Ringing in 2012

(image from Pinterest)

Well, hello!  

I hope you all have enjoyed the holidays as much as I have!  My family--me included--just keeps saying how this was our best Christmas yet.  It was just really wonderful!  

My parents and sister came from Arkansas for a week and a half to celebrate Christmas with us and I can't remember when we've had more fun!  We wore ourselves out with all of the holiday fun, but it was so worth it.  

I just have to share some of my fave holiday shots with you:

 window shopping in downtown Paducah, KY  

Hamming it up with the whole family at Patti's 1880's Settlement

making gingerbread houses with our friends

visiting the Gaylord Opryland Hotel 

 decorating gingerbread cookies while waiting to see Santa at Bass Pro in Nashville

refocusing our souls at our church's candlelight communion service

the joy of a new puppy (my kiddos' first!)

 enjoying good food galore

new Christmas Eve pj's and house shoes

 the total fun and excitement of Christmas morning

I could share tons more, but I'll spare you;)  We just had such a great time together this year.  Besides our days shopping and seeing the sights, there were nights at the house watching Christmas movies, playing games and just hanging out.  

Best.Christmas.Ever.

And now I am focused and looking forward to the New Year!  I believe it's going to bring some great things!

Happy New Year to you!

Elf Food

If you need an easy and yummy snack to whip up at the last minute, here's a good one for you.  It's definitely been a hit at our house!

Elf Food

4 cups Frosted Cherrios

3 cups mini marshmallows

1 cup yogurt-covered raisins

1 cup "toasted marshmallow" Jelly-Belly's

1 cup white chocolate morsels
1 (10 oz.) box white fudge-covered mini pretzels

*****

Mix all together in a large bowl and serve!  

See how easy that was?

Gotta love it:)

From Our Family to Yours

May you have a wonderful 
and blessed Christmas 
season this year!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: The One With Holiday Fun

It's been another week of holiday fun around here and I must admit that there was no *formal* schooling done.  Just lots of fun!

We visited our downtown's tree lighting ceremony--isn't it a lovely tree?

I whipped up some snowman pancakes for the kiddos (actually super easy!), they were a huge hit!

We went to a production of The Christmas Elves and the Shoemaker at a local theater.  The kiddos loved the performance, it was really cute!

 We enjoyed our first fire in our fireplace--whoo hoo!

The Princess had her Girl Scout troop Christmas party.  She had a blast making an angel candy holder, an ornament and peppermint bark.

And now...Nana and Papi and Aunt Kari have arrived!!  The long-awaited day is finally here!!

We have lots of Christmas fun planned for this next week while they are visiting, so I won't be posting regularly.  I'm sure I'll pop in now and then, but we'll be out having fun most of the time.  I hope you will be, too.

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Treats: A Few Of My Favorite Things

Are you busy baking up some goodies for Christmas yet? So far I've only made one batch of cookies, for our homeschool group party last week. But this weekend I'll be starting to make more! My family will be arriving soon and there must be treats to eat, right?

I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you today:

1. Buttery Spritz Cookies (works well for a cookie press as well as thumbprint cookies!)

2. Amish Sugar Cookies (Ahh...Mazing!!)

3. Cream Cheese Pumpkin Bread

4. Sugar Cookie Cut-Outs

5. Praline Bars (LOVE!)

6. Buckeyes (a personal fave!)

7. Sand Tarts

What's a favorite holiday treat that you like to make?

The World's Greatest Stories: A Review

Lately my kiddos have really been enjoying listening to Bible stories on cd from The World's Greatest Stories. They have always enjoyed audio stories and what better thing to listen to than God's Word?

The World's Greatest Stories are a series of cd's made by George W. Sarris. Sarris is an amazing voice actor and has quite the impressive resume. He also has a passion for the Bible and has recorded quite a bit of it on cd.

There are six different cd's: The Prophets, The Life of Christ, Beginnings, Joshua & Esther, Joseph & His Brothers and Defeating Giants.

Each cd contains actual Scripture passages, not an abridged retelling of the Bible, and you can order them in either KJV or NIV versions.

Our family got to review The Prophets, which includes passages from Daniel, I Kings and Jonah. It includes the stories of:

• The Blazing Furnace
• The Handwriting On the Wall
• Daniel in the Lion's Den
• Elijah and the Prophets of Baal
• The Prophecy of Jonah

The dramatization is amazing! It's hard to believe that one person is doing all of the voices. My kiddos really have enjoyed listening to it--actually we all did. It was perfect for our Thanksgiving road trip!

The cd's are 7.95 each and can be purchased on The World's Greatest Stories website. They would be a wonderful investment for your children to encourage them to hide God's Word in their hearts.

These would make great stocking stuffers, too, if you're still Christmas shopping. So head over to The World's Greatest Stories and check them out!

Disclaimer: I received a copy of The Prophets through The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew and The World's Greatest Stories in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

You can read about what other homeschool parents thought about this product here.

*Merry Christmas* From Our House

Welcome to our house at Christmastime! As it's a new house for us, I am still changing things and learning where I like things best. So it's been fun decorating for the holidays with a fresh perspective.

I was so happy to have a fireplace and mantel to decorate again! I realized this year that I haven't been able to use all of my mantel decor since 2005! So glad I saved all of that stuff because it was so fun to be able to pull it all out this year.

Here is our family room tree. For the second time ever I decided to put up two trees. Our little 7' tree is just so FULL of ornaments :) This year it holds all of the ornaments except my vintage glass ones and other blown glass ornaments. It's still VERY full, but I love it that way!

Rather than show you all of my nativities this year, I'm just highlighting a couple of them. This one is my favorite, made for me by a family friend.

This is another one I just love. I bought it in Mexico City. If you would like to see more of my nativity collection, you can take a peek here.

In our front room (technically known as the formal living room, but in our family it's the library/reading room) I created this sweet grouping of some of my favorite things: pretty Christmas boxes, my Christmas journals/scrapbooks and my vintage Santa.

The front room window is draped in garland and bubble lights (I adore bubble lights!).

This is also where the second tree is. I thought I would show you a few of my favorite ornaments from this tree.

My Dickens' Village is also in the library room, on top of the bookcases. It's a lot of work to put up, but I love to hear my kiddos *oohh and aahhh* over it:)

Of course, one of my favorite things about the holidays is what the mailman brings: Christmas cards! I love displaying them on my card wreath.

And now for some of the holiday touches in the kitchen/dining area. Here is my only pair of Byers Choice carolers. I thought they looked sweet on my china cabinet.

My *Frosty* cookie jar is on another hutch alongside my fruit and veggie tree.

The nutcrackers are standing guard over my cookbooks this year.

Even the hall bath gets some touches of Christmas.

I tucked my tiniest nativity set on a shelf in here.

I always put my little *vintage* tree and *vintage* village in the master bedroom. I love the soft colors of it all.

I hung my glittery *peace* banner over our headboard of antique doors. I added a little extra touch to the doorknob on my side of the bed:)

Here's a closeup of Mr. B's tree (the kiddos each have a small one in their rooms).

And here's The Princess' tree...along with her cute Junie B. Jones wall calendar.

We didn't forget the learning room either! There are a couple more nativities...

...my childhood elf...

...and our Jesse tree.

And now we continue counting down the days 'till Christmas!

May you have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Check out more beautiful Christmas decorations at

The Inspired Room's Christmas Home Tour party!