Gillar Girl

One of my favorite design blogs that I follow is written by Gillar girl.  The girl has great style and shares clever, out-of-the-box, decorating ideas.  If I ever decide to go the route of hiring a designer, she's on the top of my list. I also love Tiffany's blog because she features great tips for moms on everything fom teaching your children values, to keeping them entertained in the summer.

She recently did a post about a meaningful activity they did as a family to help people in Haiti.  You can read about it here.  This activity is just what we need around here because my kids are concerned and they want to do something, but just giving them money to donate doesn't feel right.  It would be a lost opportunity.  Go check out her blog.  I'm sure you'll love it as much as I do.

On your Mark...

Blogging tip.

(Just love this boy.  He's like the sunshine in  our family.  Charlie @ 5 months old,)

I just found a new way to select the size of your photos without going in and changing the html.  I realize

I might be one of the last to know this but for any of you that have been left in the dark like me, here it is....

Go to Settings>scroll to the bottom to Global Settings> click on updated editer> Save settings.

Now when you upload a picture you can select the size.  Small, medium, large, etc.

Tada!

A few of my favorite things.

I love Christmas traditions. One of my favorite is decorating our tree. We decorate with ornaments made with photos from years past. This is a tradition that Adam has brought from his family. However after 10 years of collecting and a huge box of Adam's childhood picture ornaments that his mom gave me last year, our tree was getting a little full. So this year we're dividing them among two trees. Some for our great room and some for the kids playroom tree. I get a kick out of seeing which ones are my kids favorites. Beck loves the plastic Chrismas tree ornament with Adam in his Davis football uniform. Addy loves the homemade ornament she made out of puzzle pieces painted green and formed into the shape of a wreath. The center of the tree has her first grade picture in it. This week I've been editing and framing all of our Christmas pics to make ornaments for our great room tree. So far I only have 6 that I am using but I'm keeping them all 5X7 and so it works. (Our tree is also fat and tall and so it doesn't look too bad).

A new tradition this year I am excited about is an advent surprise calendar. Each day the kids have a message "delivered" with a special thing to do to celebrate the season. Today we are getting donuts and going on the Christmas lights tour our city puts on at the park. Most days are going to be simple things like reading a Christmas book, making hot chocolate, turning on the fire and singing Christmas songs. I am still working on my method of delivery but it should be fun.

What about you, what are some of your favorites that you have planned for the season?

Why haven't I done this before!

Doesn't this just look delicious! I'm kidding.

But seriously this BABY food has Charlie

climbing out of his seat to get to it (I didn't even

realize he could do that!)

The best part is I winged it, which I'm sure

will make my mother proud

( I'm a recipe type girl)

Pretty simple:

Peal Sweet potatoes

Boil for 20 minutes

Add 1/2 cup water used to cook potatoes

and 1tsp olive oil

for every whole potatoe.

Blend in Blender

(I used my magic bullet and it worked fine)
Store in airtight container up to 5 days

My babies 9 months old

Charles

Beck

Addy

I keep looking at Charlie and thinking he reminds me so much of

Addy and Beck. I found these pictures at similar ages

and although they don't pass as the same baby, they sure are similar.

What do you think? Is it just me?

See that cute blue eyed baby at the end.....that's my blue eyed

baby. But at age 2 she became my green eyed girl. It happened over night!

Crazy Hair Day

This pic was taken after a full day of school but you

get the idea, right. It feels good to finally put

Adam's drycleaning hangers to use. (1 down 300 to go)

)