Saturday, December 24, 2011

Festival of the Trees 2011

Our kick-off to Christmas starts the Monday after Thanksgiving when we get to go set up our tree for Festival of the Trees. We were crazy this year, and decided to put 2 trees in the Festival. Our first idea was for a redneck tree. Tracie was worried that it wouldn't sell, so we did a nativity tree too. I found it hard to take pictures of just our tree, cause the trees are so close you get all of the other ones in the picture too. So, with that said, here is our Redneck Tree.
There were pheasant tails, cat tails, and plastic pink flamingos sticking out all around it. We had cans of Spam games (bought at the IFA store) ties with orange tulle, shot gun shell lights, Jeff Foxworthy movies and books, toy guns, gummy fish of all colors, and we strung pop-tops from soda cans with hunter orange tulle. Under the tree were presents wrapped with newspaper with cute tulle bows.

Here's a close-up of the topper. We got some antlers, put a santa hat on it with a light up Rudolph nose and draped shotgun shell lights around it. You can see one of the flamingos good in this one :)And here is the whole set-up. We had astro turf on the bottom, a fire pit with a fake fire, camp chairs with orange vests hung over the back, a wood spool table with a jean quilt draped over the back, 2 games (Fishinoploly and You might be a Redneck if..), and a fishing pole. We had fun making this tree, and everyone loved to stop and admire (laugh at) it. Still not sure if this one ever sold. Guess no one actually wanted to pay for a redneck tree even though they liked it :)Here is our nativity tree. It turned out so pretty. I loved it. This one sold!!
The ornaments are kind of hard to see, cause they were mostly glass nativity scenes or angels. We had sparkly stars, sparkly tulle, and sparkly white pointsettas. I liked the sparkly Christ is Born wooden signs.Here is a close-up of some of the ornaments. We had different names of Christ printed in vinyl and we put them on some filled round plastic ornaments. I really liked how they turned out. Might have to add some of those to my tree at home.We got the Willow Tree nativity set to put on top of the bookshelf, and we added a bunch of Christmas books, a fisher price nativity, and a few cute signs with sayings like, 'wisemen still seek Him'. We were told that it looked professionally decorated :) This is a fun way to start off the Christmas season. Thanks Tracie for the tradition! We did decide only to do 1 tree next year :)

Thursday, December 22, 2011

November at a glance

November flew by for us! We did make time to have some cousins come over to make turkeys! (The cousins have been having withdrawls from each other.... in the summer they saw each other a ton.... now that most of them are in different schools, it's way harder! I can guarantee they are all very thankful for summers with cousins!) Below is a sample turkey.....
Here is Isabel's turkey.... it was consumed very quickly.
Here are the girls making their tukeys. (Sarah, Isabel & Ari)
Here is Ari's turkey....
Here is Sam's turkey... He is a talented boy. His turkey looks awesome :)
Sarah was very proud of her turkey!
Ben got a beak and 1 feather onto the turkey, the rest went right into his mouth!
We then had them make thankful turkeys. They were all very good at writing down themselves (except for Sarah and Ben) what they were thankful for. (Ari decided she could be thankful for everything except her mom) She is standing here clarifying that everyone else said they were thankful for their moms, so she didn't have to put it on hers :) She said she really is thankful for her mom.
Ben is in the phase where he has to make faces in each picture. He and Adam love playing together :)
Here are the girls showing their turkeys. They did a great job!
Here is the close-up of the boys turkeys.
And here is Adam with his turkey. Best thing is, they were easy as can be to put together :) You can make anything with rice crispies! I'm so thankful for my family and extended family! I love these kids and doing things for them! I truly have been blessed this year, and have so much to be thankful for.