December in Review

Hello!  It's been awhile, hasn't it?  I meant to take a little break from blogging over the holidays and a week turned into, well you know...  Things were busy, a bit stressful, but also lots of fun.  In December our Elves on the Shelf came back.  That's Holly above, all tucked into her gift wrapping sleeping bag for a well deserved nap.  The magic continues to be real for both our eight and three year old.  ER even wrote out little signs for each one and had a welcome back note waiting for both.

My alumnae chapter of Kappa Delta Sorority had a Pinterest party for our December event.  We made cute ornaments out of clear bulbs, and it was fun to be surrounded by so much creativity!  I was really impressed by the Santa and Rudolph ones made by filling them with glitter and then adding paint details.

I also had farro for the first time, in a dish also made with butternut squash.  Now normally, I stay away from any form of winter squash and "weird" new grains aren't too high on my to try list, yes at times I am as adventurous as a toddler when it comes to eating!  Maybe it's true and bacon really does make everything better, but this was delicious and a big hit at the party.  I would never in a million years have predicted that!

One of the biggest things to happen at home, was that our basement project is finally finished!  Or at least close enough to begin moving our stuff in, organizing, and setting up my new crafting and office area.  I'm currently writing up this blog post in the new space.  I think the last cosmetic things to be done are adding the last of the flooring to the stairs and touch up painting on the stairway.

This was how it looked before we moved in all the furniture and bought a new sofa.  It's set up for the Christmas Craft Brownie meeting, that was scheduled to happen that night.

I'm the last remaining leader out of the original three of our troop.  I plan on stepping down this year, and our size has dwindled so now it's possible to do more elaborate things with the girls.  We decorated cupcakes, that's ER's wreath above, and also made waterless snowglobes, 5X7 handprint snowmen canvases, and plastic spoon snowmen pots.  It was a lot to fit in our two hours but the girls really loved the variety of projects.

I linked the projects we did to the pins on Pinterest that inspired them.

We also did our own crafting, ER made the mini wreath, she got to go crazy picking out glittery floral decor for it and had a grand ol' time.  LB made the craft stick glittered snowflake in preschool and was very proud of his surprise gift.  He also made trees, like these, but never quite finished them. Both of them made the annual gingerbread house with Daddy.

We spent a lot of quality time with family and friends: holiday parties, special outings, play dates over break, and out of town visitors.  The kids were glad one special guy in red came by, and as usual between Santa, the Grandparents, and us...the kids had no shortage of presents.

I hope your Christmas and holiday season was a full of happy memories, as ours was!