Movie Night - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

I posted our newest movie night, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, over on my Disney blog, Disney in Our Blood. One of my favorite parts of the movie night was a very last minute idea.


I had bought Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash (some of the best stuff ever!) because I wanted a yummy red drink for the night. I had an idea to make it more festive right before my daughter woke up (I like to have everything ready during her nap/quiet time). So I found a picture of Rudolph through Google and made a quick label. It says "Rudolph Fizzies... To keep your nose looking its reddest."

Christmas Decorations

I found some very cute Rudolph wrapping paper at the Dollar Store a week before Thanksgiving and couldn't pass it up. I knew it was early, but I didn't want to risk it selling out and them not getting more. I'm a little obsessed with Rudolph. :) Anyway, I got the idea to use it as the mat for a printable I found online.


I just took out the mat from my frame that I use for all my printables for each season/holiday/mood, traced it on some of the wrapping paper, cut it out, and taped it on. I love it! I'm still working on decorating my house, so I'll share more soon. What are your favorite decorations so far this Christmas?

Wordless Wednesday - Lights on Harbor Hill

Muffin Tin Monday - Christmas Again!

Hi there! It's that time again... no, not for that, silly! It's time for Muffin Tin Monday! The theme again is the holidays which, for us, means Christmas. :) Last week I saw this adorable reindeer sandwich over at Family Life, which led me to this wonderful reindeer sandwich over at Little Nummies. Now, I may or may not have mentioned my love for Rudolph and reindeers in general, but I just HAD to make Ashlyn a reindeer sandwich! And I may or may not have told hubby that I might make one for myself one of these days. ;) And the wonderful, sweet hubby he is, he offered to make one for me himself that very afternoon. ♥ But you didn't come here for side stories.... this time.


Hmmm... now that I upload the picture I see that his eyes aren't exactly perfect. *head tilt* Oh well! I still absolutely adore him! Along with her peanut butter and jelly Rudolph sandwich, Ashlyn had Craisins (reindeer poop - totally hubby's idea :D ) and carrots for the reindeer. And this is the first time I remembered to flip the muffin cups inside out so we could see the design (I don't use actual muffin liners very often so I was excited to do something a little different today). I got that idea from Muffin Tin Mom. :) Oh, Ashlyn ate most of her lunch, so that's always good.

Want to see what others did this week? Head on over to Muffin Tin Mom!

Muffin Tin Monday - Christmas Trees

I was so excited to find out that the next three weeks of Muffin Tin Monday, the theme is going to be the holidays! We've been majorly in the Christmas spirit around here (which I know will only grow when hubby comes back from school) so I knew this would be so much fun! Ashlyn has been absolutely obsessed with Christmas trees so I decided to focus on that this week.

Ashlyn had a Reese's peanut butter tree (which, as always, was taken out of the tin before I gave it to her to make sure she ate the rest of her meal first), a peanut butter and jelly Christmas tree, tree-shaped cheese, and some crackers. Nothing too creative, but when she started eating, all of a sudden she just cried out "TREES!" :) She ate everything except one or two bites of sandwich.

Sunday was also Walt Disney's birthday, and since we had our muffin tin meal on Sunday, I made sure to include a little hidden Mickey on the Christmas tree sandwich.

Now to start brainstorming on what to do next week... But for now, head on over to Muffin Tin Mom to see what others did this week!

Wrapping is DONE! Now Only About 1,492,048 Things Left To Do...

My wrapping is all finished! Well, until hubby comes home with more stuff he's getting the little ones (gotta make sure our cat has something, too!) while in the states for work/school. I wanted to share a few things that I did.

I saw this reindeer bag on Family Fun and really wanted to make it. I was going to put one of Ashlyn's gifts in it, but Santa's bringing all the small things to put in her stocking. So I thought how cute would this be for Aaron's gift from the kids (again, including the cat :) )? Because I didn't really know what I was doing yet, I made it while Ashlyn was sleeping.

I didn't have pom poms so I just used a crayon to draw the nose. I love it! I'm definitely going to try out the tree and snowman next year, too!

I also made a few gift tags. Nothing crazy, just some stamps and embossing stuff I had lying around. I hadn't embossed anything in YEARS (since before I met Aaron) so it was fun breaking it all out again.

(I thought it was cute to hang the gift tag from one of the antlers.)

Aaron's been needing a hammer (we both swear we had one, but the elves took it to use in their toy workshop in the North Pole or something) so I got him one. Don't worry, it's okay that I say that on here, and this is why.

I didn't want to just throw it in a bag and I didn't want it to hang in the stocking because I'd be paranoid that it would fall and break something or someone. So I thought it would be fun and silly to just wrap it like this. So I made a silly little tag to go along with it, too.

I usually always just wrap things, slap on a tag, and be done with it. So it felt really good to get creative and have fun with my wrapping. I'm definitely going to be doing that more often, all year round.

How is your Christmas wrapping going?

Good Company, Hot Chocolate, and Christmas Shows!

Ack! I can't believe that I'm a day late telling you guys about this! I'm sure many of you know, but ABC Family started their 25 Days of Christmas programming last night with How the Grinch Stole Christmas. But after mentioning it to a friend, and finding out that she had forgotten about it, I had to make sure to remind everyone!

Now, I don't know about you, but Christmas shows and movies are one of my favorite parts of the season. I love listening to Christmas music while decorating, baking cookies, wrapping presents, etc. and then sitting down to watch Christmas shows in the evening. It really helps put me in the Christmas mood. My absolute favorite of all time is the original Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I have it on DVD, I have a singing Rudolph set out right now (which Ashlyn plays over... and over... and over again), and I just love reindeer in general (not that you'd know that from my header or anything). Now, my daughter goes to bed at 8pm every night so she misses the main show for the night, but they are still showing fun things before that. Like last night, before the Grinch, they had a Dr. Seuss marathon starting at 6. Then tonight, while they're showing The Santa Clause at 8, they have A Flintstone Christmas at 6. So I am really excited that Ashlyn still gets to see some cool Christmas shows! I fondly remember watching holly jolly shows with my parents as a kid, cuddled up on the couch with some hot chocolate, and am so excited to continue that tradition with Ashlyn this year! If you love Christmas shows like I do, I really recommend checking out the schedule for ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas!

What is your favorite Christmas show or movie?

Frosty the Snowman

Welcome to December! Ashlyn and I did the first Christmas craft of the season yesterday and I think it turned out so cute! I kept going back and forth on what I wanted to do. First we were going to make a Santa, then I decided on a snowman, then a different snowman, then a Christmas tree... and we ended up doing a snowman that was a combination of a few different crafts I've seen around blogland.

All it took was three paper plates (fairly different sizes), buttons (I knew I bought that pack of random buttons YEARS ago for a reason!), black and orange construction paper, red pipe cleaners, cotton balls, glue, and a hole punch!

I cut out the hat and the nose during Ashlyn's nap and got all the other supplies together. The black dots we used for the mouth were just made by taking a regular hole punch to the scraps of the black construction paper I used to make the hat. I put glue down where all the items were to go, and Ashlyn put them on. This would be cute just gluing the paper plates together in a snowman shape, but I remember like last year I saw a snowman put together like this (except probably with ribbon or something) and thought it looked cool. Sure, I helped a lot, but putting everything on the drops of glue (especially the small black dots) took some good hand-eye coordination. She did awesome! Ashlyn had a blast and it looks great hanging up on the small wall by our front entrance area! I think it's my favorite craft that we've done in awhile. Hmmm... it may be hard to top this one this Christmas!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

It's officially the beginning of the Christmas season (at least in our house)! I'm putting up the Christmas tree during Ashlyn's nap today so it will be all set up and ready to decorate when she wakes up. She's so excited about the Christmas decorations that have been up at the Navy Exchange for a couple of weeks now so I can't wait to get the house decorated! Our house isn't the only thing transforming with some holiday cheer... I'm going to be changing the background and stuff like that on the blog, so if you come visit and things look a little funny, it'll look better soon. ;) I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and have a great Christmas season! Time to plan some fun Christmas crafts and get ready to enjoy all the activities coming up!

Get the Perfect Christmas Card or Gift from Shutterfly!

I have to say... I LOVE Shutterfly! I have ordered prints, photo mousepads, and calendars from them and everything has been wonderful quality. They even ship to APO/FPO addresses, which just makes my life (as a military wife living overseas) that much easier. We are always excited to get our new calendars. 2011 will be our 3rd year ordering one and I can't wait to finish it up and order it! And each year they change up their available backgrounds so you can make sure you have a different, awesome calendar each year (at least this has been true for the soon-to-be 3 years I've been making them). Here are a couple of shots from our 2010 calendar.


It is a blast picking out the perfect background and layout for our pictures.

This year will be the first year I'll be ordering Christmas cards. There are a ton of options and I am still deciding what to choose! Here are 3 of my favorites... which do you like best?

Retro Kaleidoscope

Get Glowing


Oh Holy Night

Disclosure: I will be receiving 50 free Christmas cards from Shutterfly for writing this post. But the opinions are 100% mine.

Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… sign up: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas...


...from our family...


...to yours!

Cookie Exchange

I can't believe it is Christmas Eve already! I am so excited. Baby Girl was 3 months old last Christmas so she didn't really know what was going on. She doesn't know what Christmas means or anything yet, either, but she knows she loves all the lights and she'll be able to open her presents herself and all that fun stuff. I can't wait for her and hubby to open their presents tonight after dinner, hot chocolate, and a reading of The Night Before Christmas. *sigh* I love Christmas!

Today I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of the cookie exchange I hosted this past Saturday. Well, technically the pictures are just of the goodies because I forgot our camera in the diaper bag that hubby kept with him since he watched Baby Girl, but that's okay. :) I had never even been to one before, but I really wanted to make sure there was one on island this year.

I ordered some gingerbread boy and girl themed decorations from Oriental Trading. They were super cute! I made some hot chocolate in the crock pot and some reindeer cake pops for dessert.

A couple of people volunteered to bring some hors d'oeurves and punch to help out, which was wonderful! It took a little bit of stress off and saved me a little bit of money! There were 10 of us that came and everyone brought such delicious cookies!


I made little recipe books with the recipes of the cookies people brought (at least those that people emailed me beforehand) for everyone to take home with them so they can make their favorites from the party.


It was really simple. I just printed them out with a cute little Christmas tree graphic in the corner, trimmed them down, punched a hole in the corner, and tied a ribbon to keep it together.

Oh, and of course I had some Christmas music playing in the background! :)

It was really SO much fun and I already know I want to do it again next year! Have a wonderful Christmas Eve!

Muffin Tin Monday - Christmas!

You know, I was super excited for last week and this week's muffin tin theme, but then this week came up and I couldn't think of anything! This week's theme is Christmas and I know there are a million things I could do, but I just couldn't think of what. Ever have one of those days? So since Baby Girl just isn't eating much lately (and being picky at that!) I made her a little tin. I also decided to give the Christmas tin a break and use the Christmas muffin liners that I had forgotten I picked up.


She had three crackers with turkey and cheese cutouts (1 angel, 1 Christmas tree, and 1 candy cane) and part of a cake pop. I made these reindeer cake pops (idea from Bakerella, of course!) for my Christmas cookie exchange that I had last night (I hosted and this was the dessert I took - besides the cookies). I didn't give her the pretzels, of course, but she loved the couple of bites of cake she got! :)


The reindeer were going to have black pupils instead of brown and were going to have a cute little smile (oh, and some of the pops had brown noses... not everyone can be Rudolph!), but my black edible marker ran out after the first two! BOOOOOO! :) Oh well, I still love them.

If you head on over to Muffin Tin Mom, you'll be able to check out what everyone else did for this week! Have fun!

Book Fan Friday

Wow, it's Friday already! Crazy! Today is so packed with stuff to do it's not even funny. But I also get to introduce Baby Girl to the wonderful story of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer! I love, love, love Rudolph. But honestly, I've never read the original story until I picked it up at the NEX a week or two ago.


(Ali was being cooperative so I decided to include her in the picture.)

Hubby had never heard the original story, either (written by Robert L. May in 1939), so we both thought it was so cool! Baby Girl hasn't seen the oh-so-popular (for a reason!) Rudolph special yet, so I'm definitely popping that in on Saturday. We're barely going to be home at all today otherwise I'd watch it with her today. :)

If you have found a great book, children's or otherwise, I would love to see what it is and what you thought about it! I will leave the link-up open all week so feel free to join in at any time.

Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash - Christmas Memories and Traditions

Man, I love Christmas time. For so many reasons I can't even begin to list them all. I love tradition and the story behind things/activities so I try to keep a lot of my family and Hubby's family's traditions, combine a couple to incorporate both, as well as create our own.

There is one thing that I loved as a kid and Hubby and I now do it for Baby Girl. My parents would buy me a new ornament every year so that when I grew up and moved out, I would have some ornaments to put on my very first tree. (I remember it would take forever to decorate the Christmas tree each year because my mom loved to take her time and talk about the story behind each ornament. And not just mine, but ALL of them. :) ) My parents would wrap the ornament and the tag would say "To: Christina From: The Christmas Tree" and they would set up the tree (we almost always had an artificial tree) while I was at school and would put the wrapped ornament underneath. Then it would be the very first ornament we put on the tree that year. We do this for Baby Girl now. Oh, another thing my mom always did was write my name and the year on the bottom of each ornament. Of course I have to do that, too. :) I love this tradition and it always brings back such wonderful memories. I really hope it's something Baby Girl cherishes as well and continues with the kids she may have one day.

Well, thank you to Tidy Mom for hosting the Bash today. I'm about to head over (with caution, mind you) to read the memories and traditions others are holding dear in their hearts today. I say with caution because there's bound to be a tear or two shed!

Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash - Christmas Recipes

Today's all about those wonderful recipes, old and new, that we all make for Christmas. I'm pretty late getting today's Holly Bloggy post up because, well, I am in the middle of making some of those delicious treats! Growing up, my favorite cookies were Chocolate Crinkles. I still love them! I also love Brown-Eyed Susans (that's what my mom called them - peanut butter cookies with Hershey's Kisses pressed in them). They were always my mom's favorite. I call them Brown-Eyed Ashlyns now, because of my daughter. :)

Today I've been making treats for my family and those coming to the Christmas Cookie Exchange I'm hosting this Saturday evening. I can't wait! I'm making Red Velvet Shortbread Cookies (the link has the recipe).


I am also making cake pops. I've made these a few times after seeing them on Bakerella's website and everyone who tries them LOVES them! I'm going to be decorating them like reindeer... hopefully they turn out even half as cute as these.

Simply Sweet Home is hosting the Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash today (thank you!) so join me in going over and seeing what yummy things other people are making!

Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash - Christmas Crafts

It's been a little crazy around here the past few days, but I do have a few crafts to share with you! I've already shared a couple during the Monthly Craft Challenge - Christmas Edition (click to check out the pics!). I made a handprint Christmas tree and a hand/footprint angel. To go along with those handprint crafts, Baby Girl and I also made a handprint wreath.


I printed out a coloring page with the ornaments that spell out Merry Christmas and had Baby Girl color them before I cut them out and taped them on the wreath. We love it and it's hanging up above our computer.

There are some other crafts I really want to do this season (like make our own gift tags) but it's been a little stressful lately. Nothing major, just a few things that decided to pile up at the same time. Don't you just love it when that happens? Nothing that we will let get us down, though! Oh, totally go check out Blue Eyed Blessings (one of the sites I check out regularly) to see what other awesome Christmas crafts people are making this season!

Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash - Christmas Trees

It's day 2 of the Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash! Today is about Christmas trees! I can't wait to go over to A Baby Changes Everything to see everyone else's Christmas trees. But before I do that, I want to share with you what our tree looks like this year.


I don't necessarily have a favorite ornament, though there are great stories and memories behind almost all of them. We do have what I think is a wonderful tradition when it comes to our Christmas tree that I've carried over from my childhood, but I'm saving that to tell on Friday, when the Christmas Bash will be all about Christmas Memories and Traditions. ;)

We don't have a theme for our tree, but I'm planning on buying a plain wreath during the after Christmas sales this year (if the NEX has any more... if not I'll find something online) and we're going to hang some of our favorite ornaments on it next year to highlight them. I had made a wreath that I just loved when it was just hubby, our cat, and me. I had made two snow people and a snow cat and had them sitting in the wreath. When Baby Girl was born I tried to make a snow baby out of stuff we had available on island, but it didn't work too well. lol But that's okay. When we get back to the states I will gather a bunch of supplies and make a new one. Or maybe next time we visit I'll stop by a Michaels and see what I can get... I'm already looking forward to it! But anyway, I'm getting off the topic of Christmas trees. :) Have a wonderful day!

Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash - Homemade Gifts

Today is the first day of the Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash!!! Hooray! Okay, well today is all about Homemade Gifts and is being hosted over at Tatertots and Jello (love that name!). I didn't really make any gifts this year, but Baby Girl did receive something from her Granny Georgia. This is one side...

... and the flip-side of each of them.


She sewed together a couple of very cool placemats! At this age Baby Girl would only throw them if I tried to use them as placemats, so for right now we keep them with her toys. She loves the bright colors and I always identify the different letters/numbers/etc. when she points to them. We love them!

Please go check out Tatertots and Jello to see other homemade gifts people have made and/or received this year!

Muffin Tin Monday - Christmas Stories

I am pretty excited about this week's theme! We chose to create the tin around The Night Before Christmas.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. (Pieces of mozzarella/cheddar cheese sticks.)

The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow, gave the luster of midday to objects below. (French vanilla yogurt with sprinkles in the shape of the moon.)

When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer. (8 pieces of chicken nugget.)

His eyes - how they twinkled, his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! (Fruit cup with cherries.)

He had a broad face and a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly. (Jell-o.)

And the milk? Well, it may not be part of the story, but Santa has to have milk with all those cookies left out for him, right? :)

Head on over to Muffin Tin Mom to see what others did with the theme this week!