Santa Claus

Each year it obviously gets better with the whole Santa thing. Im sure one year I'll notice a decline but for now the excitement and magic and joy of a Santa is so fun for Kennedy. We visited him last week and it was ADORABLE watching her really talk to him and tell him what she wanted and she even told him what Quinn wanted. He was a sweet old man and did great holding both my girls and they did great looking at the camera! If only I could Kennedy to show me her pretty smile instead of her psycho smile =) 

afterwards Santa gave them these little hats and on them was a $5 off to Build a Bear. Of COURSE we went to Build a Bear BEFORE we visited Santa. Sheesh. Anyways, Merry Christmas!

Christmas Home Tour 2011

I don't think I have participated in a home tour since I had Kennedy and did a nursery tour, so I thought, new house, new christmas ideas, why not! So here we GO! 

I would say this has been my most "handmade" holiday yet. Thanks to the phenomenon of Pinterest, I have done things I definitely would not have ever thought of or done before. 

my friend Leigh and I made this for a party. I liked it so much I used it in our family pictures and then hung in the breakfast room. Its book pages and burlap

deco mesh and burlap have become recent obsessions. They don't so much go together though, so I tried using them in completely different areas

I had NO festive napkin rings so I threw these little guys together one night catching up on DVR shows

 I have had this wreath forever and it was still sitting in the closet bc I had no where to put it. I spray painted it with silver glitter paint and voila!

 entryway table

my gazillion nutcrackers my mom gave to me over the years

I wanted the front porch to be all natural. I attempted to make a swag out of left over branches from the tree. I added some berries for color since the wreath had berries and burlap.

this is Kennedy and Quinns tree. Its on the wall in between their doors

This was my advent calendar growing up. I printed out an activity for each day. We have had fun doing them!

The girls/guest bathroom. 

saw this on Pinterest and thought it would defer Kennedy from the other trees if she had her own to mess with. She hasn't cared too much about it but sometimes I catch her decorating it =)

I have used these letters on my mantle every year but they were silver, and separated. I saw someone put them together and thought, I have those! I'll put mine together too! So some hot glue, red paint, and a little glazing later, here they are. You'll notice some spots that are messed up bc after I hung it fell and broke into more than just four pieces. I now need to repaint it. oops...

The Christmas Tree. Fully secured to the window to ensure no more falling =)

Fred wanted me to thank you for visiting. I have NO idea how he happened to be sitting there so picturesque!?!?!

a Build a Bear adventure

We have had a gift card to Build a Bear since January. The morning we headed out to see Santa, it didn't pan out. So we headed to the mall to find the Santa there and used Build a Bear to get Kennedy excited after the Santa we were currently waiting in line for, didn't work out. I had never done the whole Build a Bear thing but it was so cute and she loved picking out all the stuff and building her little teddy bear. 

Justin helping her pick out and outfit for her bear

Picking out which one to stuff

 Stuffing her bear

now putting in her heart

Daddy helped get her dressed. I love Justin with our girls. He is such a good girl daddy. 

 I mean how cute is THAT!?!?!

and we DID eventually see Santa that day =) post on that tomorrow!

holy blog hiatus batman

Merry Christmas everyone! Man oh Man, I LOVE the Holidays =) I am having so much fun doing festive things with Kennedy. She is really starting to get into all the little traditions. She is more aware of the whole Santa thing, she loves her advent calendar (and asks everyday what day we are on), she looks for our Elf every morning...its all so exciting! I know I haven't blogged since her birthday really and so Ill give you a quick recap of the past 6 weeks, and I mean QUICK ;)

We did fun fall stuff

at the Pumpkin Patch

Durham Bulls Fan Fest

I had the cutest Strawberry Shortcake and lil Strawberry EVER for Halloween. It was cold and rainy, but still fun

We went to Jacksonville for Thanksgiving. It was awesome. Ill try and blog on that soon, but no promises...you know me...

{yea, thats Kennedy in pictures these days. I have to bribe her to get her to smile}

Quinn Started eating real food and LOVES it 

Now, onto the Christmas fun!

Its really easy to keep up with our holiday activities since I decided to put a card in each day of the advent calendar. Now I can just go look at the cards and see what we've already done! So, we shall start at the beginning...getting a tree.

We headed to a tree farm bc I had this idea of it being a grand adventure and us cutting down an awesome tree and it being this whole "Experience." We were there for a while looking around and playing in the fields, so I guess there was a little adventure. However, the trees that you cut yourself were not good for living room christmas trees, covered in lights and ornaments. The ones they had at the farm already cut were way too expensive and we are cheap. So the amazing Manny family christmas tree experience ended at Lowe's with a  9ft 6 in frasier fur for only $40. Awesome! We tied that sucker to the car, grabbed some chick fil a, and headed home! We got home and it was way too tall for our ceilings. We measured the tree and thats when we realized that the tree, marked 7-8 feet, was in fact 9 and half feet tall. Our ceilings is only 9, so we cut that puppy down and finally got it in.

It fell a few days later.

 
Its back up now and beautiful =) and tied to the window for extra support. I don't have any pictures of it actually so when I do my Christmas home tour I'll post one.