Catching up on December

I have been really bad at my blog posts this month, but it is for all good reasons! There was just SO much going on as I am sure you can all agree on that!

Here is a catch up on what Holland and I have been up to the past few weeks.

Hollands sister graduated with her Masters in Education! She has been working SO hard and not only did she get her M.Ed, but she also has two kids and a full time job! Any one of those tasks is a lot to handle, but Allison did amazing at all three which is not so surprising if you know her. She is one of the greatest people I know and gives her full heart into everything that she does.

Allison and her Husband, Kevin. 

The Bailey Family

Future Aggie graduate! :)

 We celebrated all of Allison's hard work at the Gribbles house in New Braunfels.  We decorated, sat around and relaxed, walked down to the river and played with lots of sweet little babies.

Raya and her cousin, Katie. 

Baby Michael. 

Another thing we did this December was prepare for Christmas.  At school, my students put on a Holiday concert, we made homemade ornaments for the kids to give to their families and we sang a bunch of jungle bell rock and the most favorite song for my class was Feliz Navidad. It was really funny to hear them sing it. It sounded more like "Marie Namipah".

I tried to take on a task this year of making many of my Christmas gifts. There were stressful times but in the end they all turned out amazing. My favorite project was these etched glass baking dishes. Believe it or not, finding the dishes was the most difficult part! I got the idea off interest and put my own spin on it and instead of using amor etch acid I used Martha Stewart etching cream from Michaels. This was the most expensive item at $25.00 but I made 7 of these babies and I still have half a bottle left !

All you need is
*glass to etch on
*exacto knife
*contact paper
*etching cream
*Old paintbrush

I found the more you "clump on" the cream the better the end product.
How to Etch Glass Step by Step instructions

My Kinder Team with their presents! They all loved them :)

This year, I went extremely simple with my wrapping. I only spend 3 dollars on some green raffia for my ribbon and a few dollars on the plain brown bags. My mom had a HUGE roll of butcher paper in her garage that I stole to be my main wrapping paper.  I printed pictures from people face books so I did not have to purchase labels.  Everyone seemed to love this twist on gift wrapping! I plan to do this again next year.

My cousin PP and her husband visited for a week for Christmas. My days with her were limited since Holland and I spend Christmas out east with his family so we made it worthwhile and got to open presents a week before Christmas!

Although Billy looks very serious, he and PP loved their I Tx TX shirts and were very excited to get to wear them back in Chicago!

For my birthday a few years ago, one of my best friends, Allison gave me a necklace like this. Except it had a map of Amsterdam because that was one of the cities we traveled to together in Europe!  It is called a "Where The Heart is Necklace".  The jeweler uses recycled materials to create these beautiful necklaces.  I contacted her about making a San Antonio one for PP and she was very excited to! Check out her shop!
 Bowie And Franchesca Shop

For my sister, I used a shadow box and decorated it with paper and stickers and Holland drilled a slit at the top so she can drop all her movie and concert tickets in there. Thought it was a great way to show off all the tickets. She is crazy about movies, popcorn and country music. 

 Last but not least, I spend a good chunk of fortune on Hollands present this year. I got him a Go Pro camera.  He had already figured out what it was because I told him how much I had spent and he already had his suspicions.  This is a camera that you can strap to yourself to do crazy stuff- PERFECT FOR HOLLAND RIGHT?!  We used this camera on our ski trip and boy did he capture some amazing stuff. I have just finished a video of the pictures from our trip to Vermont, but there is going to be an entire separate video for the skiing part!

I hope that you all had an extremely great Holiday! We are heading up the Lake House to bring in 2013! I will post the ski videos soon!

Mama said my shoes could take me ANYWHERE!

 You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their shoes..... where they goin'..... where they been........ -Forrest Gump

Well I have been having issues with my left foot. It has been going on for the past three months and after seeing two podiatrists and having my chiropractor readjust it two times I went and bought some NEW SHOES!!! - Per request from my dr. I saw her when I was 7 or 8 years old when I fractured my right foot so it was funny to see her reaction today when she saw me today.

She examined me and told me I have some plantar fascia tendonitus blabidiblah. My diagnosis had way too many syllables to remember and I was just glad she knew what it was!  I got wrapped up in this fancy pink bandage to take pressure off my tendon and a letter for work stating that I need to be excused for wearing tennis shoes to school for the next 6 months.  I looove me some shoes other than tennis that is for sure. We will see how this goes!

The foot wrap- have to keep it like this for 3 days! I think my big toe looks funny all pulled down. 

Hannah loves her momma's stinky "broken" foot.

I havent gotten a new pair of shoes in over three years! We will see where these take me. Hopefully away from having to see doctors for my foot- what a way to make you feel old!

Thanks mama for the early Christmas present :).  

Texas December

ITS DECEMBER!!! I cannot believe Christmas is literally around the corner.  Especially since this past weekend we got to experience 80 degree weather. It was really entertaining to go to Michaels and Garden Ridge and see people buying everything to make their homes wintery while wearing flip flops and shorts. 

 I have only bought ONE Christmas gift. I am at a loss for everything else but have come to the conclusion that I may just make all my gifts.  I feel like it means more and is cherished unlike a store bought item. I dunno, maybe its just me? I made my cousin in california an ornament out of her wedding bouquet that I caught in October All you need is dried flowers and a clear ornament and VOILA! INSTANT AWESOME GIFT TO KEEP A MEMORY FOREVER!

Before Thanksgiving my mom and I went to Hobby Lobby and I purchased some paper mache brown ornaments. I have been in love with these since I worked at the GLBT resource center and we bought oodles of them to decorate for our Spirit Tree.  EVERY YEAR since then Hobby Lobby runs out. Probably because they start setting up their Christmas Section in July.  I grabbed up four of them and they are REALLY inexpensive.  I think they were half off(like everything in HL) and they were only a buck or so each. I used some scrapbook paper, modge podge and printed pictures from my printer from home.  I like the antique feel it shows in the pictures.   It got tough only getting to choose four but I wanted to get pictures that meant something to Holland and I. I put a picture recently taken at the lake house, from our trip to Canada, leisure diving this summer and a mountain Holland and I hiked in Colorado. I want to keep this tradition going every year!

 I wrote something on each ornament so that way when I get old I can hopefully still read my handwriting and say "oh yea, Holland. Remember this when we were young and could climb a mountain? and "Oh remember that time we went to Canada, eh?

I have been seeing all these pinterest crafts you can do with kids.  Yes I have 20  kindergarten students but I would much rather test these things out on my dogs first because they cannot complain and I can hold 'em down and force them to do what I want ;). They cooperated greatly and kept thinking I was feeding them somthing!

 To make the salt dough, I used 4 cups of flour and a cup of salt and poured water little by little until it was mixed enough. Probably used about a cup and a quarter of water total. Once dough is mixed you can roll out and cut out or shape circles and put print in. I used a straw to make the hole for the string to hang on the tree.  I baked at 300 for about an hour.  Really based on thickness, just bake it until it is firm.  SO EXCITED to hang these babies on my tree!

ITS SO PURDY!

 Now I know all you crazy people up north get snow and its all magical but I bet I can make you jealous with what Holland and I had this past weekend. We kinda had snow.... it came from our tree.... well the tree that is kinda funky looking now.

Our tree in front of the house we have been renting for over a year has been slowly going downhill. Part of it fell last year into our neighbors driveway and he was trapped in his house for a day.  Ever since then I have been talking with the landlord to chop down the other loose limbs!  He came on Saturday with a chain saw and two helpers and now I can sleep through a storm without fear of a tree coming through the house and landing on my furry children(YAY!!!). However, there was a HUGE mess and tons of wood chips all over the roof and yard so Holland and I synergized together to get the job down faster. Holland got on the roof and made some snow for ten minutes and we had our own Texas Winter Wonderland.

Our house looks kinda small with Holland standing on top of it!

Look at that! Makes you want to make a wood chip angel doesn't it?!

Two hours later and our house looks fantastic! Looking forward to the next few weeks at school and crafts with the kiddos.  I am excited to see and ski on REAL snow in just three more weeks!