We laughed over this off and on all day yesterday. My cousin Shawn from Las Vegas sent it to us. Go here to enjoy a silly little gift.
Monthly Archives: December 2006
The Tour Continues
Updated Again 
Here are some really beautiful trees to tour in the blogosphere.
Bethany’s also, be sure to look a Bethany’s pics later today of ornaments and lights. This is one seriously talented photographer .
I’ll keep updating this as I find out who posts what.
Christmas Tree Tour Anyone?
After asking if Kate would post a picture of her Christmas tree, I thought it would be fun to see everybody’s tree. Would you mind posting a picture, then leaving a comment to let us know.
Well of course my tree has color lights. three different sizes. including the vintage twirl bright lights. and crooked glowing star All I need are some bubble lights, and I’ll be in my gaudy-girl heaven! Yeah, we do it the way I was raised doing it….lots and lots of color. Funny thing is that now that we’re out of the house my parents have gone to the whole sophisticated designer tree thing. Maybe one day. Oh, and about those huge plastic balls. If any of you remember the storyI’ve told about the year the boys were old enough to help decorate the tree, and I had visions of my own experience growing up going through my mind. I was sooooo excited to continue the tradition of the whole family gathering to eat cookies and decorate the tree. I invited my mother and father to join us for this much anticipated event. I made the cookies. I set out the non-breakable ornaments. Well, let’s just say that after hanging two ornaments, the boys turned those big plastic balls into soccer balls and kicked them all over the kitchen. They also took the baby Jesus from the manger scene and had him drive their truck. Apparently that whole open hand thing the Jesus’s from nativity sets have fits perfectly on the steering wheel. Needless to say that my evening did not resemble in any way, shape, or form the decorating of the tree I grew up with. What a great memory. Now the kids take the assembly (yes, it’s very fake), lights, and decorating very seriously.
Easy, Pretty Ornaments to Make With the Kids
These are the ornaments I made with my kiddos this year. I stole the idea from Kate who made these each year with her second graders when she was a teacher in the public schools. They are easy enough for children to do, and are very pretty.
How to make them:
1. Buy six pack of clear glass ornaments at Michaels ($1.49). There are larger four pack ornaments as well, but we like this size for little hands.
2. Use your choice of ceramcoat colors. As Kate suggested, I decided that everyone had to use silver or gold as one of their colors. We only used one or two other colors besides the metallic. This helps avoid getting that dirty, brownish color that comes from over-mixing colors.
3. Take out the little hanger and squirt a line-blob (don’t you love when I get technical) of your colors making variations. For example: silver, purple, silver, purple.
4. Shake, twist, etc. until the glass is fully covered on the inside. Don’t over-shake or you will get the brownish color.
5. Set the balls mouth side down in the trays to drain residual paint (about 12 hours for us).
6. Turn balls upright to dry on the inside, then reattach the hangers.
7. These pictures don’t show it, but I will add a silver or gold bow to the top of each ball.
You may want to try one yourself first to see how much paint to use. We had a great time doing these and it only took an hour or so.
Kate, if you’re reading this, will you post a picture of your Christmas tree with this style ornament on it? I hear your tree is stunning!
Karyn’s Cake
Here’s Karyn’s cake. It is a design that looks like fabric she would like. This is a transfer. I don’t know if I ever told you guys how to do a transfer (transfer an image onto your cake), but if you’re interested, I’ll post steps later.
The original black pattern I did came out poorly and I had to scrape the entire top of the cake off, re-ice, and try this pattern which I think would have looked better in black icing as opposed to black gel, but oh well. One of my children poked the top with a wooden spoon while I was at the wedding, but this is the “pre-poke” picture.
New Cakes
I have been busy baking. Not Christmas cookies, but birthday cakes. My brother, sister, and Dad all have December birthdays, so I have been and will continue to be a busy girl. I need inspiration for my sister Karyn’s birthday cake. Any ideas?
Izzy’s Birthday cake. The design was his idea.
These are the cakes I made for my brother Jimmy’s Birthday. He is a Mac fanatic. The laptop cake was my first attempt at painting fondant. I wish I would have used store bought fondant, though. My homemade fondant didn’t get as smooth as I would have liked.
Right Here Right Now
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Paul Tripp’s new radio program called “Right Here, Right Now”. (don’t worry, I’m still a die hard Desiring God fan). You can listen to Paul Tripp (one of the men from CCEF) online if you go here. Be sure to check out the series called Survival Skills in a Fallen World (under archives) as well as the current series about Imagination.
What I love about these teachings is that they fulfill the mission statement which is: Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Paul Tripp is so easy to listen to, and he even includes two songs in the 1/2 hour format.
I really enjoy it, and hope you do to.
Has It Been That Long?!
Oops! I really didn’t plan to take such a long blog break. Life has been busy around here. I think the main reason I got out of blogging was because of a simple change in schedule. I used to write in the morning when the kids first woke up. Our practice in the past was to ease into the day so to speak, and the boys would come down, read their Bibles, and play until I was ready to get on with business (get dressed, brush teeth, make beds, do school, etc.). It’s a long story how we got here, but Jason and I decided to change the routine in order to instill a sense of “work before leisure” with the boys. The pre-change pattern was that they would resent being interrupted from play in order to get to work. I dreaded the announcement because I knew they would need correction which could take a while. After looking over a friend of mine’s schedule for her girls, I realized that she wisely moved straight into her day with no relaxed play time in the morning. Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? All this to say that I lost that bit of “blog” time in the morning when I started the new way of running things around here. By the time I hit the afternoon, I am tired and not exactly thinking as clearly, and so blogging was either neglected or quite simply forgotten.
Now that I am used to our little “work before leisure” routine, I am really going to try to get back in the habit of writing again. I miss it. I wanted to tell you all about so many things. Where do I begin?
1. My recent conversion from caffeinated coffee to decaf. tea.
2. Izzy’s birthday complete with crazy birth story and football cake.
3. My new favorite online radio program.
4. Back to the homemaking for the mommy years series talking about cleaning schedules.
5. Funny things my kids said last month.
6. My current favorite parenting teaching (summary and exerpt).
I really don’t know which to do first. I’m sure twenty different topics are going to come to mind as soon as I hit “publish”. Any preferences?
I’m glad to be back. I’ve missed you guys. Don’t get me wrong…I always read the latest and the greatest from the blogosphere, just haven’t had time? energy? motivation? to write on my own crazy blog.
