Christmas Round 2

Christmas has come and gone. I am in the slump of missing the holidays. It brings me such joy planning and organizing traditions for our family of 4. I love how magical the holiday is. We started some new traditions this year....hoping to bring the magic and celebration to our home annually during this wonderful season. 

Some traditions: 

- Read Christmas stories daily from post Thanksgiving-Christmas. We read a Advent book every night at bedtime with Zion/Kiyah this year. We will bring it out every year. 

- Go Christmas light looking/ do a Scavenger Hunt for Christmas lights. We went with our friends this year and had Christmas lights in the van and everything. We made popcorn "pop-pop" and got yummy holiday drinks and Hot Chocolate for the toddlers. It was Zi's first and she loved it. She said, "Dis so yummy Mommy. Tank You." We cruised around for almost 3 hours looking for blue icicle lights, manger scenes, Rudolph, Mickey Mouse, Santa etc. It was a blast. 

- Make Jesus a birthday cake- this year we made Cake Pops on Christmas Eve.

(watching the movie with my girls....)

- Buy the girls Christmas jammies and a new Christmas movie to watch. This year we bought Santa Paws, it has been playing too much in the Cass Casa. 

- Make cheesy potato soup on Christmas eve 

- go to Christmas Eve service at our church.

- For gifts we did a new thing...The girls got 5 gifts from us: something they need, want, wear, read, and homemade. I thought it was a fun way to keep the gifts thoughtful/simple. 

- For the last gift, we put a string on the tree that Zion had to follow through the rooms of our house to her big present. We hid a bike in the bathtub:) She loved it. 

- Decorate the girls room for the holidays. 

- pick out gifts (toys the girls have) and give them to a friend. "It is better to give than receive".

- and of course, there were lots of crafting and baking around here. What are your traditions?

Zi/Ki on Thanksgiving...so presh.

 our little buddy.

making Reindeer art with Kiyah's feet.

Zion making a Christmas tree with her hands.

the finished product.

 I caved and let the girls meet Santa. We have the best Santa in our mall. I used to do his hair back in the day. Zion told him, "I want Dora and Kiyah wants Barney." well, right. :)

Christmas eve pix of our family. I loved the girls dresses....I got Zion's last year at Gap-Clearance. Kiyah's is from TJ Maxx to match sister pie.

headbands are Etsy.

Jammies.... the girls playing in our bed on Christmas eve. love.

got them monogrammed plates on Zulily. the best.

Zi holding her grandma dolly.

 Zion and I got new hair pretties.

Christmas day we headed over to Red Wing for some celebrating with my family. We had a great time with good food and relaxing. The grandkids couldn't wait to open their gifts. Aunt Chels got Kiyah a matching bag from LL Bean like her sisters. I love these.

Andy and I got my parents "pop phones" for their IPhones. They are retro and great.

On the 28th, we headed over to Stevens Point to hit up some Cass time. We had Lasanga and celebrated Uncle Mike's bday. It was fun. Zion, once again, loved the presents.

Katie and Zi.

Grandpa Jim

Unky Ryan and Grandma with the girls.

Zion was pumped to get dvd player for our car rides. Halleju-. I am happy.

We are blessed. Blessed to have our Savior. So thankful for having Jesus in our lives.
Blessed to have a healthy family and amazing parents/sibs on both sides.
Blessed to be able to celebrate freely Jesus' birthday.

christmas love

I thought I would share some pix from our holiday. I love decorating for Christmas. Every year we add a little more decor. I didn't get to do as much as I originally wanted to but I was still happy with the warmth and love in our home. Christmas is crazy for us. Tala Hair Studio was crazy busy with all my lovely guests coming in for Holiday pampering. Our church had 5 performances of our play. On top of that, life was the usual busy. 

When we we went to Stevens Point earlier this month, Zion did crafts with her Aunt Katie and Grandma Loni. They made these bad boys. Love.

I ordered new stockings on Pottery Barn for our fan. I got free S&H and free monograming. They screwed up my text color so mine was FREE! I am happy with them.

Best investment ever....Fisher Price Little People Nativity Set. AMEN> hours of fun.....for the littles.
Zion loves her Baby Jesus.....

Love me some garland/lights.....

I hung some giant Christmas bulbs by the front Dining room window.

I got this awesome metal flower box at Junk Bonanza with my BFF Jody a couple of years ago. I put some pinecones/candles/and sparkles in there. It looked so cute on our table.

View of the living room. We live in the room. It is our most used room in our home. I love it.

I got these trees at Hobby Lobby a few years ago....fun and modern. I put them on a target twig runner.

The fireplace...The wreath is from Pier One.

I hung some twinkle lights mixed with ornaments and sparkles. My candles are gifts from our wedding. My brass heart votives and angel candle holder is from Grandma Cherie.

My folks built this Santa for us. Love.

We did some art with the girls. It is going to be a yearly tradition. The hand tree is Zion's hands. The Reindeer are Kiyah's feet. The foot tree is from Zion last year.

I put a mirror on our coffee table from Target (wedding gift) and put some berries and candle on it. cute. simple.

 Some of our pillows. fun....the snowflake ones are from Target clearance a few years back. The embroidered ones are from Pottery barn. The aqua one is from Amanda P. I love them.

We keep the Christmas books by the fireplace. They are much used during this fabulous season.

Hoping you had a great holiday with your loved ones. I will post more tomorrow on our Christmas....loves.

Thankful.

I have been wanting to jot down some favs of my girls...to help myself remember the current everyday convos and the things we often forget or take fore granted. I love Thanksgiving holiday. Why? I love that it doesn't involve much. Food. Fam. Friends. Whipped cream. :) and celebrating what we are T-H-A-N-K-F-U-L for.

Zion.
- This morning she came into our room at 6am ready to play....so us being the cool parents let her play while we tried to catch some extra z's. For the first time, she came into our room with a chalk board and took our order for breakfast. precious.
- Our new thing to get Z to eat her meals is tell her that her hair will grow really long if she eats. It works....sometimes. :)
- When we put Zion to bed at night, she often shouts to us when we are are going downstairs, "You're the best!" So we go back and forth. I will say, "You're the best!" and Zion responds with, "I not best, I a big girl." love.
- The other night, after work, I was rather tired and short with my mood. Zion came up to me and put her hands around my neck and said, "mom, you are my favorite." melt.
- Everyday, and I mean everyday Zion wants to do a "par-jeck" -project. Art is her fav. activity. She likes to use her scissors and cut paper. Color, play with stickers, paint. Every painting is for Auntie Nell.... (Danielle) She loves that lady. As do we.
- Z loves underdogs on her play set.
- "Mommy, I see rainbows" for her class. "cass" for class.
-  "ronis" for pepperonis. We make homemade pizza every friday night. love.
- "Mommy, I tell you something."
- When Kiyah is upset in the car, she goes up to her and says in a high/concerned voice, "Its ok Kiyah."
over and over.
- calls Kiyah, "honey"
- Kitchen, "kiss en"
- Christmas, " kiss-es"
- "I not tell." I am not going to tell.
- "I hold my brush teeth mom." she has a new electric toothbrush which she loves.
- Church. "terch" Everyday daddy is a "terch"
- Minnie Mouse "Mittey Mouse"
- Z doesn't like it when I put her hair up anymore. She wants to "wear it yong". "long" aka wear it down.
- Favorite baby: Stella.
- Fav Cartoon: Barney
- Fav snack: Z bars.
- Fav Color: Purple.

Zakiyah.
- Z smiles all the time.
- You love your mamma! 
- Really close to giggling. You are ticklish on your thighs. You grunt when I tickle you there.
- You like to be swaddled with your Aiden&Anais blanket. We swaddle you with your arms on your sides. 
- You are sleeping 8-11 hours a night! Halleju! Mama is happy.
- You love your swing! 
- You love holding your blankets and rattles. 
- Every morning you play on your activity mat and hold your toys. 
- You are wearing all 3-6 month clothes. Big girl:)
- You are a fast eater compared to your sister. It only takes you 20 min. to eat. Your sister took an hour!
- You love being held, bounced, butt patted. I use my Moby wrap/ Baby Bjorn way more with you.
- You spit up from coffee, onions and peppers.
- hot pink and purple are my favorite colors on you. 
- You have dimples in your cheeks. 
- I have to cut your nails every 5 days. You have a very tight grip and love scratching your daddy and I. 
- You hate your car seat. We have to keep the car moving otherwise you cry. 
- Zion makes you smile a lot. sister love......xoxoxo

Organizin the Kitchen

I have been on a huge kick as of late. ORGANIZING. Maybe it is the cold weather that is coming, or just my first born type A side. It just makes me so happy to have a organized space. I have a big goal of going through each room in our house and organizing/purging/ and making it work for our family. So this week I started with our kitchen desk drawers. They were a hot mess to say the least. Between being busy and stuffing the drawers with whatev to having my 2 year old open them daily and pull stuff out. They have been neglected.

Here is a shot of my desk before I started. I have a camera, jar of pens, clipboards I made 2 years ago, magnetic board and a file that is a mess.

 My embarrassing drawers....so ridiclous.

I have the organizing systems somewhere tucked underneath all the mess.
I started with completely emptying out the drawers and starting over.

more before shots.

finally empty drawers.

Here is my AFTER! I love it! I went to Staples and bought the Martha Stewart organizing systems. I heart them. I love the vintage blue color. I still really want to paint my kitchen a pale yellow/pear color. We will see. So the organizer on the right is still in progress. the white file system is for our yearly papers/reciepts we need to keep. It is from The Container Store. My calendar is target. I kept 1 clipboard up for pix/papers.

a close up.

my goal is to put weekly papers/bills/mail in the bottom drawer so it is kept away until I get to it. I still want to add a stapler and some other items to this. But I must say it makes me happy walking by it everyday. It is the little things......that make this girl happy.

my center drawer with a new home for the clip boards. and I got the 3 vintage blue boxes from Staples too. I have one for business cards, one for gift cards and the third for Zion's stickers/tattoos.

 Here are the drawers now all organized. I got my organizers at Target a couple years ago. They work great. I just re-organized them. It was time.....

I still want to get cord organizers. Next.....

When I was at Staples, I also purchased the amazing chalkboard stickers for jars/containers. These jars are on my kitchen counter....

Now with the pretty Martha labels. Bliss.

 So if that wasn't enough I hit up my baking cupboard and pantry. Here are the before's....

This cabinet is to the right of the microwave. I cleared it out and got my labels out from Martha. I rearranged and tried to make more use of the space.

Here is after!  I love it. I used some organizing tools: labels and a tiered 3 step shelf on the bottom for the cans and spices. 

the top is baking supplies: flour/sugar/flax seed/oatmeal etc. 

the middle shelf is more random supplies: pudding/jello, chocolate, corn starch, vinegar etc. 

The bottom shelf has the tiered shelf with canned goods/sprinkles/cupcake liners/seasoning. I also have salt/measuring cups etc. 

 Here are some pix of organizing the pantry. I love using my tupperwear and containers. I used my Martha labels on a lot of them as well.

 Here are 2 shots of my laundry room. I just recently put a piggy bank in there. It is so nice to have it there for all the change that comes in.....ha. Why not,right?

next up...my desk area .....enjoy.