Valentine's Day Breakfast & Decor

Usually every year my family and I have a fancy Valentine dinner at home. We decorate the house, dress up fancy, make a yummy dinner and celebrate! This year however our schedules are just crazy, busy this week and we knew it just wasn't going to happen. So when the blizzard hit here on Friday and Saturday and we all ended up home for several days I knew it was the perfect time to have our little celebration. Instead of dinner though we had a yummy breakfast in our jammies together.

 

While my family was busy doing other things I got everything all set up in the dining room ... I have a box of Valentine decor that I keep to use year after year. Everything was pretty cheap too. Did you know you can buy a package of 24 paper doilies for only ONE dollar?! :)

 

 

candles, confetti, hearts ...

 

We had pink milk, strawberries and delicious cinnamon rolls!

I didn't take pics of the family, no one really wanted pictures of themselves in their pajamas.

You'll have to take my word for it that everyone LOVED the breakfast!



 

So while you're here would you like to see the rest of my Valentine decor??

 

This year I was ADDICTED to making these paper heart garlands! I made 3 and kept looking around the house for more places to make more. I made myself stop at 3 but it was hard not making more!! LOL



 

This one was by far my favorite one.

Red yarn, painted/glittered clothespins, paper hearts and paper doilies ....

 

This is my mantle...

 

I made this a few years ago using scrapbook papers/supplies and a large glittered heart I bought in a package from Walmart or Target {I can't remember!}

 

My jars are the same ones I had out for January but I took out the white candles and put in red one, tied some red yarn around them with paper doilies and stuck in some small hearts. So simple!

 

The print was a free one I found on Pinterest!
The candy in the jar was from the dollar store and thankfully is NOT a temptation for me cause I don't like the taste of those candy hearts! And the paper flowers were made from cupcake liners.

 

On this shelf I just added some red tin wall hangings a cute little 'love' sign that I stamped several years ago and a framed photo of my girls when they were little that I absolutely ADORE!!

 

Is this the cutest picture or what?!

 

Another paper heart garland, this is our TV cabinet ... I painted and glittered the clothespins and cut out paper hearts - so easy and fun!

 

Another thing I made with scrapbook papers ...

 

I took down our snowflakes from January and put up paper hearts!

 

In the kitchen we have some fun, festive details. I use this cake stand to hold all my sink essentials - but now I just made sure everything was pink or red! Pink handsoap, red candle, red dish soap and scrubber...

 

And by tying some tulle around hte candle I can clip more cute paper hearts to it!

 

My coffee/tea/cocoa station also got some festive touches ...

 

And lastly this is above the sink in the kitchen.

 

So there ya go ... super simple and cheap, just use things you already have or save them from year to year in a small box.

 

Happy Decorating and Happy Valentine's Day!!

How we count the days

Many bloggers have been talking about Advent calendars, Jesse trees, and books they read as they prepare for Christmas. Here in our house it's no different. A few years ago we began the Christmas book tradition and plan to continue it this year and forevermore as far as I'm concerned!

The last week of November I gather together 24 books, one for each day in December leading up to Christmas day. I wrap the books and number them 1-24. Each night we open a book and read it together. Most of the books are Christmas related but sometimes they are not.

The first book we open on December 1st is always this one by Lisa Welchel, it's called the ADVENTure of Christmas. If you have followed my blog for awhile or know me personally you'll know that I will never stop singing the praises of this book! Last year when we read it on December 1st my youngest accepted the Lord Jesus as her Savior! Yesterday she has her 1st spiritual birthday! The book takes every single element of Christmas and turns it back to focus on Jesus. It talks about the history of why we celebrate the way we do and how many things came to be. There are also activities, crafts and recipes on many days. We simply LOVE it!
Another book we use year after year is called ADOREnaments. There are 12 ornaments each with a different name of Jesus on them. Then you read a small portion about that name when you put the ornament on the tree. The girls will open this on the 12th so they will put one on the tree each day leading up to Christmas Eve.

And this year we've started something new. I had always heard people talk about doing a Jesse tree and never really got it. This year we are blessed to have this wonderful {FREE} resource provided by Ann Voskamp's blog. I printed out the devotional pages and the ornaments and the girls and I got them all ready. We have a small tree we will hang them on and we'll be doing this for our Bible time for the month of December.

We also have a cute hanging snowman calendar where you move a small snowflake into a new pocket for each day in December. The girls take turns moving the snowflake.

And that's what we do. It's fun to have these yearly traditions and also to add new ones. I love that they help us focus on the true meaning of Christmas and the amazing gift that we've been given through Jesus Christ being born in Bethlehem.

Christmas Day traditions

I think this may be the last of my Christmas traditions posts... maybe! I'm sorry for anyone who has lost interest as I've posted SO many blogs about Christmas traditions. It's just that around this house this is our favorite time of year. And over the years we have created so many traditions that mean so much to us ... pretty much the whole month of December is dedicated to Christmas and remembering Jesus birth.

So here is the big day ... it's finally come ... Christmas Day!

The kids stayed up so late the night before that they actually slept in! So my Mom, Bob's Mom and myself were the first ones awake. We sat and enjoyed a cup of coffee (or two!) while we waited for the rest to wake up.
Finally J and my Father in law woke up ... J was so tired and just stared at all the gifts under the tree ...
After everyone woke up we all opened our stockings, one person at a time. We let the girls do theirs first and they were thrilled with everything they found inside. J is showing off her fleece scarf that I made the girls.
H waits patiently as each adult takes their turn opening their stockings.
Bob waits patiently for his turn ... After stockings we take a break from gifts and we go eat breakfast. Our tradition is to make a big egg casserole which we have with fruit and some type of sweet bread. This year I made Cherry Eggnog bread.

After breakfast we finally got down to the fun stuff ... the gift opening! We do gifts one at a time so everyone can see what is opened and who it's from. The big gift for the whole family was a new basketball net! It is huge, we can't wait to put it together! The girls enjoyed new chairs from Grandma and Grandpa ...
And fun new Lego sets - even if it did take 2 children and 2 adults almost 2 hours to build this house! =)

After gifts we spent time together talking and hanging around while my amazing hubby finished preparing an awesome meal. {He loves to cook.} We had a fabulous dinner together, then more visiting, then dessert, then some friends also stopped by to hang out and watch the Celtics game with us.

All in all it was a wonderful day. We are so blessed and so fortunate to be able to give and receive so many wonderful things. We are so blessed by family and friends and the gift of fellowship and laughter and love. We are so blessed by a great home and nourishing food. We thank you Lord for all the wonderful gifts you have given us, but most of all, for the gift of your Son.

Christmas Eve Traditions

Every Christmas Eve we go to my in laws house. We eat together and we celebrate Jesus by having a birthday party.

Every year my Mother in law has told the Christmas story with plush characters in a kid friendly way so they could understand it. From the time the girls were old enough to talk they have known the story and Grandma would ask them questions throughout the story so they were actively taking part in the telling.

Well this year the girls are getting so grown up that they decided to tell the story all by themselves! H was the narrator and J moved the characters around.

Grandma introduced them ...
They did such a wonderful job!

It was beautiful to see our little girls telling the story of Jesus birth. It was heartwarming to know that even at their young age ... they truly know and understand the meaning of Christmas!

After the story they sang a few songs for us. Then we celebrated with birthday cake for Jesus (well actually this year it was just dessert, not cake, but we sang Happy Birthday anyway!) We also celebrated another special birthday on Christmas Eve ...

Christmas Eve is the day that H accepted the Lord as her Savior last year ... so we celebrated her first 'spiritual' birthday. We gave her a small book and CD called Mary Did You Know (she loves that song!). We are so proud of how much she has grown in the past year. She has such a kind heart and a helpful spirit.

Our Christmas Eve traditions then continue as we all go to our church for the Christmas Eve service. They always have 2 services, one that is 'kid friendly' and one that is more geared to the adults. So we went to the first one and it was great. The girls loved seeing many of the kids they know up on the stage performing or singing.

After church we all drive back to our house. Everyone spends the night at our house so that we can all wake up together on Christmas morning. My Mom, Bob's parents, his brother Aaron & sis in law Glenna and the four of us all slept over. We had to throw mattresses down and pull out all the extra blankets but it's such a fun tradition that we wouldn't even mind if there were 10 more people!

In the evening we sit around and eat snacks like cheese & crackers and sweet treats. We drink some eggnog and talk and laugh. The girls are allowed to open one gift, it's a new set of PJ's for each of them!

Then we played this new game called Twister Hopscotch ...

Even Daddy played ...
Then we got the kids all settled in bed ... and all the adults brought out the gifts and filled the space under and around the tree. After that it was already past 11pm and we all were exhausted so most of the adults headed off to bed ... with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads ...

{{So these are our Christmas Eve traditions ... it's pretty much the same every year. Sometimes we throw in something new but most times it's the same. I love the 'feel' of Christmas Eve. I know it sounds silly but the whole day I felt as though I was on the verge of tears. Just the feeling of doing these special things year after year had me feeling very emotional (in a good way) and nostalgic. I am so blessed.}}