Today…

Outside my window: it’s a veritable winter wonderland right now if you ignore the frigidly cold temperature. We got a good bit of snow this weekend, not exactly a blizzard, but enough to make things look awfully white and pretty and it’s supposed to be cold enough for the next few days that I don’t anticipate it going anywhere anytime soon.

This weekend we: attempted staying home all day, all weekend. Friday night we did our grocery shopping, meaning the kids stayed up well past bedtime, so that we wouldn’t get stuck grocery shopping in the midst of the anticipated “blizzard”. I’m still glad we did this and although we didn’t stay home ALL weekend, compared to most weekends we did. We didn’t go out to eat, didn’t go out for coffee, didn’t wander the malls aimlessly. The few trips out we did take were short and to the point as we knew the weather could turn on us at any moment.

We also: finished up some of my lingering craft projects. I posted pictures of my paper ornaments that I made after loving the ones Jen @ Our Daily Big Top made last year (scratch that, apparently two years ago? wow I’m slow) on Saturday which we hung up on our balcony along with basically all of our other crafty Christmas projects. That has become a sort of Craft Central this season and I’m loving being able to put that space to cute use. Here are a few other things we’ve done recently:

A pared down version of the cute snowflake craft that Frugal Family Fun blog posted last year. We didn’t have any masking tape so I sort of dumbly tried duct tape which FYI is really hard to take back off the paper when you are done. You should be impressed that there are no gaping holes in this.

I also finished the holiday card wreath (tutorial at Katydid & Kid) that I’ve been slowly working on for a couple weeks now. I used scrap book paper with adhesive backing to cover the clothespins, because well that was super easy. Then we went out and bought a hot glue gun at Walmart for about $6 (plus $4 for glue) and glued the clothespins to the embroidery hoop. A piece of green ribbon from my gift wrapping things finished it up easily and we hung it on the inside of our front door using the big wreath holder thingy I bought a couple years ago.

In the Kitchen:We had a lot of good food this weekend! Dan made burgers and pizza on Saturday and we had leftover pizza for lunch on Sunday and meatloaf for dinner – lots of yummy leftovers and still much cheaper than going out to eat. Last night I also made my step mother’s infamous banana bread recipe in my new bundt pan and added some dark chocolate chips for good measure. Made for a delicious but not remotely healthy breakfast this morning!

I am reading: A First Among Sequels (Thursday Next, Book 5) by Jasper Fforde, which means, yes, I finally finished Little Women, my first ever e-read. I’m planning to review the Kindle soon and might review Little Women as well, though I summed up my thoughts on the book here pretty well (scroll to the bottom-ish for the most recent reads)

You should check out these great links:

You know I’m all about homemade decor right now, especially kid crafty stuff. Here are some links to projects I’m crushing on:

• adorable printable ornaments from Wild Olive inspired by ornaments found at IKEA, but hers are much cuter in my opinion.
• 6 ways to let the kids help decorate the home @ ohdeedoh – I’m planning to do some food garland with the kids soon.
• get directions for how to make 5 pointed snowflakes @ how about orange (and snag this cute desktop wallpaper while you’re there)
• not crafty but still cool – 12 awesomely cool holiday books for kids @ cool mom picks that might help get you in the holiday spirit!
• Paper Snowflakes at Melancholy Smile (the gorgeous momma behind the genius Christmas video that’s been rocking the ‘net this year)
• Here’s a cute poinsettia coloring page from Wee Folk Art for an easy fun craft.
• Speaking of poinsettias, here are 12 tips from Life as Mom to help avoid accidental poisoning this holiday season.
• You know you want a 3D Perry the Platypus Ornament from family.go.com for your tree this year!

One Two last pictures to share before I go: here’s a couple cute pictures from Friday night, bundling up for our nighttime shopping trip.

For some reason, those boots were just calling to me to take a picture of them, but he didn’t make that easy, fidgeting around the room trying to zip up. Love the look of determination on his face.

SUCCESS. Rearing and Ready to GO!

Well lovies, my online time this morning will be over in about 15 minutes so I guess I’ll see you tonight!