A Vacation!...well, sort of

Key West! We love this place. It's just fanastic. The water is so beautiful. We didn't plan a whole lot because we had Sydney. Last time we went we kayaked, snuba dived, and ate at really great restaurants. Key West isn't the most kid-friendly place but we found some stuff to do. But actually we went down to the Keys for a day and got the call that my grandmother had passed away. So we turned around the next day and headed back home so I could catch my flight to Milwaukee that night. It was kinda crazy to go from 80 degrees to 20 degrees in a matter of a day! So we had one day in Key West and we made the most of it. My favorite restaurant down there is Louie's Backyard. They have great food and the view from your table is the picture below!

The Key West Aquarium.

In front of the sharks.

This iguana was not shy.

Sydney chasing the roosters around town.

The beach.

Yea! A park right across from the beach.

After I got back, Martha was starving for attention she actually laid on Sydney who was laying on me!

The funeral for my grandmother was very special. She was loved and will be missed. I have some great pictures of her growing up that I will share in the next post.

Happy New Year!

Bald Eagles

Matt saw these bald eagles on the house across the street and got so excited. It is pretty neat. He definitely wanted them up on the blog.

Merry Christmas!

I really don't have any good pictures. Thankfully we video taped the event! Here is just a few pictures though. The annual picture of Dixie with antlers. Syd riding her new Winnie the Pooh train while eating breakfast. Finally, Sydney kissing Mickey.

We had a great Christmas. We had 8 friends and 3 babies for dinner last night. It was a lot of fun and the food was delicious. We had a Honey Baked Ham, squash casserole, no-knead rolls, salad with dijon vinaigrette, an Italian pasta dish, cherry fruit salad, and potato latkes for an appetizer. For dessert, we had fudge, apple pie, and a devil's chocolate cake with mint ganache. Yes, it was a lot of food! : ) The best part was our friend, who is in the Army and has been in Afghanistan for a year, made it home in time for his baby's 1st Christmas!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.

Our Weekend

These are all from yesterday. We went to the zoo and had our picture taken with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Our zoo had all sorts of activities for the kids and Santa was just walking around the zoo and taking pictures with everyone. It was a lot of fun.

Hugs to the penguin.

I think these pictures are so funny. Sydney is definitely imitating me with the sunglasses and pushing the stroller. That is what I look like every afternoon when I go walking with my neighbor.

Also, if anyone has made something from the "12 Days of Christmas Crafts" I would love to hear about it. Or see pictures!

Almost Christmas

I can't believe it's almost Christmas! I am super excited. Here's a picture of some relaxation in the midst of getting ready to move and enjoying Christmas.

Gymboree's Winter Wonderland

Here's some pictures from yesterday afternoon.

Ode to Martha

I haven't put Martha on the blog in awhile. I know all of you love Martha (just as much as she loves you)! For the people who haven't met Martha, she is great to us and nasty to everyone else. Martha's one goal in life is to lay in the sun regardless of how uncomfortable it may be. The proof is in the pictures below.

Martha on the 2" headboard (in the sun).

Martha on the shredder (in the sun). Isn't that one nasty look!

Martha on the faucet for the bathtub (in the sun).

I don't get this cat.

12 Days of Christmas Crafts - December 12

"And a partridge in a pear treeeeee!" (as I collapse on the floor!)

Hope I don't disappoint anyone since there is no grand finale! Just some gift tags using all my scrapbooking stuff.

In the big news department, we are going to be moving. IN 1 MONTH! We just found out this morning. We are moving to San Angelo, Texas. I'm really not all that excited about moving. We just love it here so much and west Texas isn't the first choice. But we go where the Air Force sends us and it's only going to be for 7 short months. Hopefully, we'll go somewhere super exciting afterwards.

12 Days of Christmas Crafts - December 11

Mmmm. Cupcakes. Today's craft is cupcake picks. I punched out the snowflakes using a Martha Stewart punch and glued them together with a toothpick between. Another super easy craft and you can use all sorts of punches for different celebrations or even stickers (then you don't even have to glue). Sydney even helped making the cupcakes. Well, she stood right next to me and watched. The mixer fascinates her. She even did some of the sprinkles on the icing. She's my kind of cook too. While frosting the cupcakes, she says "bite, more bite." Munching on the goodies is the best part of baking. It's amazing how quick she picked that up!

12 Days of Christmas Crafts - December 10

I can see the finish line! Just 2 more days! That's good because I'm running out of ideas. : ) And I need to focus the craft time on the felt food that's been flying off the shelves in my Etsy Shop! Okay, let's move on to today's craft. I saw this idea in the Pottery Barn catalog. They just used it in one of the design set-ups. It's a poinsettia ball. It's a styrofoam ball covered with poinsettias with a green ribbon attached. I plucked the poinsettias off the floral stems and they stuck in the ball without glue. It's hanging in an arch between our dining room and kitchen area.

Now, some more pictures of Sydney. The car was a freebie. You can't beat that. She loves it.


Dukes of Hazzard style.

Dixie loves Florida Decembers too. She just lays like this in the afternoon. I guess she's trying to tan that white belly of hers!

Oh, I wanted to thank all of you too. I just started counting the number of visits to this website right before Thanksgiving and I already have over 1,000 hits! I can't belive it. So thank you to all you faithful blog readers!

12 Days of Christmas Crafts - December 9

Per request of Karalyn, we are starting off today's post with a picture of Sydney and a furry lurker who is just waiting for some Cheerios to fall.

Today's craft is a ribbon Christmas card holder. I hand-sewed paper clips on a ribbon and tacked it on the wall. I tried to cover the tacks with some ornaments. I think it'll look a lot better when I attach more Christmas cards to it. Hint, hint everyone (including myself)! : )

12 Days of Christmas Crafts - December 8

I guess this isn't necessarily a Christmas craft. I had the idea bottled up in my head for awhile now and I had to let it out! I made these flowers from tissue paper left over from my birthday presents. I put some Mod-Podge on them to shine and stiffen them up. I inked the edged and I also glittered the ball in the middle. The ball is just pulled from a floral pick. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these yet. I might decorate some presents with them.

On a different note, Matt finally came back last night from his 6 week training! Yea.

12 Days of Christmas Crafts - December 7

Okay, today we have some small gifts to give to neighbors and friends. I saw these origami boxes done in the December issue of Creating Keepsakes. Even though, this link has the directions if you want to make your own. The top box is from a 12" x 12" piece of paper. The bottom box is from an 11.5" x 11.5" piece of paper. It's great way to use up all that extra Christmas scrapbook paper that has been sitting around. I know I can't be the only one with this dilemma!

Inside the boxes is peppermint bark. I melt (using a double boiler) milk chocolate and spread it out on cookie sheet lined wax paper or parchment paper. Next, I melt white chocolate and spread it out on top of the milk chocolate. While the white chocolate is still soft I sprinkle crushed candy canes over all of it. I break it apart when it's all hardened. Super easy to make or you can just buy it here. I line the paper boxes with parchment put the bark inside and tie it up with some bakers twine. Viola!

12 Days of Christmas Crafts - December 6

I always see some decoration hanging from chairs in magazines and catalogs, so I thought I would try it. Mine is just an ornament with some extra decoration. The first one, I added a little tag and a glittered holly ball and felt leaf. I've been glittering everything lately.

The second one, I made a snowflake out of wire and beads. I think it's funny that you can see me taking the picture in my workout clothes and the stroller in the back. It's a good indication of how I spend my time - playing outside with Sydney and crafting.

Here's the chairs with the ornaments on them. They are attached with ribbon.

The decorated table.

I have to share my great find for all you who love Pottery Barn but hate paying Pottery Barn prices. I think that really covers everybody! Target is usually really good about making Pottery Barn knock-offs, but this time it's Walmart! Pottery Barn has these trees that are just beautiful. I found mine at Walmart in the Christmas section. They have 2 sizes. The medium is $7 and the large is $10! I couldn't believe it. I believe they are a bit smaller than the designer trees, but for the price does it matter?! Here's my tree on my table.

12 Days of Christmas Crafts - December 5

Today is the 5th right? Haha. All I know is today is Wednesday. I think that's a good start!

Anyway, here's some pine cone trees. I saw this huge pine cone thing at Target that I thought was really neat so this project was inspired from that. It was easy to make, just time consuming. Each "branch" was individually cut and hot glued. I think I might add some white glitter to mimic snow. I'm not sure, maybe a bow? I think it does need something else. Also, in the picture is some deer I glittered. I bought the plastic deer at Michaels spiced them up with Martha's glitter.