Holiday Top 10

December has flown by SO quickly.  It feels like we've had the perfect mix of relaxing time at home and fun holiday events.  Olive had four different events at school this month. We've had church activities, fun with friends, Christmas events and more.  Even though it's been a fun month, I'll be excited for a quiet January when we turn the calendar to 2020.

Here's our Holiday Top 10

1.  Baking Christmas Cookies
I love baking all year, but Christmas baking seems really special.  My mom always made sugar cookies so I do the same.  I baked a mix of chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies.  We kept some and then made plates of cookies to share with our neighbors.

This picture makes me laugh... it perfectly captures my life in this season.  I was trying to snap a picture of my 23 week baby bump and later realized all three kids were in the picture.  Olive and Fletcher are always right by my side so seeing their little feet in this picture made me smile.

Letting everything cool and dry before plating.   Aren't these tin Santa plates cute!?!

2. Neighbor Treats
A sweet couple surprised us with a plate of homemade Christmas goodies.  Best fudge I've ever eaten!

3. Baking with Kids
I decided to rethink my Christmas baking a bit this year.  My kids LOVE to help me bake, but if I'm baking for other people, I usually try do it all myself.  I don't want any kid germs hopping on the plates.  I decided to save them each a ball of cookie dough to let them roll out, cut out and decorate some cookies for themselves.  I helped a little when they asked, but I let them do the process themselves.  They were THRILLED to get the opportunity to join in the baking fun.  I think a new Christmas tradition was born!

3. Olive's Class Christmas Party
I planned the activities and we had a great time!  It was PJ/Polar Express Day, too.  We stacked jumbo marshmallows to build a snowman and then had all the parts for a snowman toss game.  You got one point for every item that landed in the correct snowman spot.  The kids also decorated wooden ornaments to give to their parents.

4. Olive's Christmas Program
We loved seeing Olive perform the songs she's been working so hard on this season!

5.  Mimi Came to Town
My Mom drove up to see us for a couple days.  We did some fun shopping together, ate yummy food and got to go to Olive's program.

6. Christmas Train
We went to see the lights in the park on the Christmas train.

7. Grinch Day
Olive isn't a fan of The Grinch, but still managed to have fun at Grinch Day at school.  Fletcher and I came in to help make this cute craft.

8. Date Night
I booked our favorite babysitters and we had a great date night.  We ran a few last minute Christmas errands and enjoyed all the festivities.

9. Christmas Organization
I felt really organized and on top of things this year.  I got my shopping done early, saved boxes to wrap all our gifts and got my wrapping done early.  I remembered to use Rakuten for my online purchases, kept good lists and didn't stress about gift giving.  I got to enjoy the holiday season even more because I planned ahead.  In years past, I did all my wrapping on Christmas Eve and told myself never again :)

10. Snow Days!!
We were forecasted to get up to 6 inches of snow last week.  We were hopeful it would happen, but a little skeptical at the same time.  Imagine our surprise when we actually got the 6 inches over a couple of days.  Olive missed one day of school and then had a two hour delay. 

We played in the snow for several days.  The pictures are from the first snow of 3-4 inches.  We got a couple more inches later in the day.  We had snow much fun playing in the snow!   And Scrappy the outdoor cat that kind of came with our house showed back up after not seeing him since last winter.  Not sure where he's been, but he looks happy, healthy and hungry.

Both kids really enjoyed the snow this year.  They bundled up really well and were in no hurry to come inside.  I think it helps that we had great quality snow jackets, mittens, snow boots, hats and overalls (and that they agreed to wearing them!!).

Thanks for sticking with me on this long post!!  It was fun to round up some fun highlights from the month of December before Christmas.

Last Minute Gift Ideas

Happy Friday!  Or Fri-YAY as Olive likes to say :)

I have a fun round up of Christmas gift ideas to share with you today.

I'm sure there are still a few of you out there who are looking for ideas for teacher gifts, stocking stuffers or great gift for hosts or friends in this final week before Christmas.

Treat Yourself!  
I LOVE Post-It notes.  I love making lists.  So when a friend alerted me to this deal at Meijer I had to go and stock up.  The original price was $19.99.  The Limited Edition Color Collection was on sale for $9.99 with a special 25% off one post it note item that you could clip on their app.  The whole set ended up being $7.99!!  Merry Christmas to ME.  I picked up one for myself and one for Olive's teacher.  I'm saving the teacher gift for a cute rainbow themed gift on St. Patrick's Day.

Last Minute Photo Calendar:
Every year I make Kevin a photo calendar for his office.  He loves it and it proudly hangs in his office.  This year I didn't have the best luck with Sams - their photo services moved 100% online and shipping was SO SLOW.  I knew I needed a different option for my calendar.  I check the Walgreens app and realized that they had calendar options for $19.99 with a half off discount code.  The best part: The calendars print in store and ready IN ONE HOUR!!!  I was a little skeptical of the quality given that it was a one hour printing process, but I'm happy to report that the quality is wonderful.  Use the app, upload pictures straight from the favorites on your phone and making a calendar will be so easy.  I made this in about ten minutes from start to finish!

Cookies for Neighbors:
I picked up these metal plates for $1 each at Dollar Tree.  I'm planning to bake sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies for our neighbors this weekend.  I'll bake, cover in plastic wrap, add our Christmas card and then we'll go out and hand deliver them Saturday or Sunday.

Friend/Hostess Gift:
I serve on a board with a great group of ladies.  I wanted to gift them something fun for Christmas to say thanks for all of their hard work this year.  I picked up these holiday food picks at TJ Maxx, purchased two three packs of Christmas dish towels and gave each of them one towel plus some Christmas treats.  It turned out to be a really cute little gift.

Teacher gift: 
Olive's teacher got some fun leather earrings from my favorite ADVdesigns etsy shop.  I've worn and loved her earrings for years.  They're my go to accessory.  I added in an Amazon gift card and an ornament.  I had Olive sign her name and date the back of it.

Bonus teacher gifts: 
Olive loves her special teachers for art, music, PE plus we have some lovely people doing crossing guard, administrators and the school police officer.  I packaged up our Christmas card, Peppermint Mentos, Reese's Christmas tree and Snowman graham crackers with some krinkle paper.  I dropped them off at the school office so the secretary could put them in their mailboxes.

Husband Stocking Stuffers:
Head massager
Fun dress socks
Trail Mix or Beef Jerky
Cocktail/Beer napkins
Christmas candy

Boy Stocking Stuffers:
2 Police Monster trucks - he's going to FLIP seeing two of his favorite things in one.
Paw Patrol slippers
Christmas candy
new tooth brushes
Bath Dropz to color the bath water

Girl Stocking Stuffers:
Reindeer Purse
Matching pom pom hat to mine
Jo Jo headband bow
fuzzy socks
Christmas candy
toothbrush
bathtub crayons

Christmas Cactus
Lots of stores have these right now.  I picked ours up at Aldi for $3.99.  I got a white one for home, red for Kevin's office and red for Olive's teacher.  I got them in early December to give us a chance to enjoy them all month long.  They'll still bloom for a while so it'll be a cheery plant to give anyone this winter.  My Meijer store had LOTS of them in stock this week.

Happy Shopping, Packaging, Wrapping this weekend!!

Naples: Downtown, Zoo & Gardens

I'm back to finish documenting our trips to Naples a couple weeks ago.  We had a blast.  The weather was lovely and much warmer than it was in Indiana.  The sunshine and break was good for all of us.  We spent a lot of time at the pool, ocean, zoo, botanical gardens and our favorite spots.  It's definitely more crowded in November than it is when we come in the Summer.

We watched Notre Dame play football poolside.

Went for walks.

And really enjoyed hanging out.  I kept finding these two snuggling up on the couch or out on the patio.  I think they enjoyed the break from our regular routine, too.

We went to the outlet malls.  People in South Florida always seem to have interesting dogs.  We make sure to ask if we can say hello to them.  These poodles were very friendly.  The kids loved them and their owner was proud to show them off.

Christmas lights on a palm tree.  They looked so pretty lit up at night.

Several different days we'd go do a fun outing in the morning and then head to the pool in the afternoon.  We'd swim during the warmest part of the day and then head to the pool grill for dinner.

We went to our favorite spot for dinner on our last night - Tommy Bahama.  It's in downtown Naples.  We love the food, atmosphere and walking around the nearby shops.  They're all pretty pricey so we mostly enjoy window shopping in the lovely weather.

Crab cakes, starfish shaped bread, key lime pie and cocktails (for Kev).

Dancing the night away.

Mischievous little man.

Naples Zoo:
I mentioned in my other post that Fletcher got Bronchitis on one of our last days.  He was pretty pitiful, but rallied for a trip to the zoo.  We did the monkey cruise, saw our favorite animals and went through pretty quickly.  It's always tricky to get sick on vacation.  Everyone has things they're hoping to do and you don't want to have to miss out.  So we changed our plans, rested and relaxed all morning and then shortened our usual zoo trip.  That way Olive still got to go and Fletcher took it easy in his stroller a lot of the time.

More sunshine = more freckles for Olive.

She's loving leopard & cheetah print lately so she couldn't wait to blend in with the animals.

She seemed to catch the cheetah's attention!

Downtown Naples:
It's so fun to be in a city when they first decorate for Christmas.  There's a buzz in the air and everyone is so excited to welcome in the holidays.  This sleepy Santa is a favorite.

Naughty or Nice??

Botanical Gardens:
It was a little cool on this day so we wore pants.  We hit all our favorite spots.

Playgrounds:
We always look forward to checking out new parks and playgrounds for some FREE FUN while we are on vacation.  This park - Sugden Regional Park - was really cute with the ocean themed play equipment.

And that wraps up our Naples trip!  Adventure awaits for sure!