O Christmas Tree... (goodbye)

I took down all the ornaments, but I wasn't able to bring myself to take the whole tree down just yet. (tomorrow is the day) I didn't get sick of my decorations this year and am a little reluctant to see them go! Here are a couple pics from our Christmas- took by our new camera- yeah!
Miss G totally freaking out when she saw she actually was good enough to get what she asked Santa for- a microphone! And Miss B opened several presents before she got her big one-"HEELYS!"Which I was finally able to convince her are not called "wheely's." I have since discovered that her motive behind wanting these (since before LAST Christmas) is simply looking cool- she doesn't really care to learn to use the wheels- just wearing them, with her jeans placed perfectly over the laces, is perfectly satisfactory. And finally Miss E who was finally old enough to "get" Christmas was super excited about all the presents from Santa too- she loved this baby pony until she saw big sister's baby doll,
and it's been hard to get her to let it go since.

I hope you all had a merry Christmas too!

Epson!

I have been so out of blogging all month and today I'm pretending it's my day off and have been blog surfing and found my way to the Epson website and these ADORABLE printable mini albums! The best part is if you don't have image editing software, you can do these in Microsoft Word! Click HERE to get yours!

I was also thrilled to see these Christmas cards: designed by Glitz Designs especially for Epson that you can download and print too- awesome! (save them for next year) Click HERE to get them.

The Elf on the Shelf

We've had a visitor in our house since the beginning of December- it's The Elf on the Shelf! He sits up somewhere in the house every day and watches the kids, then at night, he magically leaves to report whether they are naughty or nice to Santa. Then the next day, he will be in a new spot. This has been SO much fun for my girls. I think Miss B knows what really happens, but she likes to play along. They all can't wait to find the elf every morning. A few mornings he was in the same place (sometimes I'm forgetful) and Miss G was really worried that he didn't leave because she wasn't good! I heard that she got a lot of attention at preschool because all her friends wanted to know if the elf moved last night! He was a gift from my mom last year and comes with a story book that tells how it works- if you are interrested, you can find it HERE. And our Christmas pictures are forthcoming...

Polar Express

I'm really late posting about this but a few weeks ago we did the Polar Express train ride to the "North Pole" with all the cousins on Sam's side of the family. His mom got everyone these cute matching jammies to wear on the train. It was a crazy experience, but really fun. The train goes to the "North Pole" and we get to look out the windows at it, and Santa is there and hops on the train for the ride back and stops to give each child their own bell. The kids were totally in heaven. At the train station we got to visit Mrs. Clause and make letters for Santa. It was freezing cold and RAINY the weekend we went but otherwise it was fun! Not something I could do every year, but every 2 or 3 years I think for sure!

Tis the season for soup!

It's finally cold enough to enjoy soup! And since I have no camera to post more interresting things, today I'm sharing one of my favorite recipes. It is SO good, and simple, not to mention cheap to make and low calorie which is good this time of year when you're surrounded by cookies and sweets.

Tomato, Pasta and Spinach Soup
originally from Women's Day Magazine

1 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp oil
6 cups water
1 can crushed tomatoes (28oz)
4 chicken broth cubes
1/4 tsp dried sage
1 cup small tubular pasta (ditalini or tubetti)
10oz box frozen chopped spinach
1 can white kidney beans (15oz)
grated Parmesan cheese
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
In a 3-4 quart pot, heat garlic and oil over medium heat until aromatic.
Add water, tomatoes, chicken broth cubes and sage and bring to a boil.
Stir in pasta and cook stirring occasionally, 5 minutes.
Add spinach and cook, breaking up spinach as it thaws, 5-7 minutes longer until pasta is tender.
Stir in rinsed can of beans and heat 1 minute.
Serve sprinkled with grated Parmesan.

Makes 10 cups

My newest favorite thing

These are so good- if you see them at the grocery store, I highly suggest picking up a box- you will eat them quickly. They are easy to peel and don't make a mess, and they don't have seeds, and I think I am addicted to them, and my kids love them too.

More cards, advent calendars and cheap printing options

I haven't been able to make time to read any blogs lately, let alone update my own! But if you have been checking to see if I've updated lately, I'm sorry! My body has clicked over to "new baby" schedule- where I fall asleep the minute my kids are in bed, and then wake up sometime during the night (on the cold couch!) till I can get back to sleep in my own bed! Tonight when I woke up I got stuck here going through e-mails so I thought I'd do a quick post of some of the things I've been thinking about. First, I found these great photo cards from the Shutterfly Digital Scrapbook advisory team that you can download and add your pictures to. If you're still trying to figure out Christmas cards, click HERE to check them out, or use them in your digital scrapbook layouts as frames! You can get them printed at Shutterfly or anywhere. Also, I get obsessed with advent/countdown calendars (but I should mention, 11 days into December and mine hasn't been touched yet! :-( But Jessica Sprauge had some AWESOME ideas of an easy one to make yourself, plus some fun ideas of Christmassy things to do each day! I love it! Maybe next year I will be more organized... Also a list of scriptures that you can read each day. Click HERE for instructions to make her cute calendar and get her fun ideas. I borrowed this picture from her site- isn't it fun?

Sam lost my camera hunting this weekend, so no pictures till we decide to buy a new one, or invest in fixing one of the old beat up ones! But I *almost* finished with the family photo advent calendar I started last year (how sad!) Here is the one I did for my sister in law last year if you didn't read my blog back then- I used different papers and colors on mine. I hope I will have pictures soon!

Finally, I just re-discovered Vista Print and am very excited to try them. I know I had a couple things printed there before, a notepad and some post-its once, but I discovered they have incredible prices for printing cards, calendars, t-shirts and lots of other cool stuff! I will try uploading some things and post again when I see how the quality is, but if you want to check it out now, click HERE and get 25% off your first order!