Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!  I'm so blessed to have her in my life.  She has become a true friend and someone I look up to.  Doug and I look forward to the time we spend with her and Dad because we know it will be filled with laughs and love.  We love you Mom/Grandma Geiger!!!

Decorated for Christmas....

I always look forward to getting the house all Christmasy.  This year was no different.  That is until we got the tree out and remembered that our prelit tree of 6 years had gone out in sections last year and we had just put it away to deal with it this year.  Why do we always do that?!  

We had a spare strand of regular white lights to stick in the tree.  Everything worked now except the top section of the tree.  So Sunday evening after church we ran to Walmart to pick up another package of the regular white lights.  Only problem is, our Walmart is retarded and they had about 400 boxes of Blue lights, but not one box of white, unless we wanted 4 foot or 40 foot.  Neither of which was going to work.  So I got this bright idea ...... Doug loves blue, so how about if we buy one box of blue lights and we switch lights out and have random blue lights throughout the tree?  Great idea right?  

Laugh it up now!

We started working on our project at 8pm.  Of course EVERY BLASTED light strand has a different base and apparently there is a difference in light bulbs as well because some places on the tree the new bulbs wouldn't work.  We finished our project at 11:30.  My fingers were still bruised by the end of Monday.  However, even though it was a huge pain and took a lot longer than anticipated, the tree looks awesome and it was well worth the effort!  Because of the length of time, and of course the fact that I was helping trying to get that thing done as soon as possible since the kids really wanted to decorate it that night as well, I have no pictures of that night.  Sorry!

And unfortunately, we had to send the kids to bed without decorating the tree.  

I let them decorate it Monday morning first thing.  It would have been nicer if Daddy was there, but its just part of the deal.  They did it by themselves, minus the really tip top of the tree, which was the only part that Marissa couldn't reach.  They did a great job!  

All done!

Another one of my pinterest projects.  I made my mother in law and mom one of these, and then made one for each of my doors in red and a white one for my living room.    

Simple and I love it!  I don't have a step by step picture illustration, but if you want to learn how to make your own, you can go here for full details and instructions.

I love my silhouette collection wrap of the nativity scene!

My favorite decoration

I love my Christmas Marine Bear from my little brother Caleb and his wife Cristale and my nephew Casen :)

I wish there was a way I could validate keeping this out all year :)

  I love how squishy it is!

We got a decent 1st REAL snowfall on Sunday night.  

Nothing major but we are officially white!

I love this snowflake with the red against the white.  At night when the house is lit up, it looks awesome :)

Here is a picture of our snowfall amount :)

And here are some pictures of everything all lit at night :)

My favorite Pinterest project of all time!

Want to learn how to make these super cute, adorable little snowmen?  It's super easy, cheap and a TON of fun!  Each took me no more than 10 mins to make.  

Here are some of the supplies you will need......

*Cheap Rice - almost a pound and a half for one little guy

*Twine, toothpicks, and various buttons and little decorations .... You will also need a couple of rubberbands.

*a hot glue gun and of course glue sticks

*1 tube sock per snowman (if you want a bigger snowman, use a knee sock.)

*Fun socks (depending on what size socks you use and what size snowman you are making, depends on whether you will need 1 or 2 fun socks)

Time to get started!  Ready?

Start with cutting your fun sock in half.  If your fun sock has an evident heel, cut that part off.

Then take your white sock and cut that heal and toe, bottom section, off.

Turn the sock inside out and secure the end that was close to the heel with a rubberband.

Then turn it right side out again.

Proceed to fill your sock with rice.  Don't overstuff it, but definitely pack it down and make sure you get him good and full so that he is moldable and will stay put when you set him down instead of loosing his shape.

Add the toe section of the fun sock for his hat and the leg section of your fun sock for his sweater.  Tie a piece of twine around the top section of the sweater and make sure you tie it TIGHT.

Roll the top down over the twine.

Hot glue the hat in place around the snowman's head so the hat stays put.  Then add a piece of twine to the end if you want to help it with its shape.

Cut the tip of a tooth pick off and paint it orange.

Then glue on small buttons as eyes and glue his nose on.  Add whatever embellishments you want to.

So cute!