This could be YOU......

This is your brain.......






This is your brain after Christmas crafts.......







and these are your hands.........

Any questions????




*No digits were injured in the creation of this blog post. heeheehee Merry Christmas, One and All!

Just Us Girls!

This past Saturday me and two of my favorite and my best (that's a little "Charlie and Lola" for ya) girlfriends hit the road and headed toward Ft Payne, Alabama- home of Orbix Hot Glass. Our mission? To hand blow our very own Christmas ornaments! The drive alone was beautiful, but their gallery was uh-mazing! Please check out that link up there...you won't regret it!

This was their bathroom sink, for Pete's sake! I mean, that alone should give you a clue to the talent and creativity of the people there! Did I mention uh-mazing?

So this was my blob of dripping hot glass in the oven.....

then I commenced blowing while Cal Breed manipulated my blob into a stunning ornament!

And these are my girls! And by the way, my precious hubby won the "Least Interfering Husband of the Day" Award! Yeee Hooo! Oh I had the greatest time...and look forward to our next adventure.......underwater basket weaving! ;o)

Cookies a la Benji

Ben enjoys cooking so much. And the truth is, he's actually a pretty good sous chef! He has some mad prepping skills! What's that line from Matrix:Revolution???? "I see you have skills." Ha! Totally Benji in the kitchen.

I do believe he mostly enjoying wacking the bee-jeebers out of the peppermints for our Peppermint Snowball Cookies!

Second favorite activity in the cookie-making process would have to be maneuvering small electric appliances. He said the mixer tickled his arm!

And I have to say that he was NO fan of rolling dough! Something about the ooey-gooey texture did NOT please him! But he was a trooper and helped anyway! I had a great time with him- he's so much fun!

P.S. The cookies were fabulous and came from the Gooseberry Patch Christmas Book 11.

The Ever So Simple Ribbon Chain Garland

So I'm going to try my hand at a shorty tutorial for you because I just love how this ribbon chain garland looks on our "All- Handmade" tree! Hobby Lobby has some adorable ribbon this year!

Gather your supplies of ribbon, fabric glue and paper clips.

I cut 12 lengths of ribbon that were 8 inches long. (My spools of ribbon were 3 yards each)

Glue to one end of the chain and attach other end.

Continue this process until you have the desired length. Mine is too short and would like to have twice as much, so you may want to start off with 8 spools of ribbon rather than only 4.

Keep going..........

I put a paperclip over the seam until it was good and dry so that it wouldn't pop apart. This worked GREAT!

And this is the adorable finished project. I love this chain becuase it is so incredibly easy! We are making all of our tree decor this year...so stay tuned to see what else we can come up with!

Advent

The Advent season is upon us. If we were all honest, most of us, I believe, would say we didn't celebrate "Advent". What is that?

This year we have decided to try to honor this holiday season for what it really is, the celebration of the coming of Christ. It's more than presents, a trip to see Santa at the mall, and how many Starbucks gift cards we'll have to buy for all of those silly "Bring a $10 gift" parties.

This year we are celebrating Advent by:
1. Having a traditional Advent wreath with the five candles, one lit each Sunday with a scripture reading.
2. Intentionally spending our time together as a family and not apart. We will not be attending functions that our children are not a part of (except we went to Andy's company Christmas party- how else am I going to know who he is talking about when he does mention someone from work?)
3. We are making 90% of our Christmas gifts as a gesture of thought, care, and love.
4. Focusing the children on others who are not as blessed as we are with material things...we will try this in many ways- beginning, as always, with Operation Christmas Child.

I'm hoping the Advent season will grow in our hearts each year- that it will be a time of great spiritual growth and reflection on Jesus.

What are you doing to celebrate Advent and the Christmas season? I'd love to know!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Joy, sweet JOY! There's nothing in the world like the sight of precious snowflakes falling in Momma South! At about one o'clock this morning, when most sane people are sleeping, I was up crafting (of all things!) and looked out the window to see it ever so gracefully falling from Heaven. That's where it's from, ya know. A gift straight from God Himself! I just love how Cainberly looks in the snow. She's so nestled and sweet in her light shade of pink. (Off white, if you ask Andy- who obviously has issues with admitting to living in a pink house). Oh how embarrassing- pumpkins still on the porch and hummingbird feeders still hung! Poor porch has been neglected for a few weeks!

Abby is tickled everytime the bird bath freezes. How exciting that the birds will have the opportunity to ice skate, she says! Sadly, as of yet, I have been unable to actually document this momentus occurrence. However, last March, we found a tiny scarf draped over one of the bird ornaments. Honest! ;o)

My day

Have I ever mentioned how precious my children are?

*winkwink*

Abby made up this "badge" for me to wear on Tuesday. They get so excited about my birthday (and Andy's too for that matter). I love that because I am a HUGE fan of birthdays! And I was really bummed because Andy was out of town for it.

So we went to Edgars (the best bakery in Alabama) and each picked a yummy gourmet "pupcake"- mine was strawberry. Then we headed home and I broke out the depression glass from Momma and we had Shirley Temples and a big time!

Abby and Ben kept my gift a secret for a week. Andy left it for them when he went out of town and they even wrapped it all on their own! Didn't they do a great job?! ( phillips MP3 player to replace the lost iPod, incase you're wondering)

And this was the end of the big day, me and my babies at Surin, our favorite Thai restaurant. They are really the BEST gift, every year- hands down.