Christmas Traditions

I love doing this link-ups with Kelly's Korner! It gives me ideas to write about, and makes me stick to it because it happens on a specific date. 

Today's post is about our Christmas traditions. This is only our second Christmas with Eliana, so we are still trying to figure out what our traditions are. 

One thing that we have done since we got married is to have Christmas morning with just our little family. We spend lots of time with family later in the day, but we like to have a little time together without all of the chaos!

My dad and stepmom started "Grandkid Christmas" many years ago when most of the grandkids were younger (now other than Eliana they range from a freshman in high school to college graduates). They like to give their grandkids their presents on a different day so they can take the time to enjoy watching them get their presents. We've already had Grandkid Christmas this year, and Eliana got this super kitchen set!

One thing that we are concerned about as a family is making sure we focus on the real meaning of Christmas. We bought Eliana this nativity set this year, and we have used it to talk to her about Jesus. We are also planning on baking Jesus a birthday cake on Christmas Eve. 

Like I said, we're still creating our traditions. What are yours?

Christmas crafts with her BFF

We decided to get Ellie and her best friend, Harper together to make some Christmas crafts this year. We narrowed it down to one Christmas tree painting and some gingerbread cookies. We were dealing with toddlers, so we knew we couldn't do too much at one time.

 So...here's how the morning went.

Start with blank canvases.

Use them as skates. 

 Paint toddlers' hands and help them make a Christmas tree. I couldn't get pictures of that part because I ended up with paint all over my hands, too. 

 We had planned on having the girls help us make cookies, but they weren't very interested. We let them play with toys instead. 

 The mommies made the cookies.

We'll leave out the temper tantrum details. Trust me, you'll thank me for it.

The finished product! I love it! I can't wait to hang it on the wall!

Christmas Decorations...a home tour.

Once again, I'm doing a link-up with Kelly's Korner. This week it is all about Christmas decorations! I love decorating for Christmas! I'm always sad when January comes and I have to take it all down. I think the house looks so boring once the decorations are gone! Anyway, allow me to give you a little tour of our home. I usually do a little more, but with a 21-month-old, I have to be careful. She tends to be a little curious. 

This is probably my favorite area of our house. This house doesn't have a mantle, so I had to figure out what to do with this garland when we moved here. This was my favorite decoration in our condo, too, so I knew I had to use it somewhere. I made the flower arrangement, and I just stuck the poinsettias in the garland. 

This is our tree. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the theme is snowmen. 

These are our stockings. I love Eliana's cable-knit stocking! I just realized how messy her books are in this picture. That drives my OCD-self a little crazy.

This is our dining room. Are you sensing a snowman theme? I love these plates! They came from Kohls a few years ago.

This is my favorite kitchen decoration. It's a cute snowman plate holder that I got a few years ago! That's also one of my favorite appetizers on the plate. It's a hot pepper peach cheeseball. Maybe one day I'll post the recipe.

This is our newest addition to our Christmas decorations! This is our Little People Nativity Set. Eliana loves this! I am hoping we can use it each year to help tell her the real story of Christmas.

Finally, this is the tree in Eliana's room! It matches the pink in her room perfectly! I'm hoping to add some ornaments to it each year. 

Man, I love Hobby Lobby.

Are you ready for it? A post not about Eliana. Ha! This is my attempt to blog about all kinds of different things. 

Anyway, for a long time now, I've wanted to get new throw pillows for our living room. We got some hand-me-down pillows when we got married, but as you will see in the pictures, they've reached their end. They were fake leather and the covers were all peeling and getting pretty nasty. 

So, it was time for new pillows, but have you seen the price of throw pillows??? I refused to pay that much! My mom loves to sew, so I thought I would see if she could make some. She said she could, but she lives in Florida, and she's been busy working on other projects. Last week she called me and told me that Hobby Lobby sells throw pillow covers in all different colors! I looked online, and sure enough, they had some that would fit the size of the pillows I already had! 

We don't have a Hobby Lobby in our city, but there is one about 30 minutes away. I called them to make sure they had some of the ones that I wanted, and sure enough they did! So Saturday after naptime, the hubby and I loaded up Eliana, and took a little drive to Hobby Lobby. I love that store! I'm not even super crafty, but I still love it! It's probably a good thing that it's 30 minutes away! I also love that they strive to run a Christian company. 

So, this is what the package looks like in case you want to go find some for yourself.

These are so easy!!! All you do is slip your pillows into them! Seriously, anyone can do this! The best part...they were only $6.99!!! I don't even know if my mom could have gotten fabric and materials for that, not counting her time!

They look great on my couch!

My Favorite Christmas Candy...at least one of them.

One of my favorite blogs, Kelly's Korner, is doing a link-up today about favorite holiday recipes. I have so many, so it was very hard to decide (maybe I'll post more later). Anyway, I decided to post a candy recipe that I remember my grandmother making for as long as I can remember. I haven't made these yet this year, so I don't have any pictures, but I'll edit this post once I do. O'Henry bars make Rice Krispies treats seem like nothing! These have rice cereal, chocolate, butterscotch, and peanut butter!!! There is nothing wrong with that combination!

O'Henry Bars

Ingredients:

1 C Sugar

1 C Light Corn Syrup

1 1/2 C Peanut Butter

1 tsp Vanilla

6 C Rice Cereal (small box)

12 oz Butterscotch Morsels

12 oz Milk Chocolate Morsels

Directions:

Pour rice cereal into a large bowl.

In a large pot, bring sugar and syrup to a boil.

Remove from heat and add peanut butter and vanilla.

Stir and pour over rice cereal.

Stir until cereal is well coated.

Press mixture into a greased 9x13 cake pan. You can use cooking spray or butter to grease the pan.

Melt the butterscotch and chocolate morsels in a double boiler.

Pour the butterscotch and chocolate mixture over the the rice cereal mixture.

Let cool.

Cut into squares.

A cold day = A perfect day for Chicken & Rice Soup

I never meant for this blog to become only about Eliana, but when life got so busy I only forced myself to write about her (and not very frequently). However, I am trying to change that now. Another thing that I love is cooking. I love to cook difficult and new recipes, but honestly, I don't have much time for those anymore. Now it's all about cooking things that are fast and easy to cook with a toddler pulling on my leg. I also have to think about recipes that I can get as many veggies in her as possible. This soup fits that description. It is so easy to make, but it tastes great! I got the recipe from: http://bloggingmomof4.com/crockpot-freezer-meals-chicken/. I usually make this as a freezer meal, but it really is super easy, and today I just threw it all together. I cheat and use canned chicken. I know some people think that's gross, but like I said, it's all about fast & easy to cook with a toddler on my leg.

Homestyle Chicken and Rice Soup

Ingredients

1 lb Cooked Chicken Breast chopped into pieces
1 bag frozen vegetables - I just use a bag of frozen mixed veggies. You can use whatever you prefer.
4 T butter
1 box chicken stock (added the day of cooking)
1 C rice (added last 20 minutes of cooking)

I would also recommend adding some salt and pepper even though it wasn't in the original recipe.

Directions

Add chicken, vegetables and butter to freezer bag and freeze.

Write on Freezer Bag

Thaw slightly and place in crockpot.
Add the box of chicken stock and cook on low for 4-6 hours.
Add 1 C rice last 20 minutes of cooking.

5-word sentence...

I just wanted to take a quick second and record Eliana's first 5-word sentence. I know most people won't care about this, but I'm writing this blog as a way to remember things that she does that otherwise I would forget. As a person who went to undergrad for Education, I love watching her learn new things. It intrigues me. So, without further ado, her first 5-word sentence was on November 8, 2013. She said, "Mommy read it to me." Not only did she say a 5-word sentence, but it was about reading and books! The book nerd in me just loves that!

(Sorry Grandparents, no pictures for this post).

Eliana’s Birthday Party Blog…8 Months Later…Oops.

Your birthday party was so much fun! I can’t believe it was 8 months ago! I’m just proud that I made myself sit down and finish this post, and at least it’s posted before I’ve started planning your next party. Life has been so chaotic, but I’m so glad to finally get these pictures together. It’s amazing to see how much you’ve grown, and how much more hair you have now!!!

I loved coming up with the decorations for your party, and I had so much fun making your cake! We used “Ellie-Phant” as our theme, and we had elephants everywhere. Your cake had an elephant on it, we had all of your stuffed elephants sitting around, and we cut grilled cheese sandwiches into elephant shapes. We also sorted elephant animal crackers out and had those. We of course had a chicken nugget tray from Chick-fil-A, because what party would be complete without one? So many family and friends came to see you, and it was such a great day! You got lots of fun presents, and you loved your cake (eventually). It took some work for us to get you to dig into it. Your cake was pretty heavy, and the icing was pretty thick. We eventually cut you a slice of it, and that worked much better. By the way, isn’t your tutu outfit so cute?

I think pictures can tell the story of your birthday party better than I can, so here you go. I’ll mix some commentary throughout. I'm sorry these pictures are just in a straight line. Blogger isn't cooperating.

These first few pictures are from your actual birthday when Daddy and I gave you your presents.

    

Taking care of your first baby doll.

Your birthday cake! Not bad for my first attempt.

That banner was so fun to make! It has all of your monthly pictures!

Yummy food!

 Lindsey & Baby Mae! You girls are going to be friends forever just like your Mommies.

Teaching Baby Mae a thing or two.

BFF Harper!

I know it's dark, but look at Papaw's face.

You stole Baby Mae's "woozle" because you thought it was yours.

Cake!!!

Trying a little icing.

Eating the fondant circles.

Trying to pick up your cake.

Finally, we cut you a piece.

Offering some to Uncle Tuck.

Mommy, that cake was soooo yummy!

Reading books post-cake.