Butterfly Valentine Craft

Tomorrow being Valentine's Day inspired me to put together a quick little treat for Katie to share at her babysitter's tomorrow. These were really simple to make-Katie may even be able to help by next year.  Here's how I made them.

Supplies:  1 "fun size" or similar package of candy (or anything about this size/shape) and 1 pipe cleaner (chenille stem, if you're feeling fancy!)

First take your package and pinch it in the middle to resemble a bow.

Next fold your pipe cleaner in half.

Place folded pipe cleaner around the pinched section of your package.

Twist/wrap pipe cleaner around the middle several times.  3 times around ended up producing the best results for me.

Twist the two pieces of pipe cleaner together at the top to secure around the middle.

Curl the ends of pipe cleaner around your fingertip to make the antennae.

Finished product!

Bowl full of butterflies!

And who wouldn't want a Valentine from this cutie?

Too Much Christmas??!!

Last night Doug & I ventured out to do a little post-Christmas shopping.  This is one of our favorite activities and why in recent years we usually don't get each other much for Christmas (except last year when Doug surprised me with the special jewelry!)  So we're at the dreaded Wally-World last night and we're picking up a few things for the last of our holiday celebrations (tonight with Doug's family) and I notice the Christmas clearance.  In previous years, I would have made a beeline for those marked down ornaments and cards, but for some reason, I just couldn't bring myself to even glance at them this year.  I don't know if Doug has finally worn me down, or if thinking about Christmas with Katie has changed my whole attitude.  I don't want her to grow up thinking Christmas is this overly commercialized event with piles of presents and for some reason the thought of wading through all those Christmas leftovers made me feel just that.  I realized that we didn't need another ornament or new stockings or even new cards.  Next Christmas I may be kicking myself for not "stocking up," but I don't think so. 

Christmas spirit doesn't come in any of those things.  Christmas spirit comes from hearing your daughter's first "ooos & aaahhs" when she sees Christmas lights.  Or when you make your first little ornament or watch a favorite Christmas special.  Making candy & treats to share with friends & family.  That's Christmas spirit to me.  So this year, I'll happily pack away our tree & decorations and not worry that I didn't find that one more thing for next year.

Christmas Highlights

2009 was the Christmas it snowed and snowed and snowed!  2010 was the Christmas we went everywhere!  We started our Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve with a visit to Doug's brother's house.  We had some snacks, the kids opened a few gifts and we visited and checked out my brother-in-law's new home.  Very nice time, except that we had to be there right about naptime.  This was no big deal last Christmas.  Katie napped anywhere.  Not so much these days.  She fell asleep in the car on the way there, but of course was wide awake when we got her out of the car.  Just a little 5 minute power nap.  Then she proceeded to not get more than 6 inches away from me for the first 30 minutes or so.  After that she was fine.  She happily explored this new place and found all the cool toys!  Thankfully, we were able to extract Breanne's stuffed leopard from her without too many tears.

After our visit, we decided a nice little drive around would be good before heading to Christmas Eve services at church.  Our plan worked, Katie fell asleep right away and got in a good 30 minute nap.  We felt pretty good about that and headed into church with a happy girl.  She made it through the first song or two and then the wiggling began!  This wasn't so bad, but she's getting pretty strong these days and I was having a hard time trying to keep her still.  Passing her off to Daddy wasn't an option, because that just made her mad and then she got loud.  Fortunately, there were some very nice ladies sitting behind us making faces and engaging her.  Still though, when she started the head butting, we decided it was time to leave (it hurt!)

We probably should have went home with our cranky and tired girl at that point, but we still had to go out to my Grandpa's for more Christmas celebrations.  Katie had a good time playing with her cousin Kirsten, as always and was generally in a pretty good mood.  Still, we knew she wasn't going to make it much longer, so we kept our visit short.  We still had to get Katie in bed and get ready for Santa!

Christmas morning was of course the morning that Katie slept in, not that we're complaining.  Doug & I were up around 7 or so, but Katie didn't stir until 7:30.  We were pretty excited to get her up so she could see what Santa brought her...

She was pretty excited when she saw it, she even said "ooh..."

Santa also filled Katie's stocking with some fun toys, books & bubble bath.  From Mommy & Daddy she got some new clothes, jammies and a book.  She loved that as well.

About halfway through opening up her gifts, she threw her hands up in the air and proclaimed "all done!" and walked away.  It took quite a bit convincing to get her to come back in and Mommy ended up opening the rest of her presents for her.  Doug and I had a nice Christmas as well.  Doug & Katie gave me some perfume that I'd been wanting and Katie & I gave Doug a magnetic drill bit thing-y for his drill that he'd needed. 

After we finished up our gifts we got ready to go and went to my parents' house.  There were many more presents to open there and once again, just not enough time.  But, it was still nice and Katie left there with quite the stash of toys and a new toy box (thank goodness!)  This was one of her favorites!

Doug & I weren't left out there either!  Doug got a new winter coat that and I got some new cartridges for my Cricut, among other things.  Santa just forgot to send the gift certificates for extra time to use them!  :) 

Our visit at Mom & Dad's was just the start of the day.  We had a really yummy Christmas dinner at my Grandma's...smoked turkey...yum!  Katie played with more of her cousins.  They had a blast playing "Ring Around the Rosie," Katie loved "all fall down!"  She was definitely wearing out though.  She had a bit of a meltdown while we were there (who can blame her, poor girl had been going nonstop for 2 days!) so we decided it was time to make a quick visit to Doug's grandma before getting our cranky girl home for the evening.

We had a nice visit there, and were pleasantly surprised to see Aunt Patty & Uncle Steve and Doug's mom met us there.  Katie played and was generally adorable and we were sent home with a plate of cookies and some Christmas money.  :)

Needless to say, Katie slept great last night.  We spent the entire day at home and she has had a great time playing with her new toys.   I think I've finally gotten everything put away!  We still have one more Christmas celebration on Tuesday night at our house with Doug's family.  Wednesday the tree will be taken down and Christmas will be over for another year.  We hope everyone's Christmas was as lovely as ours.  Goodnight!

Finally a Moment to Post

Well, I went from posting daily in November back to barely posting at all.  Oh well.  We've just been way too busy these last couple of weeks, getting ready for the holidays and Doug preparing for finals.  There has barely been a moment to clean the house much less post to our blog.  But, finals are over now and so is most of the holiday prep.  Just in time too, I'm looking forward to spending some time with my family over these next couple weeks. 

Today Katie & I went to make our traditional Christmas candy with my mom & sister.  It was so much fun!  Yummy, too!  Then we took Katie to see Santa at the mall (seriously $12 for 2 wallets is pretty ridiculous, but this picture was so cute I kind of wish I'd bought more!)

Maybe tonight we'll watch a Christmas movie.  I checked out Christmas Vacation from the library this week and we've got pizza for dinner.  Sounds like a relaxing night for the Snider's.  Hope yours is too!

Busy Weekend

I'm almost glad this weekend is over...almost.  It has been nonstop!  Lots of Christmas fun happenings.  Elf, holiday party, tree trimming and Krug Park lights.  I'm worn out!  Doug has his last week of classes before finals this week, so it's going to be nuts until the 17th around here.  Better start going to bed earlier tonight!  Here's a quick picture before I go.

Katie enjoying the lights and the honking at the park!

Trimming the Tree or How Not to Decorate a Tree with a 1 Year Old

I don't know about all you other working moms out there, but I feel compelled to do everything with Katie.  I want to cook with her, craft with her, shop with her, etc.  I don't want her to miss one single experience.  She handles it fairly well, and it's usually Momma that ends up tired and cranky at the end of it.  Such was the case last night when I pushed us to get the tree decorated.  Keep in mind we'd been at a family get together for most of the afternoon, Doug had a cold, and Katie didn't take an afternoon nap.

I started off by changing into my Christmas jammies and giving Katie hers to open.  I want to start a tradition that Mrs. Claus leaves her Christmas jammies (all wrapped up in special packaging) right after Thanksgiving so she has the whole month to wear them.  Yeah that didn't work so well.  Maybe in a year or two when she might understand the whole Santa/presents thing.

After we were in our jammies and had our eggnog we started opening the boxes.  In past years Doug would lay out ornaments and I would find the perfect place on the tree.  We typically don't have a big tree/many ornaments so it took us maybe 20 minutes to do all of this if the tree was already set up.  I think it took us an hour last night!  Katie loved going through the ornaments and she handled everything very delicately.

Then it was time to hang the first ornament, and we thought we'd have Katie do it.  I pulled out her first Christmas ornament, went over to the tree with her and helped her carefully hang it on a low branch.  We stepped back and she reached out to it and snatched it back off the tree.  That was apparently not the right spot.  We tried again with the same results.  Finally I took the ornament and hung it up where she couldn't reach it.  We tried letting her hang one again with Doug, but we had similar results.  Again, maybe this will go better next year.

The rest of trimming went about the same way.  Katie pulling off the ornaments as fast as we could put them on and us putting them up higher and higher.  We had a good time though.

As you can see, it all worked out in the end.  A beautiful Christmas tree for our beautiful daughter.

Not As Planned

This holiday weekend has not quite gone as planned.  We've had colds, time conflicts & work schedules all messing things up.  Somehow, we've managed to fit just about everything in though.  Thanksgiving was spent with my mom's family at my parents' house.  We visited with Doug's mom on Thanksgiving night and Katie had her first taste of eggnog.  She loved it-just like her daddy!  We got to hang out with super-cool Nick on Friday.  That was so much fun.  :)  Last night we finally found some time to hang out with Doug's brother's family.  We watched Polar Express (Doug had never seen it!) and had pizza and pumpkin pie concretes-YUM!  Today will be another family dinner (my dad's family) and tonight is for decorating the tree.  I can't wait!

Christmas!!

According to Doug, Christmas can officially begin.  We got our tree out this morning and put it up.  So far we have lights & tinsel on it (after we got it back from Katie.)  We didn't get a chance to do ornaments today, but we'll get to it this weekend.  Be looking for our tree picture soon!

Thankful

I try to be thankful every day, but today especially I want to remember to share my thanks.  Right now, it's all about the little things.  Good cold medicine, soft tissues and Doug & Katie letting me get the rest I needed the last few days. 

I'm thankful for my family.  My beautiful daughter who loves to dance and laugh and play.  She makes me smile.  My helpful husband who stayed up with me last night making food for today.  He also mopped the kitchen & bathroom floors and helped me with dishes & laundry yesterday.  It was so nice getting up this morning and knowing that we just have to get ourselves ready and nothing else.  Thank you Doug, for talking me into staying up last night.  Thanks to my mom & dad for organizing and preparing the better part of 2 family dinners this week.  My brother & sister for being a loving uncle & aunt to Katie.  My in-laws for hosting a low-key movie night for us to wind down with tonight.  And I'm thankful for all the rest of our family and friends.  We love you all and wish you the best on this Thanksgiving day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas is Coming!

As I was grocery shopping this morning, I couldn't help but be reminded that Christmas is coming everywhere I turned.  And you know what?  I liked it!  Of course, I'm also excited when the Christmas music starts playing on the radio in November (if you don't like it, listen to something else!) and when I saw Christmas lights & decorations already up on people's houses this week that made me happy too.  This morning though, I experienced my biggest Christmas thrill thus far.  As Katie & I walked into Wal-Mart she spotted the big Christmas tree and her eyes lit up and she said "Ooohhh..."  Made my heart melt and I was ready to come home and put my tree up right then and there!  We'll wait though.  We have to give Daddy time to get into the Christmas spirit or at least be okay with  getting out the Christmas stuff.  This year, I plan to start decorating the day after Thanksgiving.  Tree & all since we're planning to use our fake one this year.  I can't wait to see Katie's reaction to having a tree right here in our house!  I think she's going to love it.  :)

Christmas Shopping

Have you started yet?  I had picked up a few things for Katie at the end of summer/early fall, but have refrained since then.  I pretty much know what I want to get her, it is just a matter of finding the right thing.  I was out with a girlfriend last night and found some cute clearance jammies and a top at Target.  I'd like to get her a pair of pants in the next size to go with the top and another outfit, probably.  They had some cute 3 piece things at Target that I'll probably regret not picking up.  I also got her a book.  I'm really trying to slow down on my book purchases for her.  It's so hard though!  Other than that I want to get her puzzle with big chunky pieces or some wood blocks.

Santa is going to bring her a toy vacuum and a big ball.  Along with some stocking stuffers.  Santa has no idea what kind of stocking stuffers to get for her this year.  Any suggestions?

Snow!

We had some snow this weekend. A little bit on Saturday that melted away fairly quickly, but yesterday's stuck around for a little longer. There is still some out there now.

It certainly made it a festive day for putting up the Christmas tree. We went with a small white tree with blue decorations this year, Doug's idea, he's always wanted us to have a white tree. We've got so much going on that getting out all of our decorations just seemed like too much work to me. I think it disappointed Doug a little bit. Christmas is my favorite time to decorate for, but we're both so tired right now, I don't think we'd enjoy it much. But we've got the wreath hanging on the door and our sweet little tree in one corner with our stockings hung right above it and a couple other little things here and there. It'll be enough this year. Next year, I'm sure we won't be able to resist going all out. We'll probably even have to get a real tree. :)

Sorry, NaBloPoMo!

I missed a day, actually 2. So I won't actually get to complete NaBloPoMo this year. Darn. Actually, I'm not that sad. I think my posts have been pretty boring this month.

Why'd I miss those two days? Well, Tuesday I was going to post before work, during work, and after work, but something always prevented me. Not enough time before, really shouldn't do that at work and then after work I didn't get home until late and then went straight to bed. Yesterday I didn't post because I didn't post Tuesday and knew I'd already messed it up.

So here I am today, posting. It's Thanksgiving today and even though this month has had it's ups and downs, we still have much to be thankful for. In no particular order.

• Doug's dad came home on Tuesday and we'll get to spend Thanksgiving with him after all.
• Lots of family and friends to spend the holiday with. Doug went out last night after work and caught up with Aaron & Ronnie and we may have visits with other friends and out of town family this weekend, we hope.
• Our 2 crazy kitties. They may be pains sometimes, but we love them! They keep us entertained and make us smile.
• Doug's very understanding job during this difficult time with his dad.
• My very understanding job.
• Our siblings, this year we've come to realize how important those relationships truly are.
• Our parents, who love us and care for us and want to help us.
• Doug's new lawn mower, which he won't use until Spring, but we're thankful to have one that will now run all the time.
• A warm home, this time last year we'd just gotten our furnace replaced and I'm still thankful that my uncle and aunt did that for us (they also did the air conditioner over the summer!)
• Good food to eat. I'm learning that to become a better cook, I actually have to cook more often. :)
• Good books to read and movies & TV to watch. It sounds silly, but sometimes you just need that little distraction from all the rest of the crazy world.
• Speaking of crazy world, our troops who are fighting for our freedom and protecting our country and their families who have to celebrate Thanksgiving without them.
• A change in our government, whether you voted for him or not, at least it's something different and something new to look forward to.
• My husband's miserly ways...:) No really, it's a good thing!
• Cozy new mattresses.
• Warm blankets.
• Phone calls and visits with my girlfriends.
• Sweet baby, Hazel.
• Our niece & nephews.
• The 3 dinners we get to attend today! I'm very thankful for this, even if I will be complaining about how much food I ate by then end of the day.
• So many other things that I can't even begin to mention!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Carving

We carved pumpkins this afternoon with our friends' and their kids. It was lots of fun! Doug carved the pumpkin in our profile picture. :)

BJ's Halloween Costume

Yes, I dressed my cat in a Halloween costume. Yes, I am a dork! :)

Fun Times!

We hosted our annual 4th of July BBQ this weekend. It was lots of fun! This is the third year we've done it and the first time we've actually felt organized and prepared. It still leaves us feeling completely exhausted by the time the day is done, in a good way. We're always happy to have our family and friends with us for the holiday. Click here for more pictures!

Time for a New Look

I changed our layout and our picture again. It was time for something new and summery. :) The picture was taken last weekend at Sarah's graduation.

Last weekend was a pretty busy one for us, oh who am I kidding, every weekend is busy! But last weekend was busier than most. Between graduation, visiting with Matt, and trying to get our AC fixed (still not) we were pretty worn out by Monday. That's why it was nice for us just to stay home, fix some steaks on the grill and go out for ice cream Monday evening. Things I really need to do, Spring Cleaning (hey, it's not officially Summer yet!), plant flowers (I'm running out of time there too) and start getting ready for our annual 4th of July BBQ. :) Oh well, everything will get done eventually, right?

Speaking of 4th of July, it's right around the corner. Just 5 weeks from tomorrow I believe. Once again Doug & I plan to host our families and friends for food, fun, and a great view of the river front fireworks. We don't have all the details yet, but we'll let you all know as soon as we get all the plans worked out.

Merry Christmas (Eve)

It was Christmas Eve morning and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a cat...

Okay, that's not true. BJ has really been having fun with the tree now that I have moved the ornaments down again, but Doug is still sleeping (he had a long day yesterday) and Tess is really almost always quiet. The house is fairly quiet for us though.

We spent most of yesterday getting the house ready for our family dinner tonight and now all that is left is the cooking. I think we figured out how long it will take everything to cook, so we are good to go there. The presents are all wrapped and under the tree. So I guess we're ready!

With that said, I need to get started on my cake for tomorrow.

From our house to yours, Merry Christmas! Love, Doug & Misty

7 Days till Christmas

Well, now that things have calmed down a little bit since last week we can start getting ready for Christmas. We're hosting Doug's family for Christmas Eve and it will be the first time in 27 years that I have missed the Brown Family Christmas Eve dinner. I'm a little sad, but I guess now that we're married it's time to start making traditions of our own with my new family. That being said, I'm not that anxious about having everyone here. I probably will be singing a different tune come Sunday, but for now I feel like we pretty much have it under control.

What?? Another Post? But it's Only Been 4 Days!

I'm just killing some time waiting for the chicken to be done (yes, I make chicken at 9:30 in the morning, doesn't everybody?). Back to work this week and it was not fun. The kids at the library had that little taste of long weekend and now there's no looking back until Christmas break. I feel sorry for my brother-in-law and his wife and all the rest of those teachers out there! It's going to be a very long 4 weeks.

I started the Christmas shopping this morning by ordering a few things online. I'm so paranoid that they won't arrive in time. I love shopping online though. It's so much nicer to be able to sit here in my bathrobe, enjoying my coffee and clicking around online looking for the perfect gift. Eventually that's probably how I'll do all my shopping.

Now I'm watching BJ play with his new favorite toy...a paper towel tube! He loves rolling it across the floor and wrestling with it. At least he's not messing with the Christmas tree right now. He & Tess both have been caught under it and in it. So far we've only had one ornament casualty and it was just one of the cheap-o shiny Christmas balls. I can deal with them breaking those and of course the really precious ornaments are at the top of the tree anyway. I'm just waiting for the day when I come home and the whole tree is on the floor. I know it's going to happen at some point!

Well, my chicken is done now and I need to get in the shower and get ready for work so that Doug & I can actually have lunch together before I leave. Happy Tuesday!