Christmas Decorating

It has been an annual tradition for a long time now to try and set up the Christmas trees/decorations the weekend after Christmas.  I know that many like to do it before Thanksgiving so that they can enjoy the season for even longer, but I like to try and keep the holidays separate from one another.  On Friday morning (post-Thanksgiving), the kids made hot chocolate to enjoy; we set up some Christmas tunes on the speaker and we set to work on the 'big' tree in the front living room.

Sam was in charge of calling out which branches (they are lettered) she needed ...

... while the others separated and brought them to her.

This job used to take quite some time when my helpers were much younger.  Now, they are experts and we seem to get the tree assembled in no time at all.

Such a great looking crew.

Sam made sure to include Jimmy in the process, right up to the part where he wasn't tall enough on his own.

Once the lights were strung, the kids helped me find all of their special ornaments and added them to the tree.  

Note to self: Every year I tell myself that this is going to be THE year that I start separating the ornaments into boxes based on whose ornaments they belong to.  Right now, they are all mixed together in totes.

We have such a great collections of ornaments, each with a memory or a story to go with them.

Even Mia has her own ornament for the tree.

After we assembled and decorated the tree in the living room, I set up the tree for the top of the stairs and Sophia gathered special ornaments that she wanted to include on that one.

Side note: why do my kids love to go barefoot in our house in the winter?  I, personally, prefer socks on my feet -- sometimes even in the summer -- but they love to go barefoot.  Shiver.

And then later that evening, it was determined that it was Sam's year to put the angel on the top of the tree.  While she wanted her dad to lift her up, like he had always done in the past, I told her that she was big enough to do it herself now.  Ha!  She is almost 5'6" tall now!  

She dragged a chair over and I made sure to document this special moment once again.

Over the course of the weekend, I worked on a couple more trees, LOTS of lights and decorating my fireplace mantle.  I just love the glow of everything this time of year!

Samantha is 15!

After breakfast with her friends, I set out Samantha's gifts from us on the same table that her party favors were on.  

Since I love a nice theme, I continued the concept with plant wrapping paper and some awesome ribbon that I found that resembles leaves.  I cut a few leaves out of cardstock paper and used those as gift tags.  

She then took turns opening each of her gifts from us ... with such cute commentary in between.  

Samantha has really been into gnones this year so I thought that it was fitting to get her some holiday flannel gnome sheets for her bed.  She loved them!

She does A LOT of coloring in her anatomy class this year and specifically asked for some new colored pencils.  This particular set had many more colors for her to choose from.

Later, we enjoyed her dinner of choice at home: homemade chicken alfredo and sang happy birthday yet one more time.  It's hard to believe that we only have her at home with us for a few more years and then she will be spreading her wings.  We're already talking about her driver's license, college choices and high school open house.

Samantha's 15th Birthday with Friends

Samantha's birthday fell on a Saturday this year so we planned a small party with her friends for Saturday evening into Sunday morning.  How cool to make sure that she woke up with her closest friends there on her birthday?!

We settled on a 'plant' theme because she seems to love those lately.  It would easy to make it classy (think, teenager) without being too 'over the top' (no balloon arch or wild decorations).  

I kept the party favors simple: some monogrammed make-up bags, lip balm and a faux potted plant for every one of the guests, including the birthday girl.

You can never have too many bags like this for make-up, accessories, travel, etc.

I decorated the table with some greenery that I already had on hand and strung some simple fairy lights throughout it.  Some cute disposable plates, napkins and gold silverware completed the look.

My best friend, Jennifer, brought her daughter to the party and I talked her into staying for a bit.  She was the perfect BINGO caller!

So much concentration because the prizes were gift cards and cash -- which really elevates the game!

The guests also played a few rounds of Scattergories that I made up using Samantha's name.  

Later, after dinner (pizza and breadsticks, of course!), the girls were given scratch-off cards that I made with numbers that gave the order in which they could pick out their faux potted plant from the party favor table.  

I made Samantha's cake and added a bunch of succulents that I designed using fondant.  She loved it!

But the big excitement was when, right before she went to blow out her candles, one of the table legs collapsed!  I managed to catch the cake in time before it fell off the table, but one of the table decorations was not so lucky because it fell to the floor and smashed into so many little pieces.

One of the gifts from her friends was this awesome pair of chicken earrings!

Shortly after that, the boys arrived home.  They had gone to an MSU hockey game with Steve and were excited to share with us that the MSU had won!  I suspect that their hockey team may win the Big 10 Championship this year.  They are THAT good.

We wrapped up the evening with mini lego sets for everyone.  They are frustrating to put together sometimes, but the end results are amazing and are a crowd hit, for sure!

Halloween 2023

Back in the day, we used to put a lot more effort into Halloween costumes.  The kids would mull over what costume they would want to wear -- changing their minds multiple times -- and I remember discussing it with them ... and ordering costumes ... as early as August.

Now, they often do group costumes with their friends and are content with simple "onesies."  Jimmy made his choice a week before the holiday.  

And, you know what?  I'm ok with that.  While I miss the cute costumes and all of the accessories, I am now focusing that effort into spooky decorations, festive food ideas and Halloween parties (classroom and at our house). 

The girls went with an 'under the sea' theme together with the Ainsley ... and Mia, our cat.  

Spoiler alert: Mia was not a fan of her costume that Samantha had surprised her with.

A shark, a walrus and a lobster.  Nice warm costumes for these COLD Michigan Halloween nights.

My crew.  Jack was Luigi and his best friend, Adam, was Mario.

We had tacos at our house and Jack's best friend and his family came over to eat and then we went out on two golf carts to trick-or-treat.  Grandpa stayed at our house to pass out candy.

It was a cold night, as usual, so it seemed that many of the houses were handing out more candy than ever in an attempt to make sure that they unloaded all that they could during the two-hour allotted time.

When the kids got back home, they went straight to the basement and began sorting their loot.

Smiles all around as trades were taking place.  Plus, the kids didn't have school the next day (a Professional Development Day for teachers and staff) so they were amped up on sugar!