{Christmastime at the Millers}

This post is going to be chock full of pictures. The weekend after Thanksgiving we decorated the inside of the house for Christmas. So far the tree is still in tact even if I had to jerry-rig it to fix the big hole Emilee made in it last year. I've only had to tell Gracie about 100 times not to touch things but considering I had to tell her about 501x last year, that's an improvement! I also hosted my first (and actually only - how sad!) party of the season on Friday. It was a Celebrating Home party and a Gold party. I got some cash for holding the Gold party and some free Celebrating Home products so I totally made out! :) Yesterday I let the girls build a gingerbread house. They were looking forward to that all week.

So, here are some pictures from all that.


Here are some of the goodies I made for my party. Chewy Caramel Bars (recipe will be posted at The Girl Creative tomorrow in participation with our Creating Christmas Blog Fest) and red velvet cupcakes.


Here is some bark I made with dark chocolate, white chocolate, walnuts and M&M's. Yummy! And some Walnut Brownie Tartlets.



Now onto the decorations. I made these Christmas Countdown blocks which I thought the girls would be super excited about. Turns out they're not, but I am so that works. ;)


Here is our tree. Not a great picture because after almost 6 years I still have not figured out how to use my camera properly!

And the newest edition to our living room is this little shelf that I got super cheap at Hobby Lobby as well as the tall candle holders.

I did bake so much more stuff but in all the fuss of the party and the set up I forgot to take more pictures. I made a to die for hot spinach and artichoke dip. I made this anti-pasta bread featured at Kevin and Amanda and boy was it good (picture is from Kevinandamanda.com)!!!


Also on the menu was a cold anti-pasta, a bunch of M&M and Chocolate Chip Cookie and shrimp cocktail. I'd say the party was a success. Can't wait to do it again for Christmas. :)

Cooking Up Something Fun for the Holidays

So, over at my other blog, The Girl Creative, we are cooking up something really cool for the holidays. We are still working out the details and will announce it officially soon, but I'll give you the inside scoop. We are going to have 5 days of idea sharing. Basically, each day we will have a new topic and readers everywhere can link up to one of their posts that pertain to our topic. For example: on day one we may have Favorite Christmas Recipes as the topic. You would link up over at The Girl Creative via Mr. Linky with a post on your blog showing off your favorite Christmas recipe. We are going to do this for a whole week. I'm so excited. It's a great
way to expand your readership as well as to find new blogs to read.

The idea came to me after I had written a post about creative gift wrapping. I thought that it might be fun to do a segment on various creative ways to wrap gifts this Christmas season. Then I thought why not do a whole week of fun posts like that. I won't give you all the details but in the next couple of days we should have it all worked out. Stay tuned!!

Oh, and since I know my sister, Kate, is going to ask who "we" are since she knows I pretty much blog alone, I'll tell ya. The Girl Creative has a team of creative chics that are regular contributors now. Yeah! Go me! lol You can find out more about them by going HERE and finding the "Our Other Playgrounds" title on our sidebar. :)

{One of Those Days}

This blog post is for my sister, Kate. She thinks I've abandoned this blog but I haven't. We've had so much going on lately (I feel like I'm always saying that) and I have to be in the mood to blog. Today was definitely one for the books so, I'll blog about it.

Normally I'm a pretty happy person. I can pretty much laugh about (and at) anything. Not today. Oh no. I was Mrs. Crankypants for sure! The day just went from bad to worse and by the time I was able to just veg, I really just wanted to cry. I don't know what it is but the 2nd week into my cycle (TMI - sorry) I turn into Monster Mommy. I feel like a switch is flipped and I am nasty. There is no pretty way to say it. lol Today was just one of those days!

It began last night actually. Grace did not sleep well and was coughing a lot. By the time I actually got to bed for good, it was probably near 1am. Then Emilee thought it would be fun to wake mommy up this morning by blowing a whistle next to my head. It gets better. She woke Grace up like that too. What is Grace's payback (to me for some reason and I don't know what I ever did to her), she pees in her pants. Not once, but twice before I even got us all out the door to bring Emilee to school.

That just totally put me in a foul mood and I never really got out of that funk. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful until Emilee gets home and then the fighting begins. The fighting and the crying. The fighting and the crying and the yelling (the girls fighting, Gracie crying and me yelling).

Just before dinner I get a text from Tim that he's going to be late getting out of work. Normally I don't care. More time for me to loaf around on the computer (did I just admit that? lol) but tonight is Wednesday. On Wednesday nights we run children's ministry at our church. We were both teaching in separate classes. No biggie, I'll just combine the 2. We've done it before, it should not be a problem. Well, there was 25 kids in one room (one of which was Emilee who did not want to listen) and Gracie was across the hall screaming and crying. People were late, I was cranky. Still.

And just when I think my day is over and I can put it behind me, Gracie goes and pees in her pants again. Again. 3rd time today. Peed in her pants 3x today.

Did I mention I don't feel good? Yeah that too.

**Disclaimer: I'm fasting from sugar for 30 days and can not be responsible for the whining, crying, or crabby posts that may make their way to this blog over the next month. :)

{I think I'm going to do blog design again}

So I've been doing some thinking. I've been wanting to get a part time job to help out around the house but with little miss Gracie still at home, it's kind of hard. I even actually applied to a couple of places and nada. I was kind of happy because as soon as the thought to go back to work came, it left. Not surprising. I'm a little flaky like that. lol Anyhow, I started thinking about blog design. I know how to do it. And people make money doing it. Why aren't I doing it and making money at it?

So, here we go again. I'm going to start blog designing again. I don't plan on making a fortune. I don't even plan on charging what some people charge. If I can make a few bucks and help out then yay!!

So, if you are looking for a cheap custom blog design, let me know. :)

Things have been a bit quiet on the homefront. Nothing too crazy to report. We did do some baking and painting over the last few weeks so I'll be posting those pictures soon. Emilee and Grace are both doing great in school and I couldn't be happier. :) God is certainly good!

{New Crafty Blog}

When I originally created this blog it was meant to be a personal blog about my life with my hot hubs and my adorable daughters. Then I started blogging about craft projects that I found around the web. So, I decided to make a separate blog for my projects. Please follow and subscribe check out my new blog: The Girl Creative. On there I'll be posting tutorials on projects I've done around the house whether it be sewing or scrapbooking or what have you. I will also post links to cool projects that other bloggers have done.

So, if you don't mind, please go check out my new blog. :)

{Apple & Pumpkin Picking}

There's a farm I heard about from my friend Jackie called Lawrence Farms. If you are from the Hudson Valley (NY) it's located in Newburgh. I've been meaning to take the girls there and thankfully Tim was off on Monday so I suggested we go. I'm so glad we did. We all had a great time. There was so much to do to keep the girls busy from the little village playhouses to hay mazes to apple and pumpkin picking to the general store to feeding the animals to...........well, you get the picture. :) Speaking of pictures, here are some from that day.

Here are the little villians in Jail. This better be the only inside of a jail they ever see! Aside from maybe visiting Daddy at work. lol




The Guest House

Daddy and his girls. It's so hard to get them to pose. lol You can rent the cool wagons for $5. The girls had a great time being pulled around by Daddy.



I think Gracie's face is so funny in this picture. It looks like she's about to sneeze but she never did. lol A little side note about this picture - see the cornstalks behind them (the one in the middle)? Well that used to be the back of some man. I "photoshopped"a cornstalk over him and added some pumpkins. Not bad, huh?

"Miss Thing"

{Returning the Cart}

Almost every day I'm faced with a decision. Should I return the cart? Let me explain. Up near where I live, for some odd reason, to use a shopping cart at the supermarket and some other stores like Target requires putting a quarter into the cart to unlock it for use. I'm usually pretty good with making sure I have a quarter in the ash tray in the car. But, there are times when I get to the store and nothing but pennies. Ugh. So, I scour the parking lot looking for one lone wagon that has not been returned to the shopping cart parking garage (SCPG - no idea what they're actually called but this sounds good). I have to admit that if I do have a quarter I most definitely return the wagon so that I get my quarter back. I also have to admit though that I appreciate the lazy people who do not return their wagons back to the SCPG. What would I do without them? In fact, I sometimes am one of those people. Like this morning at Target, I was very happy to find a wagon that was not locked in with the rest so when I was done, I left it outside for some poor soul who does not have a quarter. I can just picture the excitement on their face as they see the loner just waiting for someone to come grab it and the excitement that they're feeling that today was their lucky day. lol

All that to say that I find myself faced with a decision each time I go shopping. Do I return the cart to the SCPG where it belongs or do I leave it inbetween parking spots when leaving the store? Sometime I feel bad for leaving them there when there's nothing wrong with my legs and I can easily return it. But since I appreciate the people who don't return their wagons, thus giving me a wagon to use when I'm quarterless, I find that I feel it's okay to leave a stray wagon for someone else to use.

So, there's a total random post without the "Just Another Random Post" title. :)