Category Archives: holidays

Jan 5 2013

Why Do You Make New Year’s Resolutions?

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Every year on New Year’s day people all over the world celebrate by making New Year’s resolutions. Why do we wait until the new year to make a resolution? There is no better time for a change than the present.

What do you do if it’s March and you think you need to get in better shape, or drink more water, or eat healthier? Do you wait the rest year in order to make a change? Or do you decide to just get up and do it with no other motivation?

Is the new year itself just the motivation to make the changes in your life and nothing else? Would you still be making these changes even if it were not the new year? I’m not really sure myself.

I am not normally the kind of person to make a New Year’s resolution. This is probably because I don’t want to be held accountable and I am probably trying to secretly avoid potential failure.

This year I decided to go ahead and make a resolution. My resolution is simple, to enjoy every day and be happy for what I have not for what I don’t. Did you make a New Year’s resolution? If you did, what did you chose and why?

Dec 23 2012

Sunday Morning Christmas Crafts

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Two more days until Christmas. I can’t believe it’s almost here already. This year has gone by soo darn fast. This morning Ladybug and I decided to stay home and relax. We got up and watched Christmas cartoons and movies on Netflix and ate breakfast in our jammies. After breakfast I pulled out some arts and crafts supplies and we made wreaths.

The wreath base was made out of a paper plate. Ladybug painted the wreath green to look like leaves. Then she balled up red tissue paper and glued them on in clusters to look like holly berries. It was a pretty simple craft and it turned out great.

Ladybug asked for some ribbon so she could hang the wreath on her bedroom door. We hung it on her door knob instead of up high because I didn’t have anymore wreath hangers. It didn’t matter because she was still happy as long as it was on her door.

After we finished the wreath we cleaned up the mess and put the arts and crafts supplies away. I made us some yummy grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch. It was the perfect lunch to a cold winters day. What a great Sunday morning.

Dec 19 2012

Going for a Drive to See Christmas Lights

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I can’t believe Christmas is less than a week away.  I want to take Ladybug out to see Christmas lights.  I like to drive into big neighborhood communities and find the streets where everyone decorates their house and the whole street is illuminated.  I know that there are a lot of New Homes Near Atlanta that might have lights.  Maybe this weekend Ladybug and I will go for a long drive to see what’s around.

We see the lights in our neighborhood each night, but it’s fun to get away and see what else is out there. I know there are also a couple of places that organize light decorations on big fields. When I was a little girl I remember going through a big giant maze of lights as my dad drove us through big tunnels of lights.  The sheer quantity of lights was absolutely amazing. There were even instructions for us to turn our radio to a certain station and that the twinkling of the light would coincide with the music that was being played.

I hope I can find some spectacular lights shows for us to enjoy this weekend.  It really is one of our favorite holiday traditions just to go for a drive to see all of the Christmas lights. We always end the night of festivities with a big nice warm mug of hot cocoa and marshmallows. I can’t wait for the weekend to get here.

Dec 15 2012

DIY Gingerbread House

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Gingerbread house

photo credit: John-Morgan

Ladybug has been begging to make a gingerbread house for the past week. I thought it might be fun to do a DIY gingerbread house instead of buying a kit this year.  We decided to use graham crackers for the buildings. We wanted to get started right away and didn’t have time to wait for cookies to bake.  The graham crackers worked great because they come in rectangles and you can break them easily into square panels or smaller rectangles.

I did make our own frosting glue also known as royal icing.  I made white of course for snow and glue, but I also made a little bit of green and red to use for decorations. Ladybug had a great time squeezing the icing out and gluing the crackers together. I used a cardboard base that I cut from an empty cereal box and covered with aluminum foil.  I ran a bead of glue or icing down for each piece of the house base to stick to so it wouldn’t shift around.  It ended up working great and the finished product was really stable.

For decorations we had sprinkles or all colors, gum drops, little M & M candies, Skittles, peppermint sticks and rounds, and Necco Wafers.  I always remember using Necco Wafers for the roof tiles and have passed that tradition on to my daughter. Ladybug made bushes out of gum drops and used the peppermint rounds for windows.  She made acute path with the Skittles and M & M’s too.  We had a great time making this adorable DIY Gingerbread house and we didn’t even have a kit.

Dec 11 2012

Christmas Performance at Preschool

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Ladybug had a Christmas performance at preschool this morning. She was soo cute. All of the girls and boys in her class were dressed as little elves. There were also angels, reindeer, and Santas in other classes.  Each child was adorable in the costumes they had made. I think my favorite were the painted on red noses that a few reindeer had. Each class sang a few popular Christmas songs including Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Ladybug did a fantastic job and smiled the entire time. I just wish I had a better seat to capture the special memory.

I tried to get to the school early but then I remembered a little bit before it was time to go that my phone was almost full and I wouldn’t be able to take any pictures or videos. I quickly plugged it in and started transferring all of the images to my computer so that I could make space for new pictures and videos from the performance.

It took 18 minutes to move it all which put me behind schedule. I ended up getting to the school about 5 minutes before the show started. That meant that I had a crappy seat and it was hard to see over every person in front of me with their cameras held high. Note to self, clean out the camera ahead of time and always plan to be at school shows at least 30 to 45 minutes early if I want to get a decent seat.