My Favorite Things of 2012

I am linking up to 320 Sycamore Favorite Things party.  I look forward to this every year and contemplate my favorite things many weeks before.  It is so hard for me to decide what my favorite things are (or narrow down the list) and yet I can have a somewhat running list in my head but, then sit down to write this post and totally draw a blank! Let’s see how I do…

My favorite people of course are my family.

My favorite new book is The Child Whisperer and anyone who deals with children should have this book…even if the children are adults too! What a healing book this has been for me and yet so helpful with understanding each of my 5 children in a new light.

I love my Canon T1i camera and I bought a Camera Coat for it that protects it from getting banged up and wet.

I drink Spark every morning and it has helped me to have the energy I need and provide vitamins as well to help me with exercising.

I also love the Herbal Cleanse from Advocare and it jumped started my healthy eating and weight loss. I also drink the fiber drinks a few times a week.

 

I love herbal tea’s on cold days and I found this Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride at the store and loved it!

I love Bob’s Sweet Stripes Peppermint’s any shapes or sizes but, the brand is the best soft mint’s for Christmas time.

My top 3 websites I surf and buy from are:

Dressing Your Truth Online Course
Dressing Your Truth Online Store

{Go Check out Dressing Your Truth if you’ve never heard of it. It has changed my life in so many wonderful ways!}

I love all the deals with unique gifts at Groop Dealz Boutique.

Downeast Clothing – I buy clothes for my daughters and myself when sales are going on. I love the modest dresses, skirts and undershirts and t’s.

My favorite store to frequent in person is Ross. I love finding deals in this store and I have a routine in the way I shop the store. I have found some great clothes and shoes but, I love the decorative pillow isle and kitchen dish isles too. I got my ceramic egg holders-I use as jewelry holders- for under $5 each and all new hangers for my closet.

Last I love Pinterest…I am really addicted…like bad but, I love it and have learned so many great new tips from cleaning to crafting…so that makes it okay right???!!!

And look at that I came up with 12 without even trying all in honor of 12/12/12 Favorite Things Party! I can’t wait to read about everyone’s favorite things. I always pick out a few to try.

Holiday Home Tour 2012

After about a week of Christmas Tree stand drama and trying to get the tree to stand without falling over it is finally looking like Christmas around the house.  The stockings are hung and the Christmas Tree has been decorated 3 times!

I was rather frustrated last weekend trying to get into the Christmas spirit of decorating and kind of thankful now for the chance to re-do decorating this weekend.  It was much more peaceful and I love the added changes I made.

Even Mokey the monkey has gotten into Christmas spirit and finding how a cute 8 yr old boy left him hanging on the bench put a smile on my face to remind me what Christmas is really about.

Yes, the tree saga was enough to have driven this Mom to want to just skip Christmas this year and throw out the tree but, in the end it was all meant to be.  Even if I strung the tree with lights 3 times and had pine needles and ornaments everywhere all week long the final result is that it improved each time I decorated the tree. 

I got to reflect on the special ornaments that have special memories on our tree and thankfully nothing was broken when the tree went timber.  We added Mr. Christmas this year to the tree and he is fun.  He turns your lights on and off with voice activation but, he also plays Christmas Carols and blinks the lights to the music…okay he can be really annoying but, again the kids LOVE him!

I tried to keep things simple and just put out things here or there around our existing decor to remind us it is Christmas time and to remember the reason for the season.

Happy Holiday’s and a good time to remember "Your home is about how you feel when you walk through the front door.  It is about your family, life and dreams together.”  All the other ‘stuff’ isn’t what is most important, it is about the cherish memories you share together and what better time to remind us of that then Christmas.

Linking to: At the Picket Fence, Funky Junk Interiors, Weekend Wrap up Party , Show and Tell Saturdays , Serenity You, Six Sisters Stuff, Think Pink Sundays, I Heart Nap Time, The DIY Showoff, Nifty Thrifty Things, It’s Overflowing, Meet Me Mondays, Its So Very Cheri, Made with love Monday, Martha Monday’s, The Dedicated House, Naptime Review, Pink Hippo Party, Motivate me Monday, Craftastic Monday, Market yourself Monday, A Round Tuit, Creative Me Monday,House On The Way, Not Just A Housewife, A Bowl Full of Lemons, The DIY Dreamer, The Shabby Cottage, 52 Mantels, Savvy Southern, Southern Lovely, Fresh Eggs Daily, 12 Days of Christmas

Pie Night 2012 + Giveaway for a Mrs. Smith’s Pie

We had a fabulous time at our annual Pie Night with about 70 people coming over for a slice a pie and since I couldn’t have all my blogger friends over for Pie I am hosting Pie Giveaway here at Real Southern Living!

How would you like a $1 off coupon for trying out Mrs. Smith’s Holiday Microsite or better yet a chance to win a free Pie from Mrs. Smith’s just for leaving me a comment below of what type of Pie you would buy and why? Contest closes Thursday December 13th at midnight and winner will be chosen by random number generator according to the number of your comment.  Feel free to leave multiple comments.

This holiday season keep in touch with friends and family with the Mrs. Smith’s Holiday microsite where you can create and send holiday e-cards. Best part is that there is also a free coupon for the sender and receiver of the e-card AND a portion of all sales of Mrs. Smith’s pies will be donated to Operation Home front! Mrs. Smith’s will be donating a $1 for every Mrs. Smith’s pie purchased during December. They will also be providing pies to Operation Home front. It is easy to click on the card you want to send, enter the information for the sender and receiver and you are done! Log onto www.holidaysmadememorable.com and send a free e-card and get your $1 off coupon delivered to your email right away!

Our family loves Coconut pies so I am pretty sure the Coconut Custard Pie would be a top contender for our favorite…we do love Pumpkin, Apple and Peach Pie too! It is so hard to pick a favorite because all of Mrs. Smith’s pies are yummy.  We also had Edward’s pies at our party which is a division of Mrs. Smith’s and the Key Lime was a huge hit.

So onto our Pie Night…

We had 25 various types of Pies.

We had our guests fill in our Grateful Tree of what they were Thankful for.

We had 70 people at one time in our home…yes most of those were probably under the age of 18.

My favorite Teenagers had a lot of fun coloring on the brown paper table cloths…I set that up for the little kids in the living room and well we all know how much fun coloring is for big kids too!

It was a wonderful night and most of our guests chose to sit on the back patio while all the kids played and ran around the back yard.  We had a great time at our 2nd Annual Pie Night and really enjoyed starting this fun tradition.

All right what kind of Mrs. Smith’s Pie you would get if you won the free pie and why?

Tutorial: Pretty Paper Snowflakes

Remember making snowflakes as a kid in school? Mine never came out so pretty and so I was never very fond of the activity.  Recently I decided to give it a try and it was a huge success.

In fact all 6 kids in this house got involved and had a blast making them. They had so much fun the first night they asked to do it again the next night. 

The hardest part is folding them so see below and I will do my best to explain each picture.

1. Fold one corner of your paper over to make a square. (We had extra legal size paper which made for a little more extra to cut off but, I saved it and made smaller snowflakes with the excess.)

2. Cut off the excess paper.

3. You should have a triangle.

4. Fold your triangle in.

5. You should have a smaller triangle.

6. Tricky part…holding the tip of your triangle on the fold your going to fold over 1 side of your triangle and without creasing it yet.

7. I fold the other side over aligning each edge to create 3rds. 

8. It should look like an arrow.

9. Cut off the tails of the arrow.

10. You should have a cone shape.

11. Cut designs into your cone leaving some of the edges intact to hold your snow flake together. (See some design suggestions below). The trick is to cut out a lot of the paper. You can cut off the tip if you want a hole in the center of your snowflake.

12. Unfold it carefully and your done!

Feel free to print out the picture above for design ideas. I traced a few before we opened our snowflakes so you can get an idea of the way we cut them to get more intricate designs. Below you can see another design after we cut it and then opened it up.

Every single one is different. We all played with different cuts that we liked and each one was slightly different…there was even one that I accidently cut more than anticipated and it came out better than expected.  The fun part was opening it to see what great masterpiece we had created.

I strung them up with fish line and Christmas ornament hooks while the kids were in school yesterday.  I taped a few to the back door. The teenagers especially loved coming home to them hanging up and were declaring which designs were theirs.  It was a family project that was a hit that allowed everyone some creativity.  The younger kids needed help folding and their designs may or may have NOT made it up for display yet! I plan to hang them on the Christmas Tree and Garland as well but, I am a little behind getting the Christmas Décor up.  This was a start and the best part was that the kids loved participating.

Beware of the mess it creates when 6 kids and a Mom make snowflakes!

Linking to: At the Picket Fence, Funky Junk Interiors, Weekend Wrap up Party , Show and Tell Saturdays , Serenity You, Weekend Soiree,Scrappy Saturdays, Six Sisters Stuff,Think Pink Sundays, I Heart Nap Time, The DIY Showoff, Nifty Thrifty Things, It’s Overflowing, Meet Me Mondays, Its So Very Cheri, Made with love Monday, Martha Monday’s, The Dedicated House, Naptime Review, Pink Hippo Party, Motivate me Monday, Craftastic Monday, Market yourself Monday, A Round Tuit, Creative Me Monday,House On The Way, Not Just A Housewife, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Mom’s Library, The DIY Dreamer, The Shabby Cottage, 52 Mantels, Savvy Southern, Southern Lovely,Fresh Eggs Daily

Fall Thanksgiving Tree

Every year we do a Thankful Tree and this year I decided on a little twist on the tradition. We collect branches and twigs every year to make our tree and then hang paper leaves with what we are thankful for.  This year we have added the wax leaves I posted about in my last post.

Gather some branches or twigs when you are collecting beautiful leaves. Arrange them in a vase or large jar with something to weight down the vase and help hold the branches in place.

Take your wax leaves and tie them onto the branches with twine or jute.  Now, I haven’t completely finished the tree yet but, I will have the kids write on some cute tags of what they are grateful for and hang them from the tree.

I gathered up extra leaves to set at the base of the tree.  I just love looking at all the leaves we dipped in wax.

I also hung some pom-pom puffs from the light hanging over the table and just in case you missed the tutorial on how to make the puffs or the wax leaves you can click here.

Linking to: At the Picket Fence, Funky Junk Interiors, Weekend Wrap up Party , Show and Tell Saturdays , Serenity You, Six Sisters Stuff, Sweet Boutique, It’s Overflowing, Think Pink Sundays, I Heart Nap Time, The DIY Showoff, Nifty Thrifty Things,  Meet Me Mondays, Its So Very Cheri, Made with love Monday, Martha Monday’s, Naptime Review, Pink Hippo Party, Motivate me Monday, Craftastic Monday,Making the World Cuter, Market yourself Monday, A Round Tuit, Creative Me Monday,House On The Way, Not Just A Housewife, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Some What Simple, The DIY Dreamer, The Shabby Cottage, 52 Mantels, Savvy Southern, Southern Lovely, Fresh Eggs Daily

Fall Coffee Filter Pom Pom’s & Waxed Leaf Garland

I had so much fun today creating this fun easy and very inexpensive Fall Garland for Thanksgiving Décor.

1. Buy Natural Basket-Style Coffee Filters. I think mine were $1.89

2. Separate out the filters and lay them flat.

3. Crinkle it up in a ball.

4. Smooth it back out.

5. Stack in groups of 10 & get out the stapler.

6. Staple 2 staples towards the center with a enough room to poke a hole in the center of them.

7. Fold in half and cut hole or poke hole.

8. Feed your twine or jute through the hole.

9. Scrunch up your pom-pom. I start with one side working toward the center.  Then do the other side and then scrunch both sides together making a cute scrunch messy pom-pom ball!

Next the waxed leaves.  Collect lots of pretty leaves and don’t forget fun twigs and sticks while you are at (for another project) with fun little boys in camo gear and pretty horses.

Those horses are sure fun especially when they follow you around with curiosity probably thinking you have food for them in your bucket of leaves. Oh yes getting side tracked…onto the wax leaves.

1. Buy paraffin wax at the grocery store. Mine I have had for 14 years at least sitting in my cupboard.

2. Cut some off the block and put in a throw away pan on your stove burner. Slowly melt the wax. (Learned the hard way and melted it fast only to have my downstairs all nice and Smokey.)

3. Use tongs and spatula that can be thrown away or cleaned after use or that you don’t care gets wax on it. Dip one leaf at a time with a thin coat of wax.

4. Let drip dry over pan and excess wax falls off.

5. Use wax paper to set leaves on to dry or in my case I used plastic wrap and foil with non-stick cooking spray on it.

6. Once cool and dried moved to another surface to make room for more leaves.

Tie them in between your pom- poms with more twine or jute and you are done! Or hang them with fishing wire all by themselves strung across a window.

I had everything for this project on hand except for the coffee filters so all of this cost me under $2. The kids all helped as well with the pom-pom’s and leaf waxing making it a fun family project.

Linking to: At the Picket Fence, Funky Junk Interiors, Weekend Wrap up Party , Show and Tell Saturdays , Serenity You, Weekend Soiree,Scrappy Saturdays, Six Sisters Stuff,Think Pink Sundays, I Heart Nap Time, The DIY Showoff, Nifty Thrifty Things, It’s Overflowing, Meet Me Mondays, Its So Very Cheri, Made with love Monday, Martha Monday’s, The Dedicated House, Naptime Review, Pink Hippo Party, Motivate me Monday, Craftastic Monday,Making the World Cuter, Market yourself Monday, A Round Tuit, Creative Me Monday,House On The Way, Not Just A Housewife, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Some What Simple,The DIY Dreamer, The Shabby Cottage, 52 Mantels, Savvy Southern, Southern Lovely,Fresh Eggs Daily

Dressing Your Truth–Spread The Love Sale through Sept. 30th 2012!

I am Spreading The Love! Click here to learn more about Dressing Your Truth and how to buy the course on sale for $99 plus receive a $20 gift certificate to the online store. That is a 67% off savings plus free money in the online store! No online code just make sure to use this link www.stacey.dressingyourtruth.com/spreadthelove . Offer only good through September 30th and the best deal ever offered!

I will be headed to Utah in a few weeks for the annual Dressing Your Truth event. This years theme is “Be You Be Beautiful.” I am so excited to meet up with the wonderful friends I have met online because of DYT.  Here is last year’s conference where I got to meet Carol Tuttle in person.

I am a type 2 beauty and more on my Dressing Your Truth journey is here.  My daughter is a type 3 and you can find more about her here. I know all of my children’s and husband energy types and it has been great to build better relationships as a family plus we understand each other better.

The following information is taken from the Dressing Your Truth home page. For more information and video clips please click here.

Dressing Your Truth.
Easy. Life-changing. Fun.

Your journey to total beauty confidence begins with the Dressing Your Truth Online Course. We’ve packed our sleek online training platform with expert demos and support, all dedicated to helping you discover your true beauty. Apply what you learn and get instant results. What you see in the mirror will make you smile.

Look better than ever—with these 5 elements of style.

Color

Learn about all 4 chromas and train your eye to see the difference, helping you bring your beauty to life.

Fabrication

See why the clothes that supposedly hide your flaws might not actually do you any good.

Texture

Discover which materials work best next to your skin. Even better, learn the reason why.

Design Lines

Learn which design lines flatter your type of beauty, not just your type of body.

Pattern

Find out why shapes and contrast in your clothes do more to highlight (or hide) your beauty than you think

Imagine looking in the mirror and loving what you see—every single day.
Start having that experience with the most supportive, intuitive makeover system you’ll ever find.

Go check it out here!  I would love to hear your comments or questions on the program too!

Pioneer Day–AJC Newspaper Article about Trek 2012

Today is Pioneer Day where people of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints remember the Mormon Pioneers who crossed the plains to settle in Utah. 

I am so excited that our local Atlanta Journal Constitution Newspaper decided to print an article today about the Pioneer Trek we did last week.  Read it here.

A couple of my pictures were used as well and my daughter was quoted.  She was referring to the Women’s pull they had where these young ladies pulled the cart up this incredibly steep hill without the help of any of the boys or men.

They hiked 20 miles total over 3 days in the heat, humidity, thunderstorms, hail and even crossed the river twice.

They had challenges and activities along the way to remind them of the Mormon Pioneer ancestors crossing the plains.

They had no running water or electricity at camp.

I have a great respect for these 250 youth who put aside their electronics and worldly things to participate in this incredible spiritual experience.

To find out more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or otherwise known as Mormon’s please visit www.mormon.org.

Busy 3 weeks…

I just realized I haven’t posted in 3 weeks…just a slightly busy month.

Our family drove across the country from where we live in Georgia to Utah and then back. 

We had a week of fun in Utah with 2 girls attending BYU Basketball Camp, we hiked up to the Y in Provo, rafting down the Provo river, visiting family we haven’t seen in a long time and going to Temple Square. We stopped in Nauvoo, IL on our way home and visited some of the sights.  We were gone for 2 weeks.  I hope to post about some of our wonderful memories on our journey.  We read about the Handcart Companies that crossed the plains that took a similar journey as us only we had a nice comfortable car with air conditioning and they had handcarts.

When we returned home we had to get ready for a re-enactment Pioneer Trek that our church was putting on for 250 youth ages 14-18 out in our local forest.  They had an adult couples act as a Ma’s and Pa’s and then divided the youth into a family. I had been helping to plan it for the last 9 months and our whole family played a role in the Trek.

These are a few of the cute children who came out one afternoon to help us out as ‘lost children’ and were troopers!

We have had no real home projects going on to post about and I was reminded yesterday that school starts in 3 weeks! Agh!  My house needs a good cleaning, laundry is piled up and I have a spare bedroom that I need to transform into a cute bedroom for our foreign exchange student arriving in less than 3 weeks! Wish me luck please and hopefully I will have a few things I can post along the way of our count down to back to school.

Guest Post @ Broken Treasures!

I am so excited! I have my very 1st Guest Post I am doing today over at Broken Treasures so, please go over and check out the 5 Photography Tips I’ve posted!

 

Thanks so much Elizabeth for featuring me on Feature A Friend {On Friday} and I look forward to meeting lots of new blogger friends!

Check back next week as I currently am on a getaway with my Husband to Savannah, GA! Can’t wait to show ya’ll this fabulous city!