I love Christmas

OK, there are so many great ideas I have seen for Christmas this year, so I thought I would share a couple that I am doing. These ones are Martha's. (She is the queen, and despite everything that has happened to her still my idle.) Oh and for those of you who already have the 30 things everyone should know. Today they are adding 20 more things!!! I can't wait. It has to do with one of the gifts I am doing to I can't elaborate as a lot of people read my blog. I promise I will share it after the holidays.


This one is a great idea. I love the presentation and is easily adaptable. For example I am going to make a hot chocolate mix with the powder, marshmallows and a bit of shaved mint chocolate. Tie it all up nice with a silver spoon etc. Nice easy Christmas gift that won't break the bank. You can find the instructions here.




This is a wonderful idea as an early gift, something to give out at the beginning of the season to get people in the Christmas Spirit. They are little mulling sachets. The idea is that most people (or me at least) make homemade apple cider. But for some there is no time or they are just not kitchen friendly. This way it is really as easy as a bit of plain only store bought cider and one of these babies on the stove and you get fantastic cider every time. I haven't made them yet but they are on my schedule for Friday. Again you can find the instruction and recipe here.

If you have any ideas that are equally easy and gorgeous please let me know so I can post it for others to see!

I hope you all have your cards ready, they will need to be mailed soon. The ideal time to mail is a few weeks before Christmas so there is plenty of time for the recipient to enjoy their beauty.

Have a wonderful day!

Coleen

XOXO

Where have I been?

Well, obviously I have not been here, blogging daily... Life caught up with me finally. I have had a very busy few weeks. With Austin and all his recent homework (His Arctic habitat diorama among all the rest of it.) I quit my job after a rough couple of weeks. (I blogged about how inconsiderate they were when I was extremely ill.) I wasn't able to deal with the people who had treated me so badly so I talked about it with Chris and we both agreed it was the right time to move on. So I spent some time looking for a new job. I am so pleased to say that for the first time in my life I am now working a part time job. My time at work and home is perfectly balanced. I still wish I was a SAHM again but I think I would go crazy (umm, crazier I mean). Austin is not a little one anymore, he is very independent and so it's not necessary for me to be home. I do miss it though. I have also been getting ready for the upcoming holiday season.

Sorry for being AWOL, but I am back! Thanks to all of you who e-mailed me concerned about my disappearance, I promised it would be brief and so it was (kinda).

Coleen

Loosing out on Parent of the Year 2006...

This has been such a busy week. I have no idea where the time went. First it was Saturday and when I woke up this morning the calendar says Wednesday. Sheesh, I am wiped! OK so first thing is first. My son decided months ago he wanted to be Jason for Halloween, you know big murderous guy with a machete. All was fine with that, then a few weeks ago he decides he want to be a "PUNK" we go shopping for a costume, only to be told that a punk costume can not be bought it must be "put together" using key pieces of clothing, that my son already had. Great right! Well the down side is that they have weird hair. Not just a little different but "everyone will stare" different. He wanted the authentic look, meaning a Mohawk. He would not settle for a faux-hawk so we agreed that he could get a Mohawk if we saw an A+ on his geography test. (I kind of hoped he would not do it- guess I'm not parent of the year huh?) Well he did it so we took him on Saturday to get it done. HE gets to keep it until Saturday. ONE WEEK. A fantastic lady named Marnie did it. She actually seemed to enjoy it, and we all had a fun time. Here are a few of the shots from that day. Auntie Shanny loves it, Frammie HATES it and Grandma Anita loves it. No other feedback. People must be afraid to comment. I say I hate it, but secretly what I hate is the stereotype that my kid must be a bully/troubled boy because of the hair. He is the sweetest boy going and not a mean bone in his body, so the looks we get from people make me feel bad. People look at me with disdain... because if I let him have a Mohawk I must be a bad parent right?


Still looking sweet....... Not so sweet........














OMG what have I done?

And the winner is........

Due to Blogger having a ton of outages lately I was not able to post the winner yesterday. However I have randomly drawn a name out of a hat. I typed each persons "name" on a slip of paper and had my son pull one out. It was, of course, randomly selected from all of the people who offered suggestions.

The winner is:

COLLEEN E.

I had to change the prize because it was to large to ship safely so I went a different route. Should see they tell me in the next month or so. Let me know when you see it Colleen. So I don;t have to worry!

What a weekend/ Contest reminder

Ok, so I am a bad blogger. I haven't posted since Thursday. My weekend was great. Thursday night I spent the evening with my best friend Julie, hearing all about her recent trip to The Netherlands and France (OMG she went to Paris and didn't go to Louis Vuitton!) Saturday was again spent hangin out with Julie, on and off. We went out shopping for a bit then got together later in the evening to grab a quick bite together. The quick bite turned into a 3 hour bite. We were very pokey over dinner which was great, lots of time to chat. She treated me to dinner. (Thanks Julie!) Afterwards I suggested Starbucks. (no surprise there, I'm addicted to their Chai latte!) We of course had to have desert so we had Nanaimo bars! They were way too big and way to rich, this of course means the were WAY TO GOOD! I haven't spent that much time with Julie in ages. It was a great time, lots of catching up, reminiscing and hearty laughs!

My shopping was to buy coordinating clothes for me and the family. We went with orange green and Burgundy. Why you ask? Well my guys and I had an outdoor photo shoot with a local photographer, Jenna Terry, the weather turned out to be dreadful. It was rainy and windy. We managed to get through it though. Actually we had a blast. Despite the weather we had so much fun. She is a fairly new photographer but has some great ideas creatively. We enjoyed working with her and plan to do it again. Our only concern was that the weather may have impacted the pictures so we may have to reshoot. I really wanted the fall colours so here's hoping all is well. I'll post them once I have them.

Don't forget about my contest. It ends on October 27th 2006.

Click here to view details or to enter now!

As always, thanks for visiting my blog.

XOXOXOX

Coleen