Oh Christmas Tree!

Well, I didn't even get photos of Christmas morning posted on Facebook, so here is my update...

Oh, look at these too.  Such cuteness!

Hope's chorus class (and band) had a small concert before the end of the semester.  She is in the white dress, front row (center).

AND..the BIG secret is out.  I was surprised it was not big deal to her.  She handled it very well, (considering the BIG GUY isn't real) and if you are friends with me of FB you might have seen the video.  "Don't Judge Me!".  LOL!

So the elves got to come to Cedar Falls with us in the car.

We had Christmas on the Weber side the week before Christmas.  Grandma Karen with three of her grandkids.

My sister Dawn watched Taylor for us, so when we picked her up Hope got 8 bags of clothes from the twins.  Here she is swimming in all her "new" clothes.

So now that Hope "knows" she helped us find new hiding places for the elves.  I got the night off in the kitchen since I couldn't open either of the main cabinets.  LOL!

And, while we were folding laundry and watching a Christmas movie, Hope said "Look mom, it is like I am a Leg Lamp".  LOL!  Just like from my favorite Christmas movie...A Christmas Story.

Of course, Christmas Eve services at Hope Lutheran Church are always so uplifting and amazing.  The candlelit sanctuary is such an amazing experience.  You can feel the warmth and love of God all around you.

And this is Chippy and Sonia's final location before going home with Santa this year.

And the tree before the chaos began!

Hope had a great Christmas...

...and Taylor too.

Joe got me a wine opener...

... and of course it took me a little while to get to the next gift, because Joe did his typical "gift in a gift" where he wraps up a gift in a box and wraps that up in another box, etc.

So box 1...

...box 2...

...box 3...

...box 4...

...and finally got to my ring.  Joe had my original diamond from my wedding band put into a new setting (because my old one had been repaired too many times to fix any more).  It had been broken for almost a year.  I guess my knuckle decided to grow during that time so I will need to have it re-sized so I can get it on my ring finger.  I love it and very happy to have my wedding ring closer to being able to wear it again.  It gets old having all those guys hitting on me!  LOL!  Just kidding!!!

Joe didn't get much to unwrap because he got a new TV that was already set up in the basement (for now).  So Hope and I got him Hawkeye jello mold for the Rose Bowl.

One of Hope's favorite gifts was a karaoke machine.  She sang on it for hours over the long weekend.

We still have two more Christmas gatherings with my family and with Hope's birth mom.  So more to come.  So, since I have a LOT of Christmas cards I haven't shared yet...here you go!

Have a safe New Year!

Darla

1 week

Can you believe it is only one week until Christmas?  Mr. and Mrs. Chippy Elf are still roaming around the house...let's see what they have been up too!

Must have been trouble in paradise???

I guess they made up!  :)

Oops, got a little tangled up!

Paid a visit to baby Jesus.

And tried to keep Hope from watching too much tv (it didn't work, she snuck the remote out very carefully).

And finally, tried to keep Hope out of the cookies.  They were not successful with that either!

I guess I get one more day before I finish cleaning up after all our baking this week.  Hope and I made goodies for our neighbors and delivered them one evening.

So how many Christmas parties have you been too?  I forgot to share all the fun we had with our first annual "Best Neighborhood EVER Ugly Christmas Sweater" party we had a few weeks ago.  We truly do live in the best neighborhood.  We have a lot of fun together.

We have a group picture too, but I didn't have a copy of it available to share.  

We had a different course of the meal at a different house.  

So we took pictures in front of each tree.

All the food and drinks were fantastic!

This is one of my favorite photos.  It was just a spur of the moment photo, so not everyone is in it, but it captured the fun of the night.  LOL!

Even Taylor got an ugly sweater too.  She obviously was NOT amused.  LOL!

Well, that is enough for tonight...except I will share some Christmas Cheer with some projects and cards.

This was inspired by a project made by someone else (I can't remember her name because she stopped blogging), but I always loved her style.  I have had these papers for years and finally decided to make the projects.  

Until next time...

Darla

The Best Way to spread Christmas Cheer...

...Is to SING Loud for all to Hear!  Or something like that, you know from the movie Elf.  :)

Speaking of singing, Hope recently had her music concert at school.

There she is in the front row (cream dress on the right) singing her little heart out.  Loved the concert and she did a great job.

AND speaking of Elf...Chippy arrived at our house a few days ago.  We found him on the tree, which is always his first stop when he comes back on December 1st each year.

Hope wanted to get him an outfit, so she picked out a tuxedo jacket for him.

Then one morning, we found him like this?  We weren't sure what it meant, until...

This happened!  WHAT?  Since they are sitting on the chapel in our Christmas village, we think he was telling us he got married.  So maybe the above was the aftermath of the bachelor party????  LOL!

So let me introduce to you...Sonia.  Hope asked them to pick different rooms the next night so she could have a "talk" with Sonia about her husband Chippy.  

So Chippy stayed out in the kitchen that night.  Bummer, he hid in my kitchen utensils, so I wasn't able to cook that night either.  Thanks Chippy!

This is where we originally found Sonia

So stay tuned for the continued adventures of Chippy and Sonia Elf.  

So I have actually recently scrapbooked several pages from our memories of last Christmas.

Now for all my scrappy friends...Do you ever get excited when you see a line of product and know you HAVE to HAVE it because it is perfect for a group of pictures you want to use for a layout?  Well this Christmas paper from BoBunny was one of those paper lines.  I LOVED the pink because our Christmas morning was filled with lots of pink last year because that is her favorite color.  

So, most of my layouts are two pages, and I knew I wanted to use the tree printed on the paper as part of my design on the layout below, but I wanted the background to flow to the other side too.  So my solution???  I turned the paper upside down and covered it with a grouping of photos and now my background flows across both pages.  Problem solved!

This was an easy layout as well.  I used the printed papers to do the work and just added a few touches and details to the layout with the year chipboard stickers and the flowers.

And in case you haven't figured it out already...I LOVE glitter paper.  So here is a little trick to make it go just a little bit further.  I really wanted to use the chevron glitter paper for the background in the layout below, but this was the only sheet I had of the paper.  What if I want to use some on a card or on another layout???  Well, once I had the postcard paper measured out, I cut out the section behind it since there is a large section that is hidden.  

And as always, once I use up most of the papers in a line of product I use the scraps to make greeting cards.  Here are several cards (with many more scraps available left to use) to share as well...

And of course the easiest cards to make is using the printed papers themselves and just adding a sentiment for a quick beautiful creation like the card below.  Love that Santa!

Alright, that is it for tonight...stay tuned because I have a feeling my night is about to get interesting (which is why I am drinking wine while I write this).  Hope informed me when I dropped her off at church that we needed to have a "talk" about Santa.  She thinks something is going on!  Gulp!

So when when Joe gets home with her we will see where this goes.  Maybe she will forget.  LOL!

Darla