Magic in our own backyard!

We have always said our house had magic in it. It is because it is so old, over 100 years! In the spring lots of fairies live here and come from the flowers when they bloom. We make sure we sprinkle lots of glittery fairy dust in the flower beds so they will grow with the flowers. We leave little acorn top cups of water and rose petal plates of fairy food. The girls build fairy waterfalls on the rock wall for them to bathe in. All of this magic goes along perfect with our theme for the year. We have decided our theme for the year will be - "Magic in our own Backyard" - Most of our activities this year will reflect that theme and I am sooo excited! We have the coolest birthdays planned. I love having fun birthdays.
Along with all of the magic, one of the things that inspired our group decision was the photograph contest from American Girl. Kaity has taken the most beautiful pictures from our backyard. If you want to participate - http://www.americangirl.com/girloftheyear/2010/photocontest.php
We have a lot of cool ideas and are excited about all of the fun that will be happening in our backyard as we make the world a better place starting with our little corner.

Our Backyard

These were all taken by Kaity, she is a fabulous photographer and has an artistic eye for detail. Beautiful!!!

 

The comfort of predictable tradtions.

We had a fabulous Christmas. There are so many beautiful people in our lives that it would be impossible not too! This year we had our fun family tree with our handmade decorations and precious things the kids have made or collected over the years, and we also hand picked the most gorgeous tree ever off of the mountain behind our home. Our awesome nieghbors, that are more like family, took us up to get it. It is huge and beautiful.

As I reflect on our wonderful Christmas, I think about all of the traditions that we have, and we do them every year. They are so predictable. We all open one present on Christmas eve and of course it is PJ's. (Smart mom's can guarantee great Christmas day photo's that way ;) Then we change into jammy's and read the Christmas story out of the Bible just like my father did when I was a child. We leave Santa milk and home-made cookies on his special plate, and he leaves us a really neat book to add to our Christmas collection. We feed the reindeer too, they don't leave us anything but we are awfully glad that they get Santa to us. Actually they did leave us some reindeer droppings this year which was a real added bonus in the believe department. We either make or collect a special ornament each year.... and the list goes on.

We celebrated New Years in our traditional way as well - together. I am so glad we have always done that and I hope my kids want to do that every year. We eat snacks and watch movies. At midnight we watch the ball drop and drink Martenellis sparkling apple cider. The kids love it and it is our tradition. And as life goes on I realize that those predictable things are the things that bond us and keep us close, they keep us grounded and moving forward, the things you can always plan for and count on. When everything in life gets crazy - and it usually does - there are things you can count on. You will get a new pair of PJ's every year even when you are to old to out grow them, Santa and the reindeer will always be able to fuel up at our house Christmas Eve, baby Jesus is always lying in the manger Christmas day, Christ comes before everything especially presents and Santa, we celebrate everything together, and family always loves you.

CHEERS!

Black Friday FUN!!!

I couldn't help posting this picture. Bethany and I are pro's! We sooo know how to do this.

Tip #1 Bring your best friend/shopping buddy/sister - (they are few and far between! )

Tip #2 is be first in line. (Here we are a few years ago first of course!) 

Tip #3 Bring camp chairs and blankets, it will be a while.

Tip #4 Get a breakfast sandwich and very hot hot cocoa at the Maverick before you get to the store of choice (first of course =).

Tip #5 (MOST IMPORTANT) Have a blast! Really we do it just for the fun of it. We have laughed about our "Black Friday's" for years later!

Tasty Fall Treats

It is always tastier when the food is beautiful. I love to add little touches, like leaves to the pie, displaying food in a colorful way or serving on a beautiful serving dish. Little touches make it so much more fun to cook for everyone and it is amazing how it brings out the flavor :)

My sister in law made these fabulous candied apples! The kids loved them and they are beautiful!

Thanksgiving place cards

I love making everything festive on the holidays. I wish I had taken a close up of these they are so much more gorgeous in real life. I used a business card template in word and inserted a text box and then just used all different fonts for the names of the guests that were coming. We had used glitter modge podge on fall leaves and acorns that we had gathered earlier in the year an then glue gunned them on to the name tags. Simple but gorgeous! (When you modge podge the leaves do it on wax paper and let them dry. I did an entire 3' arrangement still on the branches. It was absolutley stunning especially in the evening light.)

Black Cats

These are the cutest black cats I have ever seen! They looked puuurfect for Halloween.

I love playing with face paints and these little faces turned out just gorgeous! I sewed the tails with black fabric and used some white so there would be a white tip on the end and put wire hangers in them so I could control the shape. The ears are made with head bands and I glue gunned a bow on one side for a feminine feline touch. They wore thier dance outfits with some black soft slippers and white mittens.

Pumpkins & Witches Brooms

We had the funnest time making pumpkin & Witches broom treats for our friends and neighbors. They turned out gorgeous and the treats were yummy too!

First for the filling:

We popped a bunch of popcorn and added small pretzels, a few cashews, and m&m's then layed it out on large cookie sheets. (You could also use wax paper) I drizzled orange melted chocolate on the mix. Waited about 10 in. for it to be cool and put it in a large bowl.

For the pumpkins:

I took orange party napkins, put about a cup to a cup and a half of the popcorn mixture in the center and pulled all of the corners together. I twisted the corners together and wrapped green floral tape around it so it would look like a stem. Then I hot glued a silk leaf it and if you look closley you can see that I took a piece of green craft wire and twisted it around the stem and curled the ends to look like the vine part.

For the brooms:

I took brown paper lunch sacks and put about 2 cups of the mixture in. It depends on the size of your bag. I had the regular size but if you could find smaller it would be better. Then I cut strips in the top of the bag about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way down the bag. I cut the strips about 1/2" wide all the way around the bag. I cut limbs from our apricot tree and stuck a limb in each bag and then tied purple rafia around the cut lines. Tada- a witches broom. Hope you have fun with this idea! We had a blast. It was fun to hear all the ooos and ahhs when we delivered.