Saturday, January 12, 2013

Christmas and the Holidays

These are just some random Christmas pictures.  

Legoland had a LOT of mini Santas.

Like this one above Union Station.

Or the break dancing Santas.

We also went to Crown Center to see the gingerbread houses.  Or more... gingerbread village!  (FYI, this is Gracie's "I AM smiling" picture.)

I made some Christmas decorations.

Christmas pajamas.

Me posing in a silly hat.  Dale photobombing my picture.

I remembered to make a present for the cat at the last minute.  Homemade catnip toys!

She loves them!

As if Boo didn't have enough Monster High dolls, this one made her happy, too.

And Little Bit got "an American Girl" doll from Santa.  It's the Target version called My Generation, but it works, and she loves it.  She's carried it every where.

And my favorite gift was from Dale.  Years ago, right before we got married, Dale and I went to a newly married/engaged seminar at school.  At the end, we each got a t-shirt that said, "Semper Fidelis Ad Tu" which we were told was Latin for "Always Faithful to you."  My shirt disappeared years ago.  Dale wore his forever.  We had to retire it last year.  So for Christmas, he gave me this box with a handcarved pen on the inside.  It means so much to me.  (But I don't have the heart to tell him he misspelled the phrase.)

Anyway, that's just some of our Christmas.  We ended up staying at home instead of going to Nashville.  Little Bit got sick, and I didn't want my dad to catch it.  Other than that, it was a good holiday season.

Hugs,
Melinda

Elf on the Shelf

Why yes, we did follow the current trend and get an Elf on the Shelf.  We actually got one last year.  Her name is Crystal, and boy did she cause some trouble this year!

Hmm...  My pictures are out of order.
Tape and crepe paper.  What could go wrong?

Well, that, for starters.  This is the door to the upstairs, which is also Little Bit's room.

Shh!  Don't tell, but Crystal had a helper.

We had so much fun trapping playing.

The next morning, I was laying in bed and heard a whisper, "Oh Crystal, what did you do?" and "Mommy, Crystal trapped me!"

Apparently, elves like to drink syrup.

Then there was the time she left us with some magic elf seeds.  She's hanging out here, because the bowl with the seeds is underneath her.

Just look what magic elf seeds can sprout!

 This is what I mean by out of order.  These next few pictures are from her very first day back.  She brought breakfast!
The bag says "Look what I found.  Snow covered donuts!  My favorite.  Yummy."
The note on the bowl says "Hi Girl and Boo!  I'm back.  Always be good, cause I'll be watching.  Love, Crystal."

Apparently, she loves snow covered donuts so much, she gets them on her face.

Little Bit was absolutely ecstatic to have hot chocolate for breakfast.

I'm working on editing one more picture.  But for now, that's our Elf on the Shelf.  Hope you enjoyed.  
Hugs,
Melinda

P.S.  Found one more!  If you have an Elf, you will more than likely have "Snow Elfs" in your flour at some point.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Date Night Idea Book

One of the things I did NOT want for Date Night, was for us to say, "Oh yeah, that's a good idea," and then have it fizzle out after one or two weeks.  So I made a book of ideas for Dale.

I'm not sure I can explain how I got the idea, but ... maybe I can show you what I did, and you can take it and run from there with it.  And I apologize in advance, but this will be a very heavy picture post.

 All you need is an empty photo album.  One of the cheap ones from the drugstore will work just fine.

Then you need a variety of scrapbook papers.

Oh, and a bunch of scrapbook stickers are good, too. 

You need to have a catchy opening page.

And rules, of course.  You need to have rules.  They are pretty simple.
Rule 1) Date Night must be a priority.  We can move it around and change it, but we have to have it.
Rule 2) We need to pick the next week pretty close to the end of our date.  Some of the ones I have in mind will take a while to prepare.  Waiting until the last minute won't work.
Rule 3) Have fun, of course! 

Dinner by candle light.  Romantic.

Movie night.  Pretty generic, I know, but the girls insisted that I include it.

A book club.  He's been wanting me to read Dune for a while.  Why not read it together?

Root Beer Floats.  I don't know what else we're going to do, but it will be fun.  This is our date for tomorrow.  We may be setting some goals for school.

This is a workout date.  Dale has chosen this one, but we haven't been feeling good.  I'm hoping that we can do this one next week.  I think it will be interesting to exercise together.

Couples Cafe!  This is one I'm looking forward to.  I found the idea here on The Dating Divas.

We both play the card game Magic, but we haven't played in a long time.  A little friendly competition never hurt anyone.  Right?  Especially when my black deck ROCKS!

Strawberries and chocolate might not be for everyone, but I like them.  And something about feeding chocolate to Dale....  Yummy.  ;)

Just about every site I came across said to try cooking together.  I'll need to find a new recipe to use.

Okay, this one is a bit of a surprise, so hopefully, Dale won't see it.  Bubble night.  I'm thinking blowing bubbles, bubble bath, and sparkling grape juice bubbles.  I think I've seen something about bubbly food, but it's going to take a bit more research.

Game night.  I'm going to let Dale pick whatever games he wants to play.  Maybe I'll even let him win! ;)

This one should be fun.  To pull out the camera and to take silly pictures of each other.  I don't know about costumes or poses, but I think it will be a lot of fun.

This is a night of Wii competition.  

This is puzzle night.  I've got a jigsaw puzzle I bought just for this date night.  It should be fairly easy to put together in one night.

I'm excited about this one.  We're going to have a Lego building competition!

A moonlight walk, perhaps?  Maybe when it's a bit warmer outside.

I'm not sure I can get Dale interested in this one.  Coloring night.  I even bought him a new coloring book and crayons!  lol

Of course, we'll need to have an indoor picnic.

This one will be a bit different.  I like to go geocaching, but it's more of a daytime activity than a night time date.  I'll need to get a sitter, but I could easily spend three or four hours doing this.  I want to take the time to teach Dale to enjoy it as well.  

Chinese theme night.

Italian theme night.

The best way to explain this one is to just direct you to the website I got the idea from.

And really, does Breakfast in Bed need ANY explanations?

I put this one on the last page.  There were 36 slots for photos, and I only used 28 of them.  I figure we can go through all the dates twice a year without too much repeat.  And if we get any pictures, we have a place for them.

And there's the book!  This is our Date Night Ideas Book, designed to keep us from Date Night Boredom!  Hopefully we will be able to use it fully and thoroughly.

Hugs,
Melinda

P.S.  If you decide to use this idea, let me know.  I'd love to see others' ideas in action.

Date Night

One of the things that I have wanted to do for a really long time is to have Date Night with Dale.  I mean, at what point did we stop dating? I still love him and he still loves me.  We still enjoy each other's company.  So why don't we go out anymore?

I researched and researched and researched, and I told the girls "On Saturday night, you are going to go upstairs and go to bed early, and Mommy and Daddy are going to have date night."  I mean, after all, 7:30 is early for a 13 year old!

For ease of posting, I'm going to post a link to my Date Night Board on Pinterest, because I just found so much information.  Here's what my requirements were: 1) it had to be fairly cheap, and 2) it had to be done at-home.

My next post will be more about the Date Night Idea Book I made for Dale, but these are the blogs that I got most of my ideas from.

This was one of the best out there.  Sarah has so many good ideas that were perfect for at home dates.  I especially loved the idea of Wii Bowling.

This one was also good.  I think we are going to do the fondue night from this page at some point.

This was our very first date!  I think it was a hit.  We played Twister and watched TV and slept in the living room.  It was fun.

I got several ideas from these sites.  Maybe some of them will work for you.  I don't remember which ideas I got where, but there are PLENTY!  Especially at The Dating Divas.  I think their site is the greatest I've seen so far.  The one I'm looking forward to the most?  Couples Cafe

Happy Date Night!  Even if dating is at home.
Hugs,
Melinda

Christmas Waffles

So at some point before Christmas, I stumbled across this pin (leads to this post) staring Christmas Waffles. It's one of those, "I can do that!"

So I did.  :)

The aluminum foil under the waffle maker catches the drips when I have them.  To color the waffles, just add food coloring.

They came out such a pretty color, didn't they?

You can't forget the stars for the top of trees!  Also known as banana slices cut like stars.

I didn't have any blueberries or anything else that was healthy, so I let the kids splurge on white chocolate chips and Tootsie Roll Dots.

This one is Boo's (I think.)

This one is Little Bit's.

This one is mine!  Yummy!

Of course, Dale didn't want to play along.  He simply had green waffles.

It was a very fun Christmas breakfast.
Hugs,
Melinda