may have been less.  So basically the whole craft was around $8 or $9 but you can make it for WAY less if you already have yarn around and use an ornament or other decorations you have on hand.  I do have a ton of yarn left over so I may make another......

I give up

Somehow I trained Travis (easily I might add) to smile at the camera from a very early age.  Brody just won't do it.  I have tried everything I can think of and nothing has worked.  He has an adorable smile but it's really hard to catch on camera!  We also learned that he isn't a fan of sitting in leaves--you would have thought he had been set on fire the way he was screaming.  Travis did his best to keep him in the leaves but he lost the battle.  Oh well.

Brody is in hysterics

Travis is trying to keep him there....

Looks like a smile but it DEF wasn't

And Brody is gone

Travis and his leaf friends

WHEE

Jumping!  Blurry but still cool

WIP

I found this Christmas craft idea on Pinterest.  In case you want to see what the finished project is supposed to look like you can go here.  The only things needed are seen here--red and white yarn, the foam ring, something to decorate it with (this is a tree ornament) and some type of glue or a glue gun for the ends of each color.

How is it going you ask?  So far this has been super easy but very time consuming.  Now you know what I am working on!  Look for the finished product sometime soon!  (I hope--LOL)