Scenes From A Snowy Day

Commack, Long Island is buried under 20 inches of snow! We re still digging out. The trains are not quite back on schedule but the main roads are flowing smoothly. Sunday morning into Monday morning the snow was falling. By Monday afternoon, Bill had dug out our car and checked to see what roads had been plowed. We made our way with the kids to a great hill for sledding. It was so much fun but either those hills got taller or I got a lil' slower climbing back up! It must be the hills!

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and may 2011 bring new beginnings and opportunities, peace and tranquility to all our lives and most of all an appreciation for what we already have around us!

Family and friends will be gathering at our house on Christmas Day! My preparations have begun. Just like you, I am wrapping and shopping for the last of the goodies needed and hoping I get it all done in time....I always do. My husband enjoys going out for last minute extras on Christmas Eve day. He likes the hustle and bustle in those hours before our holiday officially begins. He has always loved making his little stops.

May your Christmas be special and filled with happiness and hopefulness for the coming new year.

May Your Days Be Merry and Bright!

Decorated and Ready!

Each day I have been adding more and more decorations. I love my tree this year. It seems healthy and in good grip of its needles (I hope!). Our main tree is in our family room and the gingerbread tree is in our foyer. I enjoy collecting gingerbread items for it. I find so many in Lancaster!

I love looking out my big window at my birds and squirrels. I have it decorated with mittens and hats and stockings. That window stays decorated with those items all Winter. I just remove the Christmas tree from the center. I also keep out snowmen and sleds! After all, it is Winter!

My front porch and front door welcome all of you! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

Santa's Lap

Our visit to Hicks Nursery in Old Westbury is something our whole family looks forward to. Santa is there; surprisingly the "same" Santa EVERY year so all the photos of Caitlin sitting on his lap shows her with the same Santa year after year! And he has a great sense of humor!

I could walk for hours in Hicks! They not only have a free walk through Christmas story with beautiful diaramas, but you can visit the reindeer. Beautiful displays of wreaths, plants and trees make it a winter wonderland!

We'll be back there in early March for their annual Flower Show which is spectacular!

Grab Your Hat, Grab Your Mittens!

It sure is cold here! Long Island is in a very chilly weather pattern with cold temperatures and cold winds! It feels like mid-January! I have to say the cold weather does bring out the "nesting" quality in me! My husband brought home a ton of firewood, and we are preparing for some nice cozy fires. We even light our outdoor fire pit all Winter because even in cold temperatures, Bill always has work to do outside our house so he lights the fire pit! It smells so good. My son loves building the fire with his Dad too. Last weekend, the kids roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over it. The cold weather is great. I like to embrace each season and what comes with it! As for Winter, you just gotta "bundle up!"

Time to gather up all those catalogs and see what has been circled in red~~Time to find those scraps of paper and read those wish lists~~Time to type our letter to Santa!

The Magic of Creativity

There was magic in our kitchen yesterday afternoon! We created our primitive bowl fillers and ornaments and the house was smelling so good from all the cinnamon! Caitlin enjoyed rolling out the dough so much. I think it was her favorite part~even more than the "cutting" of the shapes.

My son loved the "cutting". He made mittens, snowmen and my favorite stars! They look like primitive barn stars and, in cinnamon brown, they are the perfect prim bowl filler! Look how cute they are! I will bag them up and add them to my Christmas gifts for friends and family! I used all mini cutters. Some worked out and some were too difficult to distinguish the shapes! We also did some angels and bells.

I promised the kids we would do full size ornaments this week! We had so much fun. I think we just started a tradition! We are going to do plain salt dough and the cinnamon once again!

My family really enjoys the Christmas holiday, and we love to decorate like I'm sure all of you do! I was thrilled when my husband decided to take from our shed our many boxes of Heritage Village houses! He thought it would be a nice project to do with the kids. We hadn't set it up in its entirety since, dare I say it, 1992! We had collected so many beautiful ones but then as time went on, we had stopped buying them and would just put one or two out.

When Billy and Caitlin saw how many we had, they were amazed! Billy really enjoyed opening the boxes and admiring the detail on each building, bridge and figure. As we were unpacking them and piling them in my kitchen, I realized how much I missed them and was so happy that my very busy husband had thought of setting them up. When we get it done, I will post the pictures!

I am also going to do some Christmas bowl fillers and ornaments with the kids tomorrow (Friday) after school. From seeing and reading the blog "And Baby Makes Five", I admired the salt dough ornaments that were made! I remember doing that project as a little girl with my sister and Mom and thought it would very fun for Caitlin and Billy to do with me. I got the mini cutters for the bowl fillers and took out my various cookie cutters. I would like to do some gingerbread people for our gingerbread tree. Our main tree is in the family room but the last three years I have set up a gingerbread tree in our foyer and it only contains "gingerbread" ornaments. Its been fun collecting them each year. Billy and Caitlin can add to our tree with the salt dough gingerbread people, and we can make some lovely bowl fillers too! The recipe for the salt dough and step by step instructions are on that great blog along with many other recipes and fun things all for a home-made holiday!

Christmas Tags!

I had bought these beautiful Christmas tags at Costco a couple of years back. They have so much detail, and they look like scrapbook embellishments. After wrapping my presents, I had quite a few left over so I was thinking what to do with them. Then I thought of a Christmas tree that I had bought at Michael's Crafts. It has a flat back and you can decorate it however you like. I put all my little tags on and it looks so cute!