Christmas, Weekend Round Up and a Turkey

I've been MIA lately, with a lot going on. Last week we received some upsetting family news, and the end of the week was spent processing it.

Work has been crazy lately, we are consolidating our office with our Denver office and everything is moving to our office here in Phoenix. So work life has been busy in interviewing, hiring and planning for this transition. Oh, and it is year end, and I am an accountant.

I have been working a lot of hours lately, and seeing my family less than I would like. But, I know I am lucky that I will still have my job after this transition.

And because of my busy work schedule, at home it is beginning to look....

a lot like.....Christmas.....

(p.s. the picture for the frame is being printed today to go with the Christmas theme)

Yes, we put up our tree and decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving. I have to work the Friday after Turkey Day and we host the meal every year. So several years ago we stopped trying to do it all after Thanksgiving and moved the inside decorating to a week before. I have a few finishing touches to add after a trip to the store, so I will share some more photos soon.

It was sad putting this away.

Turkey does really get the short stick. (Although the Halloween stuff was gone a few

weeks ago).

Friday night this crazy boy....

...crawled out of his bed....twice. He hasn't tried it again. But we did buy a toddler bed over the weekend just in case. Unfortunately the crib tent doesn't work on his style of crib.

Stinker!

Mike put all the trees up last week (yes, all means 3, 5 if you count the small ones in the boys rooms).  On Saturday he took the boys out during the day so I could do all the rest of the decorations. Then Saturday night we all enjoyed the tradition Mike and I have had for years. Munchies and snacks while enjoying our now decorated house.

Sunday we just hung out and rested.  I have picked up the cold that the rest of the family is getting over. So we just laid low...

As we head into the home stretch for my two favorite holidays of the year, our challenge at ScrapTiffany this week was Food/Recipes. So on honor of the big bird I'll be cooking later this week, I featured Turkey My Way.   I have perfected my bird over the past 15 years that I have been the holiday host. And I am pretty proud of it.

I'll give you two of my secrets, a fresh organic turkey and Reynolds Oven Bags. The rest is my secret, ;)

Head over to ScrapTiffany to see what the other designers did.

Just a peek at one of the pictures from our recent photo shoot with Maggie Holmes. We are lucky that she lives nearby. We met Maggie a few weeks ago and late last week picked up our photos.

I'll share some more tomorrow.  Have a great Monday.

Happy November!

We had a very busy and very fun weekend with all the Halloween festivities. I baked pumpkin spice cupcakes and burned sugar cookies on Saturday morning.

We went to the pumpkin patch at Schnepf Farms

And played in the train park at the farm

We decorated the burned sugar cookies. Nicholas likes to decorate but doesn't like to eat cookies with frosting on them. So Mike will eat those, and I set aside the cookies I did not burn for Nicholas to eat, sans frosting.

I carved the pumpkin and Nicholas had a chat with him

The boys dressed up in their costumes

Jackson really didn't like his at first, but he got comfortable as the night wore on

And went trick or treating, we made it through 4 blocks in our neighborhood. One more than last year.

Then came home and checked out our haul (and maybe had a pack or two of M&M's.

This week at ScrapTiffany was a Color Challenge. The colors worked well with my October Mosh Posh kit. The title came from a song they sang on Glee while I was making this page.

Wednesday is my turn at the ScrapTiffany blog and I have something fun to share for fall.

And next week is our Blog Hop at ScrapTiffany. So check back next Monday and Tuesday for some Holiday inspiration and a chance to win some goodies.

Also, the design team at ScrapTiffany was asked to participate in the Hippity Hoppity Blog Hop as well. So check us out next week over on the ScrapTiffany blog.

Have a great Monday!

A Peak at Fall Decorating, Weekend Stuff and ScrapTiffany Monday

It always makes me smile when we open up Nicholas's back pack and find his weekly report with all this happiness and lots of good praise. He loves school and I love to see him doing well. And I guess Mike is picking up on photos I like to have, because he took this one Friday afternoon on his phone and sent it to me.

Mike and I both stayed up late Friday night playing. So we weren't really thrilled when our dog Mandi had an accident and threw up in the bed at 5 a.m. She's been sick and we think the medicine is bothering her tummy. Our poor sweet girl.

The upside is we got out early to do some planting.  The heat this summer has been awful, and our plants suffered. It was still in the 110 range over the weekend. After spending a fortune over the years to keep all kinds of flowering plants in our courtyard, we gave up. We planted Lantana in the pots and at the base of the fountain. I swear those things are like weeds and will grow in any kind of situation, at least they have color. So here's hoping to saving a few bucks at the nursery.

Our little herb garden bit the dust by July too. I planted a new one with some basil, rosemary and cilantro. I'll see how it goes. We also decorated for fall. I love my little scarecrows.

I'll share a few more fall decoration pictures later this week, but here is a glimpse of one arrangement I have around the house.

This week's assignment at ScrapTiffany was to use 4 photos on a page. I tend to use 1 to 2 photos on a page, but I have been trying to use more recently. So this was a good assignment

I cropped down 4 standard 4x6 prints to 4x3.  I put new Recollection's border punch to work. I picked it up at Michael's for $5.50 after the 50% off sale and Friday's 5 hour coupon for 15% off entire purchase. This was my only scrappy purchase that day, since my shopping mission was to find fall decorations.

I also used Studio Calico's Mr. Huey's Mist on the chipboard. I love that navy, and that white I'm pretty smitten with that one too. All 10 colors are a must have whether you like to mist or not (because you will want to after you get your hands on these)!

Check out the rest of the design team's work over at ScrapTiffany today and Friday. Lot's of good stuff.

Check back tomorrow for ScrapTiffany's Tuesday Tutorial. I have a freebie to go along with it.

Color Me Daisy Fall Into Fall Event

Have you been by Color Me Daisy this week? We are hosting our Fall Into Fall Challenge event. A daily dose of inspiration with a daily prize drawing and some fantastic prizes. It's day 3 of the event and I am the host for the day. Come check out my challenge and bonus challenge today on our message board.