Christmas CrAzY Time!?!

Ok, so to say that times are crazy is an UNDERSTATEMENT!  

Let me just sum it up really quick, as I don't have that much time.  I taught up until 3:30 this afternoon.  That is right, my district didn't let out until December 23rd.  While I am excited to not go back to school until January 9th, I feel like a chicken with my head cut off preparing for Christmas!  Lets just say that I didn't wrap any presents until last night and I still have a few handmade items to finish making tonight, on top of preparing a huge Italian meal for Christmas lunch tomorrow afternoon and clean the house.  Whew!

In all of the craziness this week, we have been {mostly the kids} having fun times!

 Grandpa and Grandma took Kyan and Lola to Glendale Glitters on Wednesday night and to the zoo today {I let them skip school, spending time with family seemed more important}.

 I was able to sneak away on Thursday to see Lola's preschool class perform a few songs!  She was so stinking cute and didn't get stage fright at all {not gonna lie, I was worried}!

Grandpa and Grandma joined us and stayed the entire time, making arts and crafts after they sang!  She was so excited to have us there!

 Last night, after football practice, the kids received their own special emails from Santa.  They had personalized messages {Santa knew their names, where they lived, how old they were, what grade they were in, and what special gift they wanted him to bring them} to each kid and told them if they were on the naughty or nice list!  Their reactions were priceless and it was adorable to watch!  You still have time to do this with your kids!  Click here to make your own video!

Hoping to survive the Christmas craziness these next few days!  

Wishing you and your families the merriest of Christmas'!

Handmade with Love

Not sure if you remember me saying it or not...but I have been a busy little bee in my craft room, finishing up the last of my gifts to give.  I can finally show these off a few of them, as they were for my coworkers and the kids' teachers, and they were delivered either yesterday or today! 

Let me just start by saying that I have a lot of coworkers that I give gifts to.  What can I say?  I work with amazing people and while I thank them over and over for making those last minute copies, collecting money/pictures for yearbook, or helping me with whatever really, Christmas is the one time of year that I try to spoil them {just a little}!  I also try to give something to each of the kids' teachers, aides, and extended day workers.  My children spend the majority of their awake time with them and each and every one is special in their very own way and plays a big part in molding my child into who he or she is becoming.  Their positive impact means a lot.

Wheat Therapy Sack

So, for the extended day crew at the kids' school and for the front office peeps at my school {secretaries, advisers, coaches, principal and assistant principal} I made wheat therapy sacks.  While searching pinterest for an idea that was relatively inexpensive, I found the Brassy Apple's tutorial for these bad boys {click here to learn how to make your own}!  I had all of the fabric already, just needed to get wheat, like 4 lbs of it!  That is where my sister-in-law comes in.  Just so happens that she had some in her food storage and she let me have it, all 4 lbs!  So, that means that I was able to make all 21 of them for FREE!  My kind of craft! 

As I mentioned above, Megan of Brassy Apple gives a great tutorial on how to make these bad boys and you should go to check it out if you want to make your own!   She even had a little poem to attach to with the gift.  I loved it and decided to use it to, only I doctored it up just a little on picnic.com and printed it off at my local Walgreens!  If you are wanting to use them too, you could! Just drag the image onto your desktop, upload to the your favorite place to print and attach it to your gift!

 

 Good Luck  Penny Key Chain

For my 8A team, I experimented a little bit this year!  Again, while pinning my little heart out, I came across the coolest key chain I have ever seen, found here, you know, in case you are curious, didn't want to make your own and just wanted to buy it, or wanted to see how I was trying to make mine look!   

This project was relatively simple to make on my own, although there is one more step that I probably should have done to make the letters stand out more.  First I found the pennies with specific years:  birthdays, heart surgeries, anniversaries.  Then I had my husband drill holes in them after I duck taped and vasolined them to a scrap piece of wood.  I stamped a copper piece with special words for each girl:  lucky or blessed.  Then I put them {okay, okay...it was Celeste, I didn't want to ruin my nails} on a key ring! 

I knew I was going to make one for me too while I was at it, the only difference mine has is the picture charm!  I saved the little picture that came on my tinyprints Christmas card order, cut it up and slapped a little mod podge dimensional magic {first time ever working on this project} on top!  I let it dry overnight and woke up to my most favorite key chain ever!  My pennies are of the year I got married, and the year each of my kids was born! 

Emergency Clutch & Starbucks Gift Card Holder

These were each for my kids' teachers at school!  Kyan has just one, but Lola is lucky enough to have 3 of them! 

I have made these clutches before and to see how to make your own or what it is exactly, click here!  All I know is that every girl should have one!  It has been a life saver on more than one occasion!

And while I might be the only person on the planet who doesn't love Starbucks {I know, I know...horrible huh?},  I happen to know that their teachers do!  But I didn't just give them a plain old card, even though I know it spends the same, so I asked Starbucks if I could have empty cups/lids to put them in!  I threw in some tissue paper and a straw and placed them in the drink carrier {that I ask for with each McDonald's ice tea order in the mornings}!

 That was the bulk of my handmade gift making for this holiday, but I am still NOT finished yet!  I have a few more projects up my sleeve, can't show them off just yet though!

I love handmade anything.   Hoping that each and every person that was given a gift knows just how special they are and how much love was poured into each gift that I made myself!

 PS-Linking up this week with my favorite party people!

Santa and Strep

Tonight was family fun night at the kids' school.  Kyan stayed home from school today {more on that to come...}, so Lola and I attended together.  From the very second I picked her up from extended day, Santa was all she could talk about.  She had to see him and sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas.  This was so out of character for her, usually she is running into my arms at the sight of anyone new!  So, of course I jumped at the chance to take her to see him!  

We were second in line and here was their reactions to each other!

She proudly told Santa that she wanted a puppy that barks and could walk with a leash {remote control, not a real one}.  She grinned from ear to ear the entire time and Santa was just as smitten with her as she seemed to be with him! 

After we visited with Santa for a few minutes, we were off to decorate a cookie for Kyan, who was at home sick.  Lola knew that it would make him so happy, so she did one for him extra special.  She even added her candy cane that Santa gave her to the plate for Kyan as well!  And we couldn't leave without getting her face painted.  She was so excited and stood in the long line, very patiently I might add, to get Rudolf, the Red Nosed Reindeer, on her cheek!

She had so much fun tonight, seeing Santa, her friends and her teachers! 

When we got home, I immediately went to check on the sick one.  He was burning up and had not gotten any better, despite staying home and resting the entire day with his Auntie Kiki, who was kind enough to let him crash with her so that we could go to work!  I dashed him over to Urgent Care, where we were in and out in under 10 minutes {I love the one by our house, they are so speedy}.  One look in his throat and the doctor said he had strep.  He started rattling off about 5 different symptoms that he could be seen just in the throat and Kyan had all of them.  He prescribed medicine and hopefully Kyan will be on the mend soon.

Our Christmas Tree Tradition

A real tree is a MUST at the Roseland house! 

Hubby has to have real, he says he loves the smell.  I love the smell too, but what I don't love is the mess!  Little needles everywhere!  Always sweeping up after the tree it seems...I wish for a fake tree at the start of the Christmas {decorating} season each year, but quickly forgot about those wishes when it is time to go pick out a tree {insert tradition here}!

  We usually go to the same lot to pick out our tree.  It is usually pretty cold and the tree picking goes pretty quick so we can get back into the truck to warm up for our favorite part!

The Light Show!!!

Last year in the field next to the lot where we get our tree, they had a huge Christmas light show set up that you could drive your vehicle through and when we saw it setting up this year, we knew we would head back and that it would become a tradition of ours every year after we picked out our tree!

So with our tree loaded in the back of the truck we got in line to see the show!  It takes about 30 minutes to get to the start, but with Christmas music blasting, we sang songs and took advantage of some photo ops with each other to kill the time!  

The kids are always so excited with anticipation at the point and it is so cute to listen to what they say as we creep up slowly to the lights!  Kyan loves that he gets to stand up on the middle console and poke his head through the moon roof {Lola joins him, but only for a minute or two} the whole time we drive through and Lola settles in the front, either on my lap or standing between my legs with her head poking out the window!

It was way too late this year to decorate the tree when we got home {let's just say it was MORE than a busy weekend!  Saturday: Kyan's last game, photo shoot, Donna's birthday party, tree/light show.  Sunday: decorate the tree, Avery's birthday party, Kyan's baseball party, AJ's birthday party, teach Donna how to use her birthday/Christmas present...whew!} so we did it Sunday morning when we woke up!   The kids hopped right out of bed and waited patiently to start putting ornaments on the tree while Chad worked on the lights that seemed to not want to work properly!

  The kids walked around with those birds on their shoulders while waiting to put everything on the tree!  It was actually really cute! 

We decorate our tree with a mixture of old ornaments from Chad and my past Christmas' as kids, new ones bought together as a family, and homemade ones from the kids!  Lola seems to touch every single one and know exactly which ones she put up too!  Kyan was the proudest to hang his nutcracker that Grandma Donna found for him at a sale.  He is hung closest to the star to protect it!  While I do love a themed tree, our really love the randomness of our tree.  No rhyme or reason, just a lot of memories all in one spot!

Feeling more and more like Christmas each day!

Mama for the Day!

Ok, so I know I am a mama every single day, BUT Thursday was special!  I ditched took the day off of work and hung out with Lola on her field trip to see The Nutcracker! 

 The bus ride was almost as fun as the play {which was amazing}!

We ate lunch at the theater and then enjoyed the show together.  We even found some time, I think during a bathroom break, to pose next to the polar bears!  During the show,  Lola sat on my lap for most of it, snuggling during the scary parts and dancing and giggling the rest of the time!  She loved it and is ready to go back and see School of Rock and Pinkalicious!

  

Really BIG love you Lola!  I had so much fun hanging with you for the day!

Girly Girl Time!

 On Friday night I had plans to lock myself in the craft room to start on what seems like the never ending list of things I need to make!  I was going to be in there no matter what and with threats of house crashing and crafty time by the girls for a while, I invited them to join me!  ALL of these girls at one point or another are at my house baby sitting, dog sitting, swimming or crafting...last night we just added finger nail painting to the list {and they even did Lola's for her too}!

But before we could get started, we had the traditional babysitting meal {I always leave them $$$, usually for Papa John's Pizza - it's cheap and everyone seems to love it}!

Fletcher, as usual, scared Taylor to death and she ended up jumping on the ottoman {ummmm....more than once}!

After dinner, it was time to get busy!  Celeste worked on project where you have to rip out pieces from a magazine and paste onto a canvas.  She only got that far and we have to finish it soon.  She had the rough job of playing DJ too, so she was distracted {and quite the procrastinator...kinda reminded me of when she was my student!}.  Alyssa and Bianca painted their nails and Lola's too while Taylor was busy giving back rides super fast and taking pictures on the computer with Lola {which is Lola's favorite thing to do and she asks for it every single time they are over}.  Me?  Worked on a project for co-workers and teachers at the kids' school!

Girly Girls posing/being silly with a frame that Celeste took home with her!

 

 Really BIG love ya girls {and Laken Bacon too, we missed you}.  Thanks for hanging with me and Lola on Friday night, catching up on what is going on in your lives since I don't get to see you every single day! Until next time... 

I Did It, You Can Too!

 See those tabs under my header?  The {I Did It} tab has been under construction since I put those tabs up, however, if you visit there now you will find all of the things I have made and tried to do tutorials on so that you can make it too if you see something you like!  No more searching through previous posts to see where that one project is, it is now all in one spot!  So excited!

Next tab on my to do list is a Supper Club/Food tab!  Stay tuned...and until then, go check out a project or two!