Christmas...Seven

I'm a new fan of Birchbox...ever heard of it? I found out about it on this blog, signed up and got my first box last week. Once a month for $10 you get a box filled with goodies! Here's what my November box looked like.

Two Paper Dolls coasters - Alex and Isabelle hair tie - Kate Spade Twirl perfume (smells so good!)

Zoya nail polish (the shade is Noel, kind of a sparkly denim blue...super cute on toes!) - J. R. Watkins Foot Repair Salve - Jouer Lip Enhancer

So why am I blogging about this on my Christmas countdown? You can buy a 3, 6 or 12 month gift subscription, and in my opinion this would be a great Christmas gift! Or you could buy it for yourself! You can go HERE for more details. (For the record...Birchbox doesn't know anything about this post.)

{Click here for your LAST CHANCE to enter my GIVEAWAY!}

Christmas...Six

Grandma taught Maggie & I how to make earrings today!

{Click here to enter my GIVEAWAY!}

Christmas...Five

After church last night we came home and decorated our tree and started to put up decorations. A few traditions that we always do...Dad is in charge of putting up the lights, Christmas music must be playing, and we always eat grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner. :) 

The finished product! Maggie likes to call it our larger version of a Charlie Brown tree. :)

These ornaments are very special because they were made by my dad's parents several years ago. 

There's also a birdhouse, but I didn't get a picture of it. 

Is your tree up yet? Do you have any ornaments that are special to you?

{Click here to enter my GIVEAWAY!}

Christmas...Four

Pinterest is full of neat things for Christmas. Here's just a sampling!

Source

I just love Willow Tree, and the sign....LOVE IT!

Source
That's what it's all about, right?!

Source
I thought this was a really neat way to display Christmas cards. My only concern is I think it may look cluttered with more cards.

Source

Sometimes the simplest things can make such a difference in a room!

Source
How neat would it be to document special vacations like this in an ornament?

Source
Candle, cranberries and salt...can't get any easier than that!

Source
Isn't the vase with the ornaments so pretty?! It's so simple, yet I think it looks very elegant!

Source
I'm loving wreaths for all seasons!

What are some of your favorite Christmas things on Pinterest?

{Click here to enter my GIVEAWAY!}

Christmas...Three

Today we went to get a Christmas tree. This was the second year we literally went into the forest and cut one down. Braxton came along and that was alot of fun. It took us awhile to find one that we liked, but we finally did! It's a bit large :) but it works!

Can you see my dad in there? He's in all camo. :)

Now it just needs to be decorated!

As we were driving around we were trying to keep Braxton entertained, and he was keeping us entertained as well! Here's a funny video of him fake crying. He just started doing this the other day, it's quite funny. He certainly gets a kick out of doing it and loved watching the video of himself 'crying'. Funny kid!

{Click here to enter my GIVEAWAY!}

Christmas...Two

I wanted to do some homemade gifts again this year. I finished my first one tonight, which is this super cute hat for Lizzie. It's actually supposed to have earflaps on it, but I thought it looked adorable like this. Can't wait to see it on her!

Are you making any homemade gifts this year?

{Click here to enter my GIVEAWAY!}

Christmas...One

I've seen lots of advent calendars on Pinterest and I thought it would be fun to do something similar on here. So, for the next 25 days I'll be posting about something Christmas related - baking, crafts, activities, etc. I'm pretty excited about it and have lots of ideas about things I'd like to do leading up to Christmas. 

I'm super excited about today too, because for Day One I thought I'd do a giveaway!!! 

I've got 4 packets of Ghirardelli Hot Cocoa (2 are peppermint...Mmmm!), Cadbury chocolates, and a Wonderful Wick Mulberry Spice candle just waiting to be mailed off to someone! To enter all you have to do is leave a comment telling me what you're doing for Christmas this year. The winner will be randomly picked and announced on Day Eight (Dec 8) of my Christmas countdown.

Thank You

Two words that mean so much, and yet we don't say them often enough. One aspect of this is with our military. Do we only thank them once a year when Veterans Day rolls around? This Christmas season I'm joining friends and sending letters/packages to those who are deployed in the military to not only wish them a Merry Christmas, but to thank them for what they've done to protect our country and the freedoms we enjoy.

Will you join me? You can go to AnySoldier.com to get addresses and even a list of specific things that they could use on their deployment. Our family sent out two packages today, and I plan on sending some letters this week too. If you do send packages, but sure to do it soon so they'll get to them on time.

Go visit Rebecca at Cotton+Wood to join this linky party.

Flakes & Quakes

I'm sitting downstairs. The fire is burning hot and snowflakes are gently falling from the sky. It's been snowing off and on since Wednesday, and I love it! As much as I love fall (which was very short this year), I just love to look out and see everything blanketed in snowy white. Especially since our house is sitting on a hill overlooking Okanogan. It's so beautiful. 

I've taken Braxton out to play for a little bit each day. He likes being out there, but he's not quite sure what to think about the snow. He has tried to get it off his gloves and shoes while exclaiming, Yuck! or Ewww! =) I've tried to tell him it's cool and even throw it at him (gently of course) but he's still not completely convinced. 

:~:~:~:~:~::~:~:

This morning we woke up at 5 am to the house shaking like crazy and a loud rumble. I personally didn't notice the shaking, but I did wake up from the rumble and in my half-asleep/half-awake state couldn't quite figure out what it was. Charlie started barking like crazy and then Josh came in and said I think we just had an earthquake. Sure enough...news reports said it was 4.0-4.6 magnitude (depends on where you read) with the epicenter being just 7 miles from us! Crazy!

:~:~:~:~:~::~:~:

Finally, while it has nothing to do with flakes or quakes, I just have to share something Braxton did today! We always pray with him before meals and lately he has started saying 'Amen', usually when asked to. This evening he took a bite of cookie, put it down and then put his hands up to his eyes and was saying 'pray'. I took us a minute before we realized what he was saying, but when we did I prayed and then he said 'Amen.' A little bit later Maggie asked him if he needed to pray. He said 'yes' and then I told him to pray so he closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and then said 'Amen'. It was SO cute! Love that kid!

Bountiful

Yesterday I was reading Psalm 13 and the first and last verses really stuck out to me and I just thought I would share.

Verse 1 - How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

If we're completely honest with ourselves, we definitely go through times in our life where it feels like the Lord has forgotten us. Sometimes the trials and tribulations in life seem unbearable and that there's nothing to be thankful for at the present time in our life.

Verse 6 - I will sing unto the LORD, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. 

No matter what the situation, no matter how we feel...the Lord has dealt bountifully with us. There are SO many things to be thankful for. Things that the Lord has blessed us with that we take for granted and don't even think to be thankful for them. Yes, we may be going through a 'rough patch' in life (so it seems) but the Lord is good and 'hath dealt bountifully with me.' Let's take our eyes off of our problems and focus on the many blessings the Lord has given us! How about even being thankful for that trial in your life?? Start praising Him for everything you can think of and you'll soon realize just how good things really are!

I heard this song tonight and thought it fit perfectly!

A New Adventure

That's right, we've embarked on a new adventure...that of potty training! :) My days are now are now filled with --

Cute little Thomas the Train underwear :)

A Cars potty seat

M&Ms

From day one, Braxton has been doing great! Even though I'm spending ALOT of time in the bathroom, it's nice having only having one child in diapers! *smile*

And just because he's so cute!

He loves Dr. Suess books...especially 'The Foot Book' and 'There's a Wocket in my Pocket'

Natural/Homemade

I'm not completely into the whole natural/homemade kick, but I like it when it works and makes sense. I thought I'd share some things that I've found to work well for me...some purchased, some homemade.

Black Soap is currently my favorite face wash. It's cheap and it works. Can't get any better than that!

Source

I'm really bad about washing my face at night. So after seeing these homemade face wipes on Pinterest, I thought I'd give it a shot. The first batch I made I put coconut oil and black soap in the water, but I found that the soap made them smell really weird. I was getting into the habit of washing my face every night (yay!) and was really liking them (aside from the smell), but then I noticed that they started molding which was not good. I had read that people put tea tree oil in the water to prevent molding so I made a new batch with coconut oil and tea tree oil. I'm ashamed to say I've only used it once since then, and I NEED to get back to forming this habit...starting tonight! I know I'll be thankful when I do because it can't be good to sleep with makeup on my face. 

We've all heard about how women's deodorant has unhealthy chemicals in them. Rather than purchasing men's deodorant :) I thought I'd try doing a natural deodorant, both for the purpose of the chemicals and just the interest in going 'natural'. Probably a year ago I tried wiping my underarms with apple cider vinegar and then powdering them with a baking soda/cornstarch mixture. Things I read said that your body has to go through a detox period (a few weeks) before you start seeing positive results, but even then I was not happy with it. I gave up and went back to store-bought deodorant. This summer/fall I looked at natural deodorants at our health food store, but they're $6 and up! Call me cheap, but I wasn't about to pay that much. Then I saw a homemade deodorant on Pinterest that you could put into an old deodorant stick. So after I ran out of my deodorant, I cleaned out the container and made the homemade deodorant. It's a baking soda/cornstarch mixture with coconut oil and tea tree oil. I've been using it for a month now and am very happy with it! For anyone who might want to try it I have one piece of advice for you: put it on before you get dressed. If you put it on after getting dressed the oil doesn't get worked into your skin as well, and you may get it on your shirt and look like you have been sweating...not cool! I speak from experience. Haha.

 Source

Toys

Remember as a child how much fun it was to get a new toy? I'm reliving that excitement right now, because I got a new 'toy' yesterday!

For quite some time now I've been wanting to get a new phone...a smart phone to be exact. I decided to do the responsible thing and wait as long as possible since my phone was still working fine and I didn't have a steady income yet. Even when my phone started acting up I used my sister's phone instead. I had my eye on a phone and I was just biding my time until I could upgrade to it.

Well, yesterday was the big day! The phone I had was starting to wig out, I had an upgrade available, and I have a steady income now. I knew the phone I wanted was priced at $80 the last time I looked, and while I had hoped it would have gone down in price during my waiting time it didn't seem that way since it was being priced at $100 online. I felt kinda guilty about paying that much, but I knew I had been waiting and that it was a phone I would be really happy with. So into the store I went prepared to pay the price. The model didn't have a price tag on it but I knew I wanted it anyways...I figured it couldn't have gone up in price. We started the upgrade process and then the salesman printed off the contract paperwork. I was searching the upside down paperwork for a price, and there it was ... $18.88!!! I couldn't believe it! I asked the guy if that was right and he confirmed it was. I was elated and after explaining to the sales people that I had come in expecting to pay alot more, they told me that the price had just gone down THAT DAY!

Isn't God good? I just love it when He blesses us in the seemingly small things in life!

So, here it is...my new toy! It's a Motorola ATRIX and is so cool!  I'm constantly finding new things that I like about it...just ask my family. Haha! The best feature? Camera on the front and back! Hello video chat! My one complaint? No Pinterest app. I suppose I'll live...;)