Christmas Time at the Mom's

This Christmas was spent with my in-laws. My mother-in-law is an amazing decorator. I was silly and only took one picture of her christmas decorations. Here is her pretty tree.

A few days after Christmas we headed to my mom's house, who is also an amazing decorator. I was smart this time and took some pictures. Here is a peek at her decorations.

         

 

          

 

           

 

Christmas Twist to My Favourite Cookie

My all time favourite cookie is a homemade Oreo cookie! Most people I know have had one, but not everyone. If you fit into the never category, please please, make a batch and let me know what you think!

Oreo Cookies

2 pkg. devils food cake mix
4 eggs
2/3 cup oil
Mix together, roll into balls. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes and let cool. 

4 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup butter
8 oz. (250 g) cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla
Spread onto two cookies and put together like Oreos!

Now for my Christmas twist!

First I added, green food coloring to the cream cheese filling then I finely crushed some candy canes.

After I constructed the cookies, I rolled the cookie in the candy canes.

Lastly I ate... a lot of them, but I wasn't the only one!

Nativity Blocks

I saw this idea online and my mom and I decided to make them last year for each of my siblings, my husbands sister, my best friend and of course a set for ourselves.

We thought it would be the perfect craft that kids can play with and their moms won’t tell them not to touch. It isn’t fancy or anything, but cute!

My dad cut the blocks out and my mom and I painted and mod podged the characters on. The characters are stickers from the Me & My Big Idea collection which i do believe is discontinued now (I found my set on eBay). But new sticker designs are coming out all the time. I would recommend finding a digital set you can print as many times as you would like and cut out. 

Here is my set, sitting on my ugly fireplace... apartment is a rental so nothing I can do about the fireplace. Maybe if you look close enough you can see where previous renters used the wood as a nice place to put their dart board!

Here is my mom's display.

Here is a picture from my best friend Breanne's display. She is renovating her house and doing an amazing job at it. Check her out here.

My sister-in-law kids lost the Jesus block this year. It was a big joke in the family that they were trying to find Jesus this Christmas. So far, Jesus is yet to be found in the Simpson household ;)

Days Till Christmas Blocks

I know these blocks can be found everywhere from blogs to super saturdays (google super saturday crafts if you don't know what it is), but I thought I would share my version.

My sister who claims to not be crafty, did one with me. Here she is hard at work.

The supplies:

• 2 wood cubes measuring 3.5 inches
• 1 wood block measuring 7.5 inches long, 3.5 inches deep and 1 inch tall
• 12 pieces of christmas scrapbook paper measuring 3 inches square
• Mod Podge
• White Paint (or any color you choose)
• Sponge brush
• Letters that read "Days Till Christmas" (I got my vinyl lady to cut it for us)
• Numbers for block 1 - 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (I used my cricut to cut these out)
• Numbers for block 2 - 0, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8 (make sure your 6 can also be a 9)

The finished product!

Christmas Tree Decorating

I was watching CityLine on Monday and they had Debbie Travis on. She was talking about decorating Christmas trees. 

Here is the link to the whole episode.

The best part of the show was when she was talking about how many ornaments you should be putting on a tree. She said that for every foot of height on the tree you should have 10 ornaments. 5 of the 10 are the "core" ordainments which are basic balls. 3 of the 10 should be the "accent" ornaments which are decorative balls and different shaped balls. The last 2 should be the "theme" ornaments. Which I would consider the fun and very different ornaments.

Check out more Debbie Travis tips on the Canadian Tire Website. She can explain better than I can.

I know everyone is different, I think my tree follows this slightly but next year I will try and follow it more closely and see how I feel about the tips. Sadly this year we didn't set up our tree since we were away for all of December. My husband had 4 weeks off school and we picked up and left to spend 2 weeks with my parents and 2 weeks with his parents.

Here are a few pictures from my tree last Christmas.

I Love Christmas!

Winter Poem

Scott's grandpa sent him this poem and i thought i would share.
It is dedicated to my two and only two friends back in Regina (we are currently in Alberta enjoying a 4 week holiday)!

t's winter in Regina, Saskatchewan

And the gentle breezes blow …

Seventy miles an hour ,

At thirty-five below.

Oh, how I love Regina

When the snow's up to your butt …

You take a breath of winter.

And your nose gets frozen shut.

Yes, the weather here is wonderful

So I guess I'll hang around …

I could never leave Regina,

Cuz I'm frozen to the ground!!