Merry Christmas

We are headed to Tucson to celebrate the birth of Christ with family.

We are so blessed.

~Merry Christmas from our family to yours~

Waiting for Santa...

We don't have a fireplace so Santa will need to use the front door:




Our stockings are hung and ready! There's one for my Sweetheart, one for me, one for Grievous and a little one for Naboo:

Happy Christmas week!

Our Christmas Tree - the other stuff

I posted the Dallas Cowboy stuff that overwhelms our tree. Here's the rest of the ornaments that adorn the tree.....

My Sweetheart and I are both big football fans, so I managed to sneak in my AZ Cardinals ornaments on the tree. Actually My Sweetheart will claim that he 'allows' these on the tree:

We are HUGE superhero fans so we have a few superhero ornaments on the tree as well. A couple years back we found these next two Hallmark ornaments at Kohl's. There's Clark Kent's suit-jacket hanging on a hanger with the Superman suit hiding underneath:

And we have Wonder Woman's suit, cape and headband hanging on a hanger:

And we have Spiderman hanging out:

And the star of our tree, Superman:

And to masquerade our immaturity, we have the 'normal' stuff too:

We love our 'colorful' tree!

Our Christmas Tree - Dallas Cowboys

Life with a Dallas Cowboy fan is not easy. Take our Christmas tree for example. We have quite a few Cowboy ornaments that are a must on the tree. No negotiation about it.

There's this guy:


And this one:

And this one:

Then there's the ball ornaments:

In different sizes:

And different colors:

And then there's this:

And this:

And of course the Cowboy fan's tree would not be complete without Emmitt Smith:

My Sweetheart loves his Cowboy stuff!

My Wrapping Party - solo

I had a one woman wrapping party today! That sounds funny, I know. Several years ago, before I moved to Phoenix, my sisters and I would have a "wrapping party". We would save all of our wrapping for one day. We would gather at one of our homes where it was just us. We would send husbands and kids away for the day. We would have snacks, drink wine, listen to Christmas music and just wrap away! It made wrapping fun! When I moved to Phoenix, I kept the tradition of a wrapping party but pathetically enough it's became a one woman show! :)

This year, I kept my wrapping simple. I bought three rolls of wrapping paper from the dollar section at Target. Each roll is 40 feet long. It's only about 2 feet wide. The normal wrapping paper is what about 4 feet wide? I had reservations about buying it but I had a lot of shirt and robe boxes to wrap so I figured it wouldn't be too bad. Turns out it was great! I didn't have all the extra cutting and excess paper. There was absolutely no waste whatsoever! Whoever designed that was brilliant! In the past I would also buy different paper for all the different families. My older sister and her family would get one, my younger sister and her family would get another, my cousins would get another, etc. It was cute but expensive and wasteful. This year everyone got the same paper.

I decided in order to make the wrapping special, I would make home-made gift tags. I used my Cricket Expression to cut out tags. I used a stamp with silver ink and a red gel pen to write my to and from names. Then, I attached the tag to the present with red rope ribbon that I got at Walgreens for 99 cents:



It looks cute. It's very simple, but I love it.

And transporting will be easier. Usually I add bows to every gift and by the time we get to my sisters house they have fallen off or are squished beyond recognition. This way, the gift will stay neat and clean:

My Sweetheart was a little surprised that they all looked the same. But when I told him I spent a total of $4 on wrapping paper, he was pleased. The labels didn't cost anything since I used scraps of paper that I had from other projects.

Now that my shopping is done and the wrapping is done I can sit and relax and enjoy all the sappy Christmas movies that are on the Hallmark Channel this week!

Global Home - Candles

My MIL bought me a candle for my birthday this year from a place called Global Home located in Central Phoenix. They have one of a kind items, from rustic furniture to large metal camels -- and tons of candles. Candles that range from $14.99 to $175.99. A huge assortments of all sizes and scents.

She bought me this candle and candle holder for my birthday. It has a "Christmas Spice" scent. I smells wonderful!

It turned out that the candle that she bought me had a defective wick. So we stopped in on Saturday as we were running errands to exchange the candle. We did some browsing as well. We ended up buying two 'cinnamon' scented candles. They are just so cute and rustic looking. I'm not really into rustic decor but I love scented candles so we got these. The candles smell wonderful. They fill the entire room with this great cinnamon scent:

I'm sold on making Global Home my new candle store. They are a little out of the way but totally worth it!

Package at the front door....

It was from COACH! I can't wait to open it!!!!

Christmas lights!

We walked around the neighborhood this evening. The neighborhood is aglow and it looks beautiful! I love it!

It's so hard to get a good picture of the lights. My Sweetheart loves to put lights on the bushes and on the ground and on the trees. He goes ALL out.

My contribution was the green light bulb in the outside lanterns:



When I get get better pictures, I'll post them.

Coach Site DOWN!

The Coach website was down this afternoon. My Sweetheart went online to order my Christmas gift and right in the middle of our order, the site went DOWN! So we called the toll free number like the site instructed to do and all the associates were BUSY! We had to leave our name and number and wait for a call back. It turns out that the site was down because today was the last day to use the By Invitation Only 25% off the entire purchase that we got in the mail. It expired today (which is why we were placing our order) and so was the rest of the nation and the entire site freaked out and just shut down. OMS!

We got a call back within 20 minutes only to find the two items that were sitting in our checkout cart were OUT OF STOCK! Can you believe it??? So my Sweetheart, being the sweetheart that he is, asked if the two items were available to place on back order (I REALLY wanted these two items) and they were not. So then he asked if any of the local stores had the items in stock. They did not. Bummer. Then he asked if any stores had them. They found one in Southern California! We called to find they had just run out. Double bummer. But my Sweetheart, he's a persistent one, he called another store in Southern California and they had both items in stock! YAY!!!

He's been on the phone for the past hour trying to order 2 items for me. What a Sweetheart indeed. He makes me feel like the most special person in the entire world. xxxooo

Christmas decor, part 3 - living room

The living room generally gets covered in Christmas decor. This year, I decided to cut back a little and kept it simple. On the coffee table, I changed out the candles on the pillars I keep here year round and added some garland and ornaments. I also found this chrome dove at Joanne's that I fell in love with -- and it was on sale!

The end table has an electrical train decoration and colorful coasters from Pier 1:

The other end table has this glass container that I filled with white and red jingle bells that I got on clearance at Walmart last season:

This cute Santa sits on the same table and is sort of used to cover up the back of the frames that face the dining area. You can't really see them because my picture is so dark:

These Christmas blocks that I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby last year were arranged by My Sweetheart. I always line them up neatly in a row and he comes by and sets them askew:

I got this guy for about $7 at Joanne's when they were having a 60% off sale:

My candles got the red berries treatment:

I love this. Not a great picture but I placed these red branches in a vase, added a silver bow and a string of lights and it makes for a very festive hallway:



Even The Aerial Assault got in on the decorating:

That's all for now. I'll post the Christmas tree and the outside lights and my wreath soon!

Off to bed. We have a full day planned for tomorrow!

Christmas decor, part 2 - Christmas Village

Here's the other little tree I got at Target. They are so adorable. The pictures I take just do not do them justice. I think I need a new camera because my pictures are so dull...??? It's possible I just need a better photographer :)

This tree sits between the dining area and the living room:


Here's some of my Christmas village. It's hard to take a good photo of it. There are 6 houses in total. This year I put put a string of lights down and then placed the house around the lights. Then I covered the entire surface with the fluffy white stuff. I don't know what it's called but it looks like snow. It's super cute:

Oh, and my Sweetheart always manages to sneak Darth Vader into my village. It's pretty deranged but what the heck. It' makes people laugh when they see it:

We are HUGE Star Wars fans by the way. In case you didn't already figure that one out.

Christmas decor, part 1

I have a lot of pictures so I will post in parts. I'll start with the entrance way and the kitchen and dining area. Here's the entrance way. Last year I got some great after Christmas deals at Target. I got two of these little Christmas trees in urns for almost nothing. They are adorable! I placed one in the entrance way.

The little trees have red berries, pine cones and Christmas lights on them:


I got this Christmas countdown calendar at the $1 section at Target last year:


I got this cute tree and the little ornaments at Pier 1 last year:

Last year my entrance way table with my Nativity scene was a little boring - here. So this year I added the lighted garland around the mirror. I like the way it looks:

My shelf in the kitchen got dressed up with a lighted wreath and a snowman:


As always, Grievous' biscuit jar got decorated with a pretty red bow:

I love this plate:

My centerpiece that I adorned a little more than I did last year:


This is the front of my centerpiece. Someone stuck his Dallas Cowboy nutcracker in the middle of it:
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Living room and Christmas Tree and Christmas wreath to follow!