So does my daughters Sweet 16 count as a National Holiday????

If she had her way it would! In our house, the rule is NO discussing birthday ideas until after January 1st. Trust me, she waste no time either. If it's 12:05 on New Years morning and she remembers, she'll kindly remind me. Last night she brought it up and between Shari & Shaelyn and Ciara & I, the ideas started flowing 11pm. We had been toying with the idea of a black and white themed party and once we started looking around the internet, it was for sure a Go! There are lots of cool ideas out there and some we've already come up with ourselves. I've also asked my online friends for suggestions. My daughter is super stoked, becuase she's know I'm a sucker for planning a party. Party planning is one of those things I love to do. I must admit, I've had some awesome parties in the past. We've celebrated Blues 1st B-day and Hillary Duffs 16th birthday. I've thrown showers, hosted Halloween parties, had end of summer bashes and definitely thrown a ton of Birthday parties. Once I'm on board with the idea, she knows she's got it made! Since last night, we've come up with the following ideas. 

Her party invitation: 

 

Courtesy of the Summer in Paris Cricut cartridge:














Her 1st choice in dresses, is a short black party dress. She's not sure if she'll go with a white cover up or a black cover up, but I guess it depends on what we find.

Now the center pieces are a combo of Shari's find and Ciara's idea. We're going to do something with these great polka dot balloons Shari found and attach them to the table with some kind of frame with a black and white photo of Ciara. 

As much as the child wanted a topsy, turvy, layered cake from the bakery, that's not going to happen. She'll have to be happy with a MOM creation. We're considering a cupcake and layered cake combo like these. 

We'll definitely have a bow on the top layer, but I'm not sure if we'll decorate the cupcakes or keep them simple with decorative cupcake wrappers.

With Ciara watching Sweet 16 on MTV for so many years, she has some crazy ideas and some good ideas! It will be interesting to see how all this plays out on a budget!

Happy New Years!!

 
Another New Years Eve gone buy and in our family, this can be a make or break it day. With the irony of life, I lost both of my parents on New Years Eve. My  mom 11 years ago and my step dad 3 years ago. We've gotten to a point in our lives, where we don't think about it every moment, but usually the day before, it hits sometime with a reminder of exactly what the day means.  If you knew my parents, you'd understand the irony of them passing on the biggest party day of the year. Last night my house was taken over by these 3 crazy people, while I escaped with another friend. Spending an evening with Byron and Konner is NEVER boring. I'll dedicate this video to my mom and dad. They were always up for a good laugh. 






PS: Watch the bloopers for a glimpse of my man...Mr Who Is That! This is is second appearance in Edit That Out.

For more Edit That Out Videos, go to
http://www.youtube.com/user/KonnerandCiara

A GIANT SNOWMAN!

A viewer of Ellens sent this in. It's a great snowman. I can't imagine the time it took??? 

2010 Hallmark Ornaments

I waited a little to long to go to Hallmark to get then pieces that go with our collections, but we did manage to pick up a few at 40% off. There are a few more we'd both like to have, but I'm waiting a bit longer to get the 50-75 % markdowns on the ornaments not as important. Here is what we came home with.

 

Ever year, we collect many of the retro looking dolls, but her whole Barbie ornament collection started with the yearly Celebrations ornaments. It took two trips to find this one, but we did find it.

Disney's Prep and Landing Elfs were a must have this year. I love their short films!

My daughter and I have been Madame Alexander collectors since we were both babies. This one is also a group that we collect.

Ciara's grandma started the Fairy, Flower Girl collection. Each year they are very different.

Here are the ornaments on our "Wish List", now these are only if we find them for a really good discount. Otherwise, they are a bit beyond our budget.

Went painting today and painted "Punchtini"

Shari and I went to Canvas and Cocktails today to paint one of the Christmas paintings I've been wanting to do all month. The "Partini" was my second choice, to the Whimsical Christmas Trees, but the colors are my favorite and I was never able to match up a date for the trees. I've renamed mine "Punchtini" and absolutely love the retro colors. 

Now I'm going to take the colors from this palette and recreate this Whimsical Christmas Tree painting.

Yes, my name is Michelle and I have a paper addiction!

I sometimes wonder...Did my scrapbooking paper addiction come first or my love for wrapping paper? Maybe the fact that my stepmom worked at Hallmark most of her life played in to my love for wrapping beautiful packages. I use to visit my dad and stepmom in Texas and be awe struck every Christmas when all the packages were wrapped in different paper under the tree and all had some kind of wonderful bow. For years I tried to learn how to make those bows and finally in my mid 20's, I figured it out.  This year I chose not to make any of those large bows, mostly because of time, but also because I wanted to use some of the other fun ribbon I had. Here are just a few of my wrapped packages from this year.

With Ciara's help I used up several rolls of paper I've had for years and years. Then I replaced it with 5 or 6 new rolls today. I'll share those later!

Merry Christmas!

It's 12:20am here now, which means Christmas is actually over with, however I had to stop and say goodnight to all. Opening gifts with my daughter and husband this morning was a great time. We always have fun downstairs, next to our Disney tree. It's like having our own little special spot to share each Christmas morning. I was very happy to receive 2 more of the books I really wanted this year. That made my morning. I'll be set for a couple months now in the reading department.

After eating some breakfast we head to the nursing home to visit with Doug's dad. He was awake and alert today and looked much better then he has over the past month. That was nice to see! My husband thanked me for going today with him and that was really touching.

After a short nap, my daughter and I started our dinner in the kitchen. She made some great Irish Soda Bread, while I chopped chicken and veges for our Chicken and Dumplings. When I couldn't find the mix I've used in the passed, I decided last minute I'd have to wing it by hand. Now, I will say that the soup or stew itself was amazing.  Now using the canned biscuits, not so amazing. I trully learned today how important trying out a recipe is, BEFORE serving it for the first time on a holiday. We ended up eating most of them, but in the future I will definitely make my own or use the biscuit mix for a firmer dumpling. Now I also made a berry cobbler for dessert and that got rave reviews. With vanilla ice cream, it really was to die for!

My family finally made it over around 4:30 or 5, so that meant we were getting a pretty late start. That tends to happen at my house on Christmas, but that's fine, it just keeps the day going even longer. Both my friends gave me some amazing gifts, but most importantly they gave me their love and time. I'm so lucky to have such blessed friends. I'm also lucky they care about my daughter so much and that she feels that love and care in return.

Having an 8 year old, a 15 yo and a 21 yo in the house during Christmas, definitely makes for some interesting moments. They all are at a different point in life, but yet all so excited and kid like when it comes to Christmas.

I learned a lot of lessons this year when planning for Christmas. A lot changed in my perspective this year. My daughter definitely had a hard time with some of the changes, but ultimately I think she realizes now that some of those things she thought were important aren't. Being a parent of a teenager has it's moments, but I really am blessed to have such an amazing daughter.  I think I also see my stepson, finally turning into a young adult and that is fun to watch. Listening to him talking about school and his job and finding a place to live and everything that comes with that makes me smile and definitely makes my husband smile.

So Christmas 2010, wasn't perfect, it wasn't routine, it wasn't usual, but it was a great day, a great week and a great month.

Most importantly I'm thankful Heavenly Father has blessed me as he has!