Things I Love-Day 13

This here is my favorite accessory for Christmas!  It's my advent calendar.  The red cabinet was a Christmas gift to me from my in-laws.  I used to fill it with chocolate, or the pieces from our Lego advent calendar, but I have since moved on.  I bought a small box of vintage Christmas ball ornaments-really small ones, and a small tree.  I put 24 ornaments into the cabinet (you know, one for every day), and behind door 25 you ask?  Well, that's the star for the top of the tree.  I love it, and Riley loves to decorate the little tree with the ornaments.

Day 13!  12 days to go-The Twelve Days of Christmas!

The boys have their own advent calendar.  This one is Playmobil.  It's a pirate set.  Every morning, Riley gets up and adds to the display.  Then he sets out the next days box, and I don't think he even peeks at the next day's treasure.  He's so organized.  

Here's a closer look.  The pirate is sleeping.  Such a great pirate camp!

Things I Love-Day 12

Of course I love a Christmas Tree!  This is our tree this year-it pretty much looks like this every year, as it is not real.  It's real fake.  It's 3 easy pieces and up it goes, and the lights are already on it!  We especially love the bendability of the branches to make ornaments fit.

I'll try and get over to my parents house this weekend.  You HAVE to see their yard, oh and "the prettiest tree we've ever had."

25 Things-Day 11

I love Christmas crafting!  I have several projects going right now that I can't show you...yet.  I CAN show you these though!

Plain little cardboard houses-err, churches.

A closer look.

They ended up like this!  Cute?  I really liked the way they turned out, all glittered up.  They make a glitter mess, but hey, I like glitter (sorry mom), and I have a Dustbuster, so I'm good.

Closer look.  I participated in a swap at Say it With Letters.  These little houses were my contribution.  I have received 3 of 4 ornaments back, and I'll post those pictures once I get the last one.  The ones I have gotten are pretty cute though.

25 Things-Day 10

Santa pictures!!  Who does not love Santa pictures?  The Santa at our lousy mall is the best thing about the mall.  He's very authentic.  We went Tuesday after school for our pictures, and Santa was in really great spirits-promising to bring the boy any colored "weed" they wanted.  They needed to clarify that they want a Nintendo Wii, not a weed.  He understood and said he would do what he could.  Here's hoping! By the way, there's no crowd on a Tuesday afternoon. On a weekend, you just can't get near Santa, and I do believe his spirits may not be all that festive after a crazy, crowded weekend.  

Say it with me....Awwwww!  Oh, and I did not make my 10 year old sit with Santa, he wanted to, and as long as he's willing to sit, I'm willing to buy the pictures.

25 Things-Day 9

Peppermint Bark from Williams-Sonoma.  Yum.  

I think this bark is the best.  Oh, and they are celebrating 10 years of peppermint bark this year.

25 Things-Day 8

Here are some more pictures from our day in SF Saturday.

View of the big tree in Union Square from outside Macy's.

This was taken from the 6th floor of Macy's.  It was quite the view.

The ice skating rink was sorta hopping, but maybe spectating was even more hopping.  Do you see all of those people?

This is the ceiling of the San Francisco City Center.  Nordstrom takes up the top 4 floors.  There's a mall underneath that.  Recently an extension was made, in the old Emporium building.  It is now another part of the mall, has a movie theater, and a Bloomingdale's. What you can't see from this picture are the curved escalators.  Those long strands are lights and snowflakes.  It was really pretty, but I got dizzy looking up.  It's way up there!

Quinn posing with a really big bear.

Just a Funny

When we were in the city yesterday, we went to Holiday Lane-Macy's holiday decorations store.  We were looking at all of the ornaments.  Kevin stumbled upon the following ornament...

He explained to both boys, the significance of the heart and that it goes along with a famous San Francisco song-you know, Tony Bennett's "I Left my Heart in San Francisco."  I pointed out that the ornament actually says "San FranciscA."  See it? That's an "a" not an "o."  ALL of the ornaments looked like this!  Hysterical!  Click to make the picture bigger so you can see it better.  Too funny.