Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

Oh my goodness!!! It has been a busy few days! I have been going pretty much non-stop since December 23rd! Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Christmas and the busyness that comes with it, but...... WHEW!! I'm glad things are finally settling down a bit!

Here's a condensed version of my Christmas ---

Thursday, December 23rd ~ Cleaned house ~ Baked a "Happy Birthday Jesus Cake" ~ Cake stuck to pans ~ Not happy! ~ Pieced it together with lots of frosting ~ Threw out cake pans ~ Plan to get new ones ~ Made "White Trash" (Chex Mix dessert) ~ Yum! ~ Mother-n-law arrived from Philadelphia ~ Yay! ~ Dinner and visiting at home.  

Yes. I know. It looks pretty sad. It tastes yummy, though!

Friday, December 24th ~ Up early ~ Coffee & bagels, at home ~ Spent morning at nursing home with "my" mom ~ Visiting & presents ~ Santa came while we were there ~ More presents ~ Lunch at Cracker Barrel ~ Ashley's sandwich was a smile ~ Funny! ~ Great food! ~ Christmas Eve service at church ~ Beautiful! ~ Clam Chowder at home ~ Yum! ~ Warmth by the fireplace ~ Christmas movie ~ Precious time with family.

Santa visits my mom...

and gives her a hug and a gift.

"Three Generations" photo

Ashley & Grandma (David's mom) at Cracker Barrel

Me & Miranda

Ashley's "smiling" sandwich!

This is the way that it arrived!! LOL!

Saturday, December 25th ~ Up early ~ Filled stockings with goodies ~ Warm fire in the fireplace ~ Breakfast casserole ~ Yum! ~ Waited for Rory (Miranda's boyfriend) to arrive ~ Viewed, "Our Year in Pictures", while waiting ~ Stockings are unloaded ~ Rory arrives ~ Presents opened, in turn ~ Wrapping paper, everywhere! ~ Chester eats the bows ~ Clean up the mess ~ Christmas dinner with all the trimmings ~ Yum! ~ Christmas movies ~ Games are played ~ Dessert ~ Yum! ~ Snowflakes fall ~ A "dusting" of snow is enjoyed in the darkness ~ Pretty! ~ White Christmas!

The stockings...

and the tree.

Ashley and her University of Georgia "Snuggie"

that Nick gave her for Christmas.

Rory opens one of his gifts, while Jackson

 looks for another gift to open.

Miranda opens her "Mad Gab" game that she got for Christmas.

The table is set for a delicious Christmas dinner.

Pretty!

The turkey was cooked in David's "oil-less fryer".

YUM!!

Turkey, ham, corn casserole, stuffing,

cheesy green bean casserole, & gravy = YUM!!

By nightfall, it started to SNOW!!!!

This is a rare thing to happen in Georgia on Christmas!

How fun!

Sunday, December 26th ~ Up early ~ Snow on ground is gone ~ Boo hoo! ~ Breakfast at I-Hop ~ Yum!! ~ Snowflakes fall again! ~ Yay! ~ Church ~ Wonderful! ~ Cold temps ~ Trip to Best Buy ~ New Laptop for me!! ~ YAY!!! ~ No time to play on it! ~ Boo! ~ Home again ~ Warm fire in fireplace ~ Bake Gingerbread men ~ First time! ~ Messed up! ~ Started over! ~ UGH! ~ Ashley's new boyfriend (Nick) comes over for the day ~ Sweet guy! ~ Happy for her! ~ Games are played ~ "Leftovers" are served ~ Yum! ~ Christmas movie is watched ~ Weather Channel is watched ~ Snow in Northeast ~ Philadelphia Eagles game is cancelled ~ Sad faces ~ Find out that Mother-n-law's flight is cancelled for the next day! ~ Uh Oh! ~ Call airline ~ Can't get through ~ Frustration.

Our beautiful church

The gingerbread men are finally getting made!

The kids enjoy a fun game on the Wii

David had a good time watching them!

Time to decorate the gingerbread men.

I think Nick's first time meeting us went well.

Yay!

So cute and yummy!

Monday, December 27th ~ Up early ~ Coffee & bagels for breakfast ~ Still can't get ahold of airline! ~ Frustrated, still ~ Watched news about snow ~ Airports closed ~ Uh oh! ~ Go to airport ~ Got a new flight for mother-n-law for TOMORROW night with a possibility to fly stand-by earlier in the day ~ Cleaned house ~ Dishwasher started leaking! ~ Uh oh! ~ David took it apart ~ Part is ordered ~ Ugh! ~ Leftover's for dinner again ~ Yum! ~ Falcons football game! ~ YAY!! ~ Stayed up late ~ They lost ~ Sad faces.

Tuesday, December 28th ~ Slept in ~ Oops! ~ Should've been up early! ~ Took mother-n-law to airport shuttle ~ Said good-bye ~ Sad face ~ Starbucks with Miranda ~ Carmel Brulee ~ Yum! ~ Shopping at Target ~ Great deals! ~ Shopping at Khol's ~ Nothing bought ~ Shopping at Old Navy ~ New pants found on clearance! ~ Shopping at Game Stop ~ New Wii controller ~ BBQ sandwiches for lunch ~ Home ~ Mother-n-law is on her way to Philadelphia ~ Yay!! ~ FINALLY time to play on my new computer!! ~ Yay!

I hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas as I did!



My Christmas Tablescape

My friend Cindy introduced me to the world of Tablescapes early this Fall and I have since then, focused much of my decorating on "dressing up" my own table! I have always loved dishes and glassware, so this should be fun!

I love Fall decorations almost as much as I love Christmas decorations, so coming up with a Fall Tablescape was FUN! You can read about that HERE.

When I started decorating for Christmas, the wheels in my pretty little head started turning, trying to plan a beautiful Christmas Tablescape for my table. I knew that I wanted to use my mother's china, that I now have. It is kind of an off-white/ivory color with silver trimmings.

I knew that I wanted to incorporate the color silver into my color pallet, but my other Christmas decorations are mostly green, red & gold. Coming up with a workable tablescape, was going to be a challenge!

My first purchase was to buy some silver chargers. (There's a funny story behind the idea of me using "chargers" that I'll have to blog about at another time! You'll love it!) I thought they would go perfect with my mother's china.

I also have my mother's Candlewick Crystal.

I, of course, wanted to incorporate these dishes into my decor as well.

I also have these green dishes that I inherited from my grandmother.

Aren't they the perfect Christmas color??

I really wanted to find some red salad plates and had been searching the stores for the right ones. I saw the ones that I wanted at Target, but didn't buy them right away.

Then... when I received that $50 gift card for Target, from my class.... BINGO!!! I knew exactly what I would spend it on!! THOSE DISHES!! They were only $16 for two sets of four, so I still have money left on my card! YAY!

After working for over two hours on it, here's my final design... drum roll, please.....

Yes. I am missing a few things like... silverware & napkins. I had bought some white napkins with silver snowflakes on them, but then decided that I didn't like them. So, I took them back and got some green ones. They match the green PERFECTLY! (I took these photo's before I bought them)

And, of course, I HAVE silverware. I just haven't decided which set to use. I have two sets of REAL silver, but they both need to be polished. I'm not sure if I'll get around to that or not, so I may just use my everyday set.

The other thing that you probably see that is missing are my silver CHARGERS!! Yep. I got my table completely done. Took pictures of it. Then, realized that I forgot the chargers! Oops!! (They are now on my table and look great!)

Here are a "few" other views of my tablescape. You'll have to forgive my photography skills. I'm still working on those! **Smile**

The colors all came together so nicely!

Remember the beautiful candle that I recieved as a gift

from one of my students??

It looks so beautiful on the table!!

It took me FOREVER to get the "snow" right and the tree to stand up in the middle!! The tree was my mother's and I already had the snow.

See the "HO" candle? There are two other's there, too! Those were the gift from the teacher that I work with. They look great on the table! The snowflake candle was a gift, as well. "Mr. & Mrs. Santa" are from my childhood.

I love them!

I can't remember where I got this angel,

but she looks so beautiful on the table!

I just noticed that Mrs. Santa missed Santa's lips!!! LOL!!

I'll have to fix that!

I am so pleased with the way my tablescape turned out!

Fun Gifts from the Kids

Once again... my little preschool kids (by way of their parents, of course!), showered me with some wonderful gifts!

The little girl that gave me these two gifts, told her mommy that I "needed" a watch because I didn't wear one! I thought that was really cute. She was right! I DID need one! A watch was on my list of things I wanted for Christmas. This one is a "fun" watch.

A pocket calendar for the new year, is ALWAYS a wonderful gift idea, and having it personalized is even better! The "Teacher" ornament is already on my tree, and I am sure that I will be wearing this adorable Santa pin this coming Sunday at church, since the little boy that gave me this, goes to my church! Oooh!! And Godiva chocolate! YUM!!

I love this candle from the Yankee Candle company! This looks like MY church, which is also where I teach preschool!

The teacher that I teach with gave me these candle holders. The silver ones say... HO, HO, HO. I think these are going to become part of my centerpiece on my tablescape! (Look for an upcoming blog about that!)

YUM!! I can't wait to try this Pepper Jelly Cheesecake recipe!!

And look at these yummy goodies in these mugs!!! The golden reindeer is an ornament and already on my tree! I love it!

The best gift of all was this $50 gift card to Target!! I have already used it to buy the red plates that I wanted for Christmas! (You'll see them in that upcoming post that I mentioned above!) I bought some decorative napkins too, but I think I am going to exchange them for some different ones. I'm not sure what else I will buy, but I'll have fun looking for something!

Preschool Staff Christmas Party

This past Saturday night was our Christmas party for the preschool staff. It was in the beautiful home of our director, Debi. She graciously hosts it in her home every year. We are told to bring a $5.00 ornament for the ornament swap game. We call it "Dirty Santa", but I believe it is called other names as well.

Here's an idea of what the ornament that I brought looked like ---

I couldn't find a picture of the actual one that I bought, but it looked like these, only it was a glass ball, not a bucket. I loved the feathers at the top of it! I got it at Pier 1. I love their ornaments, and everything else in the store!!!

I brought along my camera to take pics at the party, but ended up only taking pics of Debi's beautiful Christmas decorations!

This is the stairwell, in the foyer, that greets you as you enter the house.

This is the dining room, to the left of the foyer. She had many yummy foods here, for us to enjoy!

Take a look at ALL of these YUMMY desserts that were scattered across her kitchen island!! This was a dessert lover's paradise!! The large gingerbread house is just a decoration, but it looked SO real!



This beautiful fireplace is in the formal living room where we all sat to enjoy our yummy foods and also to have our ornament swap.



I hate that I didn't take any pictures of any of us that were there! I get shy about taking people's pictures, because you never know how they really feel about it. Someone did take mine and David's picture in front of the Christmas tree, but it didn't turn out so well.

Our ornament swap game was a lot of fun. If you've never played "Dirty Santa", it's a fun game to play at a Christmas party! Everyone brings an ornament (or some other cheap) gift and you take turns picking a gift from under the tree (or on the table). You open your gift and show it to the rest of the participants. The next person, in turn, can either take your gift or choose another from under the tree. The game continues around the room with everyone either choosing a new gift, or stealing someone else's! Our game lasted for a while because their were two ornaments that everyone seemed to want!!

This is the ornament that I was lucky to get --

I actually stole him from someone else!! Hahaaa! I love snowmen and the green and red match the rest of my Christmas tree ornaments! I was happy that he wasn't one of the ornaments that everyone wanted!