Cookie Monsters

Since it's hard to buy presents for people you don't know well, and because teachers are always so busy, we make treats to give the girls' teachers at Christmas time. 

Honey, Lovey & Sweetie all take this job very seriously and really concentrate on making beautiful designs for their teachers they love so much! It is so cute to see them so focused and dedicated to the task. It's VERY important not to mix the cookies up so that each girl can ensure HER teacher gets the cookies SHE decorated. We also add in some other stuff I make, Butter Toffee Crunch, some Deluxe Party Mix and sometimes some fudge. This year I scored some gorgeous and festive baskets 70% off at Michael's (occasionally procrastination pays!) and made the whole gift look fancier than it really was :)

Here are my little elves, hard at work again, lucky for me they love this stuff! and check out the definition on Sweetie! Those arms are really toning up from all the cartwheeling, handstanding and walking on her hands lately!

Christmas Prep

Luckily for me, I had a couple willing elves on most projects this year! They loved to wrap and helped get all the gifts done up & ready to go out where they needed to be, on time! (cuz that's how we roll!) For once, I gritted my teeth and dug deeeeeeeeeeeeeep for some patience!!! I demonstrated how to measure the paper out to make sure they cut the right amount, rip the tape off the dispenser without cracking the plastic in half, where to place the tape so you don't need a gazillion strips, how to fold the edges for smooth looking finished edges (hey this is serious business!!!), how to fold in the corners to meet in the middle on the ends and finish it all up nice & pretty with ribbons and bows!

The first few takes were a little nerve wracking but after that they got the hang of it and I just distributed items and they selected their paper and took it from there. It was fun & togethery and awesomely productive as we blared some tunes and sang our hearts out! These girls saved my butt as we scrambled to get everything ready on time! I looooooooooooove my daughters :))) and I did such a good job training them that Murray got all his wrapping done for him too! I asked if he'd had to show them much and he said he just gave them the items and they took right over and did a better job than he'd ever done! LOL

I used one of my early gifts from me to me to shoot us as we worked, a cool remote for the Nikon! (Sweetie helped me out earlier on another wrapping marathon, before I had my new gadget and missed out on photo ops)

Extreme Room Makeover!

A few weeks ago, Sweetie asked me, "Mum, you know how some people have those bedrooms where, you know, everything... matches and looks neat????" with a bit of a wistful note in her voice. I said that I knew what she meant and asked if she'd like a room like that. Here eyes lit up and she responded "COULD I???" So I said we'd try and do it sometime when things calmed down. Her room is pretty small and used to be my scrapbook room that I'd painted a nice sunny yellow years before she was born. We painted and decorated one room to be the nursery when they were born and when she ended up in the other room, it never got any decoration whatsoever. I figured she was due to get a fresh look!

She showed me some colours she liked and as I was doing Christmas shopping I kept an eye out for bedding in that hue. I couldn't find anything quite right in the stores. Finally we went online and browsed there instead and found one she LOVED. Then I hunted around and scrounged up a 20% off coupon and headed out to shop!

We got the bedding set and then went to the paint store and got some paint to match and told her I'd start working on it "sometime when I had free time". :)

Then Grammie & Grandad conveniently arranged a 2 night stay for the girls at their place and once they were off, I set to work tearing down the shelving and pollyfilla-ing. Murray dragged out all the mattresses. A couple years ago she jumped on her bed (despite repeated warnings!) one too many times! The bedframe cracked and she had been sleeping on her mattress & bedspring, plus the mattress and bedspring from the spare bedroom from the downstairs flooded out spare bedroom, a la princess and the pea ever since. While I took the room apart, Murray repaired the bed frame for her. I got the room prepped and ready to start the next day!

The next morning I headed out in search of some accents for the room and hit the jackpot at Walmart of all places! They had exactly the touches I wanted to add and getting everything in one spot was pretty convenient!

I finally got home, slammed down a fruit smoothie for lunch because it was fast and got to work on the cutting in and trimming around the room. It took for-freaking-ever. I haaaaaaaaaaate painting. I'm messy and spilly!!! I don't have a steady hand and there were mistakes everywhere, aaaaaarghhhh!!! I was up til 2am getting the last of the painting done. I woke up the next morning, knowing I only had a few hours til Mum brought the kids back. There were a lot of spots to touch up and the room still had to be reassembled, some trim painted and accents put up!!! It was a whirlwind morning and I was nailing the last piece of trim back on as Mum's car pulled in the driveway.

The night before, Murray asked if I would be disappointed if she didn't like it. My heart sunk! I hadn't even considered that possibility! I'd killed myself all weekend, picking out all the perfect little touches, back breaking labour that I detest..... HOW could she NOT like it???? Yet, I knew suddenly, it was all too possible! This was the girl who disliked pants on sight because she could tell at a glance that they'd be too "rimbly"!!! She MIGHT NOT LIKE what I'd picked or how I'd arranged it!!!! It was too late though, I was already committed by the time he asked and I just had to hope for the best. It certainly didn't look worse than when I'd started so I decided it would just have to do. She had no idea I was doing it while she was gone so it could be a rude awakening...

Here's the before:

 and after!

 and her first look at the room, shocked! (shocked good? or shocked horrified?!?!??)

 annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd YES! It's shocked GOOD!!! Yay Mumma!

She's been in it a week and it still looks neat as a pin! She's been sorting through all the things we took out and discarding lots of things and sorting and organizing what she wants to keep. She doesn't want it getting junked up and has been diligent with it for 7 days straight, which I'm pretty sure is a record!

Before embarking on this mission of gargantuan proportions, I'd talked to Lovey & Honey about their room and whether they still liked their teddy bear & baby block border. They were quite adamant that they didn't want ANYTHING changed. I'd suspected as much. Those two don't like changing their sheets! I replaced Lovey's blankets once and it took a week of bedtime crying before she adjusted to the drastic change! Within 5 minutes of seeing Sweetie's room makeover, both of them did a 180 and are now in the process of fighting over colours and themes. After listening to the bickering for half an hour, I forbid any further vocal discussion and said all future negotiations must be done via text through their iPods so I didn't have to listen to it. So far Lovey is campaigning for some red but Honey's holding out for all purple and until Lovey agrees, she's refusing to part with the teddy bears on the walls. There's no way to work on it while they're around anyway so until someone kidnaps my children again, it's a moot point for now.  :)