Our Christmas Card

Merry Christmas from my house to yours!  

Did you mail out cards this year?  It's gotten to be expensive to do it, but mailing cards is one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  I wish I had enough cards and stamps to mail you all cards this year!  I appreciate you being here and reading my blog so much.  Here's a little behind the scenes Christmas card post for you today.

I ordered our cards from Walgreens for the first time and was pretty happy with the result.  My cousin took family pictures for my whole side of the family and they all turned out great.  I'll show you ours today and then do a big family picture post in the new year.

 

I can't wait to frame these!!

My favorite shot!

I'm so happy with our updated pictures.  Sending lots of love from me to you this year!

Cousin Christmas Craft Camp

Cousin Christmas Craft Camp 2022!  

When we moved closer to family this time last year, I hoped to be able to host fun holiday parties at my house.  Those kind of things are just so hard to pull off when you live out of town.  I invited all the kid cousins on my side over for a fun morning at Cousin Christmas Craft Camp.

It took a little coordinating and help to get everyone to my house, but we did it thanks to my sister and mom.  The kids arrived excited and ready to craft.

I love all the handmade/homemade/kid ornaments on our tree every year so I found some new ideas for the kids to make.  We did a mix of simple, DIY and a little more detailed.  Leo wasn't super interested in all of them, but the older kids did an awesome job.

I had 4 different ornament options for the kids.  We started them all together and they could opt out of any ornament that they didn't want to make.  I had all the supplies for each ornament set up ahead of time on one tray.  Then I would remove a tray from the table when the ornament was done.

The ornaments turned out so cute!!  We love ours and I hope that the cousins are all proud of their hard work.  The kids helped me set up all the trays the night before.  I have been collecting ornament supplies for a while - JoAnn's, Amazon, Amazon boxes and our craft closet came in handy.

Look at these cute trees!!  The kids had to cut out a cardboard Christmas tree, pick a green yard to wrap their tree in and then some added garland and all added pom pom ornaments.  Hot glue required so I did the hot gluing for them.  I loved that all the trees were unique and personalized for each kid.

Each cousin went home with 4 adorable Christmas ornaments.

Crafting team!

We also made a cardboard reindeer.  They kids could either trace their hand print to make a reindeer like we did with Leo.  Or cut out a circle head, ears and antlers to make a unique reindeer of their own.  I hot glued the ears, antlers, eyes, nose and ornament ribbon on them to ensure they were extra durable.

Fletcher's cute reindeer and fuzzy tree.

These clear balls were so much fun to fill!  These ornaments were fast and fun to make. A nd each one turned out different.

Olive's darling reindeer that she dreamed up on her own.  I love crafts like this because we used amazon boxes for our cardboard and had all of the other supplies.

Look at this cute house!  The kids used markers on them and they turned out so sweet.

Cousin crew (minus one).

It was sweet to see the big cousins help the little ones when they finished early.  The kids wrote their name and year on the bottom or back of most of the ornaments.  We crafted, played and then had lunch together.

And Penny got lots of extra love.  I wrote each cousin's name on a Target bag so they'd have a to go back to hold their ornaments.

This was such a fun way to kick off our Christmas break.

Olive and I are already talking about ornament ideas for the cousins to make next year!

Christmas Cranberry Cheese Ball

Do you love a good cheese ball??

Spotting a homemade cheese ball at any gathering is one of my favorite things.  I went on the hunt for a festive Christmas cheese ball this year and ended up creating a recipe of my own.  It was so good!  It was popular at our Christmas party and several people asked me to send them the recipe.  Yay!

 

Ingredients:

1 block of Philadelphia cream cheese softened

1t your favorite seasoning (I used Everyday Seasoning Salt from Simply Sons or would have used Montreal steak seasoning)

1 cup freshly shredded sharp white cheddar cheese

2 oz craisins finely chopped

1 cup of pecans chopped

Ritz crackers, Club crackers or pretzels.

Directions:

Stir the cream cheese, seasoning, white cheddar cheese and about 3/4 of the craisins together until well blended.  Lay out a piece of plastic wrap and put the pecans and remaining craisins on it.  Put the cheese ball mixture on top of the pecan mix and then use the plastic wrap to help you cover the whole cheese ball in pecans/craisins.  Refrigerate overnight and serve with your favorite crackers or pretzels.

 

 

This cheese ball checks all the boxes - it's festive, delicious, really simple to make, it travels really well and it's an appetizer that you can make ahead of time.  I know I'll be making it a few more times this holiday season.

Christmas Weekending

Happy Monday!  Just 6 more days until Christmas and we've kicked off the Christmas festivities.  We had 2 birthday parties, a Christmas party, church, baking and cleaning and cancelled plans.  That sounds about right for this time of year.

Fletcher ended the week with a Polar Express/PJ day.  He got to bring in a favorite stuffed animal and watch a movie with his class.  They also caroled with their grade level.  Front Tooth Watch 2022 is still in full effect.  His front tooth is hanging on by a thread.  He also comes home from school and says things like this - "Mom, my friend dared me to do this cool new trick.  It didn't work out like I planned and I landed on my nose.  Is it red?  It really hurt."  Oh Fletch.  Please be careful!

Olive's teacher and the 4th grade team transformed their commons area into STARBOOKS - hot chocolate, treats and cozy reading spots for everyone and she was THRILLED.  The teachers dressed up like baristas and fixed all the kids drinks.  They worked on a service project, read books with friends and got to pick out a new book to bring home.  Her teacher snaps the cutest pictures of the kids throughout the day.

Leo is very into COZY spots these days.  He lays down and requests we make his spot COZY.

Lots of Christmas pjs and snuggles this weekend.

Our cute cousin/niece Addison turned 16 this weekend.  We loved her cow themed party at a local coffee shop Trickeys.  It was fun to celebrate with her!  She is the sweetest.  All the kids love her, but Leo mihgt love her the most.  Local friends - the square in Boonville is decorated so cute for Christmas.  These giant nutcrackers are all around the square.  We'd love to go back and browse.

Another cousin - Ella - had a birthday party!  Leo LOVES cake.  Can you tell!?  He handed Ella presents and didn't break a single thing at any party we went to this weekend.  Yay Leo!

Cozy cats :)  They get excited when the kids head to bed so they can have our full attention.

It's been chilly out so Leo requests "glubs" when we go on our walks.

Our church has done the cutest things for the kids for the entire month of December.  They kids have been making ornaments in their classes, doing Happy Birthday activities for Jesus and then this weekend they came home with everything they would need to have a birthday party for Jesus.  It was so sweet for them to get such a big focus on baby Jesus all month long!

Leo's teachers made this ornament for him.  They stamp this cute heart on his hand each week and says Jesus loves you.  They stamped it on this wood for us to always remember.  I appreciate them so much.

The kid's technology teacher 3D printed them these reindeer ornaments!  Both kids love her class so we sent in some cookies.  Isn't is so neat!?

I baked lots of Monster Cookies for Jordan Bakery Box this weekend.

We ended the weekend with my dad's family Christmas.  My parents have their house all decked out - I'll have to post a tour!  Everything was delicious and such a fun time.

What did you do to this weekend?