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!

Wordless Wednesday - Reading In Bed

Looking Ahead to New Years

For a few days at least, the Christmas festivities have calmed down. Starting this weekend and on through, well, almost mid-January, we will be super busy. Which is why I'm thankful that today is the day I found out about the Day Zero Project because I actually have a minute or two to sit down and think about it. The Day Zero Project is pretty much where you create a list of 101 things you want to accomplish in the next 1001 days. It can be as simple as making dinner for a friend through visiting all 7 continents. It is very easy to add to and edit your lists right on the website, too. And it's all free to use! There is also a "Done" list for things you find that you've already done and a "someday" list for things you find or think of that you don't think you could accomplish in the next 1001 days (approximately 2.75 years) but want to do in the future.

Anyway, I'm still working on getting to 101 on my list (at this very second I'm at 33... just started... and you totally don't have to do a full 101, I just want to) and have a handful on my done and someday lists, but I had to stop and let you all know about it! I think it's an awesome thing. Everyone has stuff on their "bucket list" but rarely give it a second thought. For me, having a timeline to get these things done will help a lot. I don't have anything on my list that involves a whole lot of advanced planning, like visiting all 7 continents, mainly because we'll be moving fairly soon to who-knows-where and we just don't know what's going to happen in the next year. But I have some awesome things listed that I'm already excited to do and I'm going to officially start on January 1st.

I had already planned to complete the 365 Project and when I saw that it was one of the top 101 on the Day Zero Project, it inspired me to add it to my list, too. I also added to "read the Bible in 90 days" since I have already committed myself to that (you can see the button on my sidebar). There are also other things like "make a snowman" or "plant a window box herb garden" that I have always wanted to do and now have extra motivation to go ahead and do!

Anyone else doing or planning to do the Day Zero project?

**update: Nah... totally starting the Day Zero Project today. :) A few things I know I won't be doing until the start of the year (like the 365 Project I want to start on the 1st of the year) or until we move, but there are plenty of things I can start working towards and there is no time like the present!! I also plan on blogging about this every so often. Should be fun!**

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!