Wow. It's Almost Christmas!!

Well, it seems that we have all been pretty busy with shopping, cooking, baking, planning, partying, etc.  I can't believe Christmas is almost here.  I wanted to jot down some of my favorite Christmas traditions.

1.  Christmas Eve:  Old:  Every Christmas Eve we open a few gifts: a pair of pajamas and an ornament.  We are carrying this tradition on to our kids.  I love it.  New:  Now that our family is growing (8 grand kids in almost 4 years and one on the way) we spend lunch at the Pizza Factory and bowl after at Phat Cats.  Such a fun day out.

2.  Christmas Day:  Old:  When I was little, we used to see at least one movie in the theaters, sometimes more depending on what was out.  I loved that but haven't done it since I got married.  New:  My husbands family tradition has always been a big Christmas dinner.  Ham, funeral potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, jello salad and Chocolate Roll for dessert.  I am very much looking forward to that.

3.  Other Traditions:  Seeing Christmas lights(Temple Square, neighborhood lights, etc.), making and frosting sugar cookies, delivering neighbor gifts, lots of Christmas music.

What are your favorite traditions?

Paper Garland

This is the easiest Christmas craft I think I've ever made and it's so cute I want to keep making them in different color schemes! I wish I could take credit for it's cuteness, but we did it for Super Saturday in my ward and I thought the Better Wives Club members would benefit from it.

What you need:

• Coordinating paper (I used 7 different patterns)
• Scissors, Cricut, OR Circle Punch (size 1 1/2 inch)
• Sewing Machine
• Cups or bowls to keep paper patterns separate (optional)

(I have a Cricut which made this project a LOT easier, but it is possible to hand cut all the circles or use a circle punch.)

Step 1: Cut out all the circles. My garland is 145 circles long, but since my paper wasn't double sided I used 2 circles each. The only ones that didn't need 2 circles were the solid cardstock colors. There are roughly 252 circles used for this garland. BUT... if you find double sided paper then you won't have to double up your circles. OR you can just leave the back sides white and not worry about putting a pattern on both sides. You can also use more solid colors than I did and that will save you some cutting. (My garland has a solid blue, a solid silver, and 5 patterns to match my tree.)

Step 2: Establish a pattern. Or don't. It's up to you if you just want to grab your circles and sew or create order in all the mayhem. Either way it'll be cute!

Step 3: Start sewing! Just feed them through one circle at a time. It's okay if there are spaces, but try not to overlap them to ensure your garland has give in it and can freely wrap around your Christmas tree.

Step #4: String it on your tree and enjoy!

Told ya it was easy! I made mine this morning before decorating my tree. And now I want to make two more to string along my windows.

Christmas Traditions

What traditions do you have at Christmas time? While traditions with extended family are great, I want to have traditions with just my husband and kid(s). Nick and I have bounced around some ideas, but most of them are still a few years away before we can do them. I'll share them in the comments!

PS. I'm not very Blogger savvy, but I discovered that if ever there's a post on someone's blog that I want to get the comments to I can have them sent to my email and not have to keep going back to that blog to find them. If ever you want to read up on other's ideas and suggestions for our club topics all you have to do is click "email follow-up comments to..." and then every time someone leaves a comment to a post it will be sent to your email. It's pretty much awesome! Then you can keep contributing to the discussions as if we were all sitting in the same room having the conversation in person during a club meeting! Yay for cyber clubs!

Thank You Challenge

It's a little late and short notice since we're already 2 days into the month, but here's a fun challenge to show your husband you appreciate him. We all know November is the month for giving thanks. Your challenge is to give your husband a thank you note everyday this month. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate. Make it as simple as you want. I'm doing mine on post-it notes and sticking one to the steering wheel of his car everyday so when he leaves for school in the morning he'll see it. On weekends I think I'll put it on the bathroom mirror or the lid of the toilet (he definitely won't miss it there)! Have fun with this challenge and be creative with why you're thankful for your husband. Point out the obvious, but also thank him for more personal things and even silly things! After all, you have 30 (or 28 if you don't make up for the two days we've missed) different things to be thankful for.

Here's a tip: I suggest writing all of them out at the same time so you don't have any repeats.

Halloween Dinner Success

Here are the pictures from the dinner I said I wanted to do for Halloween. For just my husband and me I'd say it was pretty cute!

Brains and Bones

Blood

Dirt and Worms

For those that have never made dirt and worms before it's SO easy. Here's what you need:

 Oreos, some sort of rectangular shaped cookie (optional), gummy worms, pudding (I recommend instant), and an icing tube (optional).

 I broke the Oreos into fourths before chopping them so it would go a little faster.

 Then I crushed them to make the dirt.

 While the pudding was setting up in the fridge I made the headstones.

The finished product. I did a layer of Oreos on bottom, filled the cup with pudding, a layer of Oreos on top, a gummy worm chillin' in the dirt, and a headstone. Super easy and SO yummy. Some friends got together for a Halloween party for our little ones so this was the treat I took. I think they turned out cute!

You can also stir the Oreos into the pudding instead of layering it like I did.

PS. If you don't use the headstone then these are cute any time of year. Earth Day would be a good one! Or use the headstone and have them on Memorial Day. Okay... maybe that'd be weird.

How did you celebrate Halloween? Did you do something fun for dinner?

Haunted Halloween Dinner

I'm excited for Halloween and thought I would share my dinner idea with you in case you want to do it too. I don't have any pictures since I haven't done the dinner yet, but I'll share them next week after Halloween.

We're going to have brains (to feed our inner zombie), bones (to feed our inner warewolf) and blood (to feed our inner vampire) for dinner.

Brains: Spaghetti
Bones: Breadsticks
Blood: Red punch

Then for dessert we're going to have dirt and worms from the grave site where the body was dug up!

Dessert: Chocolate Pudding with Oreo cookie crumbs and gummy worms

I wanted to surprise my husband, but I was too excited to keep it a secret so I told him and he thinks it's pretty clever. I think it'll make for a fun little dinner date!

Are you planning a fun meal for Halloween? Please tell us so we can do it too!

Halloween Decor

I stole this fun idea from my older sister. (Hers looked a lot better.)

This project cost me all of $11 and I bought every single piece that you see to make the display. All but one item came from the local dollar store.

1 Black Plastic Table Cloth: $1 (Or you could use a black garbage bag if you have one, just hide the draw strings)
1 Spider webbing: $1 (and I only used half of it to do everything on the lighting fixture and what covers the centerpiece.
1 Large Spider: $1
3 Skull cups: $1 each
3 Red Candles: 3 for $1
2 Bags of Flat Marbles: $1 each (The dollar store didn't have them in black or clear so I just bought what they had and spray painted them black. I checked the local craft store and they were $1.50 a bag so if you don't want to go to the hassle of spray painting it'll cost you an extra dollar. Or if you don't have spray paint it'll save you about $2)
1 Bag Plastic Confetti Spiders: $0.99 at Hobby Lobby

The Plastic Confetti Spiders were my favorite part of putting this together. At first I was strategically placing them, but then I started chucking them like Ninja throwing stars and they would stick right in the web. It was kind of fun!