Nov 09
Everyone,
Last year I was done with most of my Christmas shopping by now. If I hadn’t bought everything, I had the presents all picked out and where to buy them.
This year, I’m still struggling with what to buy people. Or I have ideas and no idea where to buy.
Honestly, I think my biggest problem is that I’m trying to get the best deal and get the most bang for my buck. So when I decide to get Butterfly a puzzle and find it on Amazon, I should just get it.
I don’t.
I go poking around on different sites to see if I can find the puzzle cheaper somewhere. With free shipping. And cash back rebates.
Then I get a little frustrated or overwhelmed or whatever. Or I get distracted with the kids and I couldn’t get back to it in time.
I know! I need a personal shopper. Anyone interested?
Safire
SafireChrsitmas prep Christmas, holidays
Dec 13
Everyone,
Hosted by Krystyn at Really, Are You Serious?
Hey, look! A picture of me! I’m always the one holding the camera. Pushing the shutter button. Fiddling with the settings. But this weekend, my wonderful husband grabbed the camera and caught this gem.
And as you can see, what a ball making our very first gingerbread house together.
The whole time Pirate and Professor kept saying “Don’t eat it!” with every candy they placed. Professor placed his candy in color order (all the reds together, all the greens together, etc.) and Butterfly did as many patterns as she could.
What a fun evening we spent!
Safire
Safireall 3 kids, Christmas 2010, Chrsitmas prep Christmas
Dec 07
Everyone,
It has been annoyingly cold the past few days. Horribly so. The high today (I believe) was about 30 degrees. It felt like 20. It’s been very windy on top of the cold. And the wind just bites through clothes. The boys have been shivering in their coats on the way to and from school. They are at least excited to get into the car now. Before it was a pain. But now they realize that there is warmth in the car and they go willingly! The novelty of it all.
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Our house is becoming littered with packages. Ahh the joys of ordering Christmas online. I love to get the packages! But it’s kind of no fun when you know what’s in them. I guess I miss the suspense of Christmas, and not knowing what things are. I did get one package last week that I was very excited about! I finally saved up enough Swagbucks to buy a new waterproof camera!
If you don’t use Swagbucks, why not?! It’s the easiest way I’ve found to earn a few extra bucks online by doing things I normally do. Like searching the web. Not only did I get this camera (basically for free) I’ve also paid for part of Christmas with it. Go, click, win!
The UPS guy stopped by here at 10pm tonight to deliver a package he forgot on his truck. Now THAT is dedication.
————
On to my new camera! It’s a Lumix DMC-TS2 and it’s beautiful. It’s waterproof, shockproof, and 14 mega-pixels. I’ve been taking just a few pictures with it and I’m happy so far! I took a bunch of video which my computer doesn’t recognize. Rats! I guess I’m going to have to actually read the huge manual they sent to see if I can’t get the computer and the camera to talk to each other. But that’s something to do when it’s earlier in the day.
I’m excited to try this camera out more, especially in the summer. We got some great shots at the beach last year from the old camera. Let’s see if this one will be better.
Safire
Safirecamera stuff, Chrsitmas prep, cold camera, Christmas, mail
Dec 05
Everyone,
This week’s question at the Multiples and More site is all about Holiday Traditions.
What are your family’s holiday traditions?
Our family’s holiday tradition starts the day after Thanksgiving. We pull out the tree and all the ornaments and the lights. Then we go to town! I take down several pictures to hang decorations. We move our couch out of the way to fit our tree in the living room. It’s a day full of holiday music, oohs and ahhs, and having fun as a family.
On December 1st, we start our nightly chocolate advent calanders that I bought at Trader Joes. This year I am trying to tell them a story and sing a song along with the chocolate. But I think the stories I have are just too old for them and they loose intrest quickly. I’m too lazy to find more age appropriate stories to read. I’ll hang on to the ones I have and the kids will grow into them.
On Christmas Eve, we watch A Christmas Story and eat Chinese Food from our favorite take out place. In years past, just Juice and I did this. But I think Butterfly is old enough to enjoy the movie this year so she’ll probably join us. Juice and I stay up way too late getting the presents out. We take pictures of the tree, the presents and the full stockings. We then drop the stockings off in the kids’ room to keep them occupied for a bit so we can get maybe another half hour of sleep in the morning.
On Christmas day, we let the kids play with their presents from Santa for awhile. This usually keeps them occupied for a long time. We typically call my parents and set the webcam up so they can watch the kids open presents too. That takes awhile too. The setting up and the opening of presents.
Once we are done with that, we have breakfast of cinnamon rolls, bacon and eggs. We open more presents, and then have a little lunch of crackers, small sausages and oranges. The boys go down for their nap and we spend the afternoon watching new movies and playing new games.
When they wake up, we typically still have some kind of presents to open and dinner to have! We have a ham and baked potatoes and rolls. Sometime in the evening we call Juice’s family where ever they have gathered together (where is that going to be this year?) and then we call my Nana at her house.
The kids get put to bed late and full of candy. Juice and I collapse exhausted on the couch and vow we will pick up the next day.
Other traditions we do around the holiday season:
- A trip to Mt. Vernon. We like to see the estate all done up for Christmas. I like to tour the house and see the 3rd floor which they only open during the holidays.
- The Great Toy Clean Up. We purge toys that no one is playing with and banish them to the attic. The idea is that in 6 months they will come back and the kids will have fresh toys to play with again. But it never happens.
- Little People Nativity Scene.
- New ornaments for the tree.
- Candy making and sharing with friends.
- Cinnamon roll making and freezing and sharing with friends.
- Christmas cards.
Whew…we are busy duing Christmas! I love it!
Safire
SafireChrsitmas prep Christmas
Dec 01
Everyone,
I’m going to cautiously say that I think I am done Christmas shopping. I need to pull out my list and check it twice. But I think I have everything I need.
Stocking stuffers? Check! They came in the mail today.
Santa presents for the kids? Check! I bought Butterfly’s right after school started and then I got the boys’ from Craig’s List this week.
Presents from us to the kids? Check! And thank you, kind blogging people who send me free stuff to try out or gift cards to use.
Presents to the extended family? Check! I ordered those on Monday and hopefully they will be to my house soon. Then I can divvy them up, wrap them, and ship them to the appropriate houses.
Presents for friends? Check! I only buy a few things for a few select friends but I hope they like what I have for them this year.
Presents from the kids to their siblings? Uh…half check? I have some presents left over from last year (I KNOW!) that the boys will give each other. I’d like to take Butterfly to the store with a dollar limit and let her pick something out for the boys. We did that last weekend after seeing Tangled, but she didn’t see anything she wanted. Um, wanted to get THEM, she kept saying.
Riiiight.
Hey, I even ordered my Christmas cards. Now I can focus on the holiday season. And this holiday season I will be perfecting “Don’t touch the tree!” in a very loud and stern voice. I must practice this at least 30 times a day, if not more.
Safire
SafireChristmas 2010, Chrsitmas prep Christmas
Dec 01
Everyone,
It’s that time of year. The time of year where I start scouring the photo places for the perfect Christmas card. Hopefully, I’ve already gotten my Christmas picture done. But I haven’t figured out how to doctor up to look beautiful for family and friends to see. Enter Shutterfly!
I am loving their Christmas cards this year. They have the most adorable candy cane stripe card that would be perfect for this gem of a picture:
Or perhaps you’re more interested in having a more general holiday card feeling. I’m really enjoying the starlight joy card. It would go perfectly with this gem of a picture:
Or maybe you don’t want to send out holiday cards. It can be a pain. All that addressing, and stamp stamping could be tiresome. Maybe you’d like to make a wall calendar with your yearly memories. (My Mom does this every year and we LOVE it.) Try it! I know this little gem would go great on April’s month.
Don’t you think? If you want great Christmas cards this year, check out Shutterfly! I know I am going to love the 50 cards I’m going to order from them here soon. (Want a Christmas card from me? email me safirecat at gmail dot com or see me on Facebook.) I can’t wait!
Shutterfly Website
Follow Shutterfly on Twitter
Shutterfly on Facebook
Safire
PS- Are you a blogger? Get 50 free cards too! See here.
Safireall 3 kids, Christmas 2010, Christmas cards, Chrsitmas prep Christmas
Nov 26
Everyone,
We got out all the Christmas stuff today and actually put up our tree. Remember last year when I had a tree freak out? Well, this year we just bit the bullet. Our tree is up. With lights on it. And ornaments on it. Nothing really old, just enough to make it look festive. And this year’s ornaments too.
Our first decorations up this year were our window lights. The boys sobbed and sobbed over them. They were horrible! They didn’t look nice! Daddy don’t put them there! Put them on the tree! The tree!
Excuse the picture quality on this one…it was overexposed and I tried to fix it. Eh.
Once Juice explained that there were other lights to put on the tree, they calmed down. Now they are enchanted with the tree. Butterfly has started praying for the tree again. I am wondering how long that will last this year. (Last two years she prayed for it almost every prayer for months after.)
Yay for Christmas!
Safire
SafireChristmas 2010, christmas tree, Chrsitmas prep Christmas
Dec 12
Everyone,
A few words for everyone today.
Butterfly picked up all the toys after she dumped every single one of them out on the living room floor. She also pretended her big rainbow dolphin was her baby and Juice was still the daddy. I got to be Flower.
Pirate was trying to help Daddy by picking up an unopened glass bottle of milk and dropping it. It shattered and milk went everywhere. He got a small cut on his ankle and bled through his sock. There is now milk under our fridge and I imagine that’s going to smell really good soon.
Professor totally face planted on the sidewalk today and now has major road rash across his nose and forehead. He also said, “Sit! Soot! Now!” while Juice was vacuuming. Guess what we yell a lot when we are vacuuming?
Juice helped me wrap presents for a few hours this afternoon. The kids were sleeping (or in Butterfly’s case, pretending to sleep) and we got half of what is hidden in the house all wrapped and in one place. There are no presents under the tree for a reason. Can you guess two of them?
I just asked Juice what I should put about me today and he outlined my day with a lot of “tired.” peppered through out it. Seriously, I think I ran 3 errands today, wrapped a bunch of presents, make chicken stock, took care of hurt and crying kids, and was really tired. One thing I didn’t do was make any kind of food for anyone. We had lunch out and Juice made dinner (grilled cheese) so that was good.
Now, off to bed so maybe I can stop being so tired!
Safire
SafireChrsitmas prep, daily stuff, Flower, presents
