12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge- Day 8

 Day 8: Least favorite thing about the Holidays

As cheesy and cliche as it sounds, there isn't really anything I DON'T like about the Holiday's. Christmas is my FAVORITE time of year, hands down! I love spending time doing fun Christmas activities with the girls, teaching them the real meaning of the season, spending time doing holiday activities with friends, all the time spent with families, seeing the girls tear open their gifts on Christmas morning. LOVE.IT.ALL.

Tonight 'Santa' sent the girls a package in the mail, The Elf on the Shelf. Let me just tell you, they ate it up. It was the cutest thing ever seeing them sit SO still and listen to every word I read from the book. They named their elf 'Johnny' and we registered his new name with the website. They were so excited to see that 'Johnny' joined the Hall family, too sweet!

OK wait, I did think of ONE thing I don't like about the holiday season, the TRAFFIC! Most of the shops/mall are on the West side of our town, that side of town is always INSANE during the holiday's, which drives me nuts!

What are some of the things that you don't like about the holidays??

Because Who Doesn't Love Free??!!

So remember when I told you all I was going to participate in the FREE Shutterfly Christmas card giveaway blog promotion? Well here is my post :)

So I'm all about free, who isn't? Lets be real here, I'm sure this post is obnoxious for you readers (seems like all my readers are in the Christmas spirit so I don't think I'm offending any of you) that don't care about Christmas cards, sorry in advance to you folks. Shutterfly is doing an awesome promotion that if you blog about their amazing Christmas cards, you get 50 of them for FREE, YES PLEASE!

Here are a few of my favorites...

 This is definitely one of my top favorites, I just love all the colors with the black background!

Christmas Cards can be found HERE

They also have some adorable birthday invites found HERE and birthday cards found HERE

Have many of you blogger gals received your cards yet? How happy were you with them? I can't WAIT to get my code and start designing my card, YAY!

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge- Day 7

Day 7: Holiday Craft/DIY (If you don't make anything, what do you WISH you could make?)




A while back I posted about some fun Holiday wreaths that my girl friends and I made. That is definitely a Holiday craft, and one that is not too difficult. I didn't take any step by step photos for directions when we had our girls craft night, but I'll give it a shot at giving a brief description of how to make them!

When I made mine, I purchased a wreath from Michaels on clearance for $2. I purchased a roll of 2 inch ribbon, some tulle (can be purchased on the spool or by the yard at Hobby Lobby), any decor small enough to put on your wreath- maybe a welcome sign, or pumpkin, Christmas ornaments, etc.... Hot Glue (wire if you don't want to permanently attach your decorations).

 For this fall wreath I made, I started with the tulle. I tied about 20 in pieces (around 5 or 6 of each color) randomly around the wreath, then I also tied about 10-15 in pieces of ribbon around the wreath as well around 6-8 pieces. You can intertwine the tulle and ribbon throughout your wreath to make it look 'full.' After you've got most of the wreath covered, you can start decorating it with the accessories that you bought. On this one above I bought a few leaves/bead sprays, a sparkled pumpkin, a scarecrow and the sign to hang in the middle/top. I either super glued the accessories, or stuck them into the wreath with the sticks that were attached to them (cut to size).

 This Christmas greenery wreath was simply made by just hot gluing the ornaments down, and then cutting the bead sprays sticks down to size, to simply stick into the wreath. SOOO easy!

 This is the Christmas wreath that I made at our girls night. Again I just added the tulle and ribbon to make it look full, and then hot glued my decorations as I saw fit.

Another Christmas wreath made by just hot gluing the ornaments on!

I'm sure this is the worlds WORST tutorial EVER, so if you have ANY questions please feel free to leave a comment (make sure your commenting profile format is set so that I can email you back). It would have been so much easier to explain if I had step by step photos.

Cannot wait to see what all you girls come up with for your Holiday Crafts/DIY! This is one of my favorite topics!

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge- Day 6

Day 6- Gift Ideas (This would be one of my favorite days if I could figure out what I want, ahhh)




For some reason this year I've had a REALLY hard time figuring out what I want. I wanted a Cricut and a necklace with the girls names on it really bad, but Gerrad found an awesome deal on a cricut for me through a friend who upgraded to a bigger one, so we bought that. And I was lucky enough to be blessed with an amazing friend who graciously gave me a Lisa Leonard gift card in exchange for some kiddos clothing made by me! So, that left me with wanting a whole lot of nothin'. I've been browsing for what I want for the last weeks, and have only come up with a few things, this is a first, write it down! Ha!

Here is one of the things that I would really like to have! Its a Jessica Simpson handbag from Ebags. LOVE the color, its just perfect! My friend Melisa sent me a 30% off coupon but its only good until today. Hopefully another steal like that comes out again before Christmas so I can pass this along to Gerrad!

 I also LOVE these new 3 button Ugg boots, but I refuse to let Gerrad (or any other family member) pay $200 for them! They're still pretty though :)

 I'm still lusting after this Silpada sterling silver bead bracelet. I'm going to check online to see if I can find a similar one for cheaper.

I wouldn't mind some random accessories for the cricut (vinyl- black and/or white), maybe a cartridge. I'd also like a new bible, something small enough I can fit in my purse, there was a great deal at our local Christian book store for one yesterday for $15, I should have just bought it :) There are a few books I'd also like- 'Crazy Love' and 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.'

So that's my list, sad huh?! HA! Maybe I'll get some good ideas from you ladies! Can't wait to see all your lists!

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge- Day 5

Day 5- Favorite Holiday Movie/TV Show Special



I have to start out this post by saying I was a big fat failure yesterday, seriously gals! If you need to unfollow me, I'll understand, ha! In all seriousness, I left to go shopping at 2:30am, got home at 8am, and then went BACK out with Gerrad and Addaline (we were shopping for Macie so we sent her with the grandparents) until about 3pm. Granted we ran some errands, ate lunch, and goofed off, but I was BEAT. I didn't make it to the computer to blog at all. I owe ya'll :) I told Aly to call me out on her blog, but she was nice enough to forgive me!

Today's post is one of my favorites. I'm obsessed with Christmas movies, and could watch them over and over. Can't wait to see what movies/tv specials ya'll love!

This movie is HANDS DOWN, my favorite!!! I think I can recite the whole entire thing. Gerrad despises watching it with me because I won't shut up about it! If you haven't seen this, you need to RUN, not walk, and get it ASAP!

I consider this an old classic. I remember watching it as a little girl and loving it, now I watch it with my girls and still feel the same

Loved this when I was younger as well.

Pretty much anything with Vince Vaughn I LOVE, this movie is no exception!

Childhood classic as well!

Another one of my 'newer' favorite holiday movies. Its not necessarily about Christmas (in a way), but its set during Christmas, and I adore it!

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge- Day 4

Hey ladies! So I'm actually out black friday shopping as we speak. I wanted to get the mcklinky up so you ladies could join in. I promise I'll have a proper post up as soon as I get home :-)

Hope ya'll had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

This past weekend, we went out with 2 other families to take some Christmas card photos. We all have about the same camera so we just took turns taking each families photos. It was so much fun, and FREE since we used our own cameras. We got some amazing shots, I couldn't be more pleased with how they turned out!

 Macie and Addaline cheesing it up, I LOVE their dimples!

 One of our family shots

 This is my favorite photo from the shoot, I just love the colors for some reason

 Similar photo, just black and white

 I just adore this photo as well, so precious! Addaline is definitely a daddy's girl

 This is typical, these 3 are SO goofy!

 Love this one as well

 My other favorite of just the girls

 On of our other family photos, this isn't my favorite one

I love this one for some reason, its just so cute, and captures their innocence!

Beware... In the next few days I'm going to do the Shutterfly post that tons of you have been doing. I know its obnoxious, but I can't pass up 50 FREE CARDS! Feel free to ignore my post, you won't hurt my feelings ;)

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge- Day 3

Again we're just totally blown away with the response we're getting with this blog challenge, You gals are amazing!

Now we're on to day 3 of the challenge: Most meaningful gift/best gift you've received. This one is pretty easy for me, my camera! I decided last year that I wanted to start saving up for a new camera for myself. I didn't want to just use the money from our account, I thought Gerrad wouldn't appreciate that much, ha! I would save money, and then I'd end up spending it on the girls (story of my life). My dad decided for Christmas that he was just going to purchase the camera for me because he knew I would never do it myself (he obviously knows me too well). I absolutely LOVE having  a semi-professional grade camera to be able to take photos of my girls. Its nice to save a few hundred dollars a few times a year and take their photos myself! No sitting/session fee, no expensive photo prints, I just take the girls out and snap to my little hearts content!

I have a lot of meaningful gifts that I've received from Gerrad as well. He goes in stages of buying me jewelry which I love. Last year for mothers day he bought me an 'open heart' charm/Tiffany's style bracelet that I absolutely LOVE. I rarely take it off, it has definitely become one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.

**** NO BLOG CHALLENGE ON Thanksgiving! ****

Day 4 will pick back up on November 26th!!

Speaking of photos... I'll post some photos from our Christmas card photo shoot later today :)

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge- Day 2

So we all survived Day 1. Aly and I had set a small goal of the number of people we hoped would link up for this challenge, let me just say that ya'll surpassed that times 10! You ladies ROCK THE HOUSE! Thank you so much for joining this challenge! I appreciate all you new (and old faithful) followers who are excited to read about me and my little family!



Day 2- Black Friday/General Shopping Tips and Tricks

For all of you people that know me in real life, I am a HUGE bargain shopper. I do NOT purchase an item if it is not on SALE, seriously. I rarely buy things for myself because I'd rather my daughters be decked out than myself (its a total mom thing). One of my biggest shopping tips would be to shop around. If you see something and you think "I've GOT to have that," check a few more places for it first, then move forward with the purchase if you haven't found any luck finding it for a lesser price.

Black Friday= One of my favorite shopping days ever! I know, Its INSANE to be quite honest. The real kicker, I don't ever really even make a list of things I want/need. I just kind of look over the ads, think "Oh that's a great price, I'll grab it if I see it" and then just go with the flow. Its fun to just be out shopping with the girls, and looking at all the crazy shoppers, ha!

I definitely always make sure to dress in layers. Its typically pretty darn cold, and if you have to wait outside at all to get into a store, you're obviously going to need to dress appropriately, but at the same time, wear some layers. I always end up coat less and sweating because its just total chaos. I typically wear my coat, a sweatshirt and long sleeve/short sleeve t-shirt under it. Remember people, you're getting up at the crack of dawn, no need to look your beauty pageant best! I wake up, thrown my hair in a pony tail, or put a hat on, get dressed, brush my teeth and apply a little powder so I don't scare people at least.

This year I'm shopping with a few girlfriends on Black Friday. I'm sure we'll be hitting the stores around 4-ish, and there will DEFINITELY be a trip to Starbucks involved along the way no doubt about it. I'm looking to purchase some more things for the girls, for Gerrad, and the rest of the people on our list who happen to read this blog :-) I'll have to report my findings, with out giving too much away of course!

I promise myself every year that I'm going to get my shopping done early, and every year I fail. I think its just not in the cards for me to be an 'early' shopper. I don't mind waiting until the last minute, but sometimes it stresses Gerrad out when we're rushing around buying 20 gifts at one time, whoops! I've already started my shopping this year, which is a HUGE milestone for me!

I don't really have any major tips/tricks, just little things I've found that work. Cannot wait to hear all about your shopping pointers!

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{Topics}

Day 1: Christmas/Holiday traditions

Day 2: Black Friday/General Shopping Tips & Tricks

Day 3: Most meaningful gift/best gift you've received

Day 4: Tips/Tricks to a Budget Friendly holiday season

Day 5: Favorite Holiday Movie/TV Show Special

Day 6: Gift ideas (what do YOU want? We all have family/friends reading our blogs...so let them know!)

Day 7: Holiday Craft/DIY (If you don't make anything, what do you WISH you could make?)

Day 8: Least favorite thing about the Holidays

Day 9: Favorite Holiday recipe

Day 10: Favorite Christmas Songs/Caroles

Day 11: New Year Resolutions

Day 12: Show us your decorations (indoor/outside)

Day 13: Favorite Cookie Recipe

Day 14: Oprah's Favorite Things: What item(s) would you want if you were in the audience?

I hope you all join in!

Days 1 -3 are November 22 - 24

**** NO BLOG CHALLENGE ON Thanksgiving! ****

Day 4 will pick back up on November 26th!!

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge- Day 1

Its time to get this fun and fabulous blog challenge kicked off! We really hope you all participate and join in on the fun (at least a few days). Don't forget to link up at the bottom of this page! I'm SO excited to read every one's family traditions.

{Topics}

 

Day 1: Christmas/Holiday traditions

Day 2: Black Friday/General Shopping Tips & Tricks

Day 3: Most meaningful gift/best gift you've received

Day 4: Tips/Tricks to a Budget Friendly holiday season

Day 5: Favorite Holiday Movie/TV Show Special

Day 6: Gift ideas (what do YOU want? We all have family/friends reading our blogs...so let them know!)

Day 7: Holiday Craft/DIY (If you don't make anything, what do you WISH you could make?)

Day 8: Least favorite thing about the Holidays

Day 9: Favorite Holiday recipe

Day 10: Favorite Christmas Songs/Caroles

Day 11: New Year Resolutions

Day 12: Show us your decorations (indoor/outside)

Day 13: Favorite Cookie Recipe

Day 14: Oprah's Favorite Things: What item(s) would you want if you were in the audience?

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Christmas traditions are so fun/important to me. I love the holiday's, and spending time with friends and family. 

Christmas Eve we always come to our house and have my parents over. We do dinner, and open presents with the girls. The girls essentially get to have 3 Christmases, lucky ducks! We open all the gifts from my mom and dad with the kids and spend the rest of the evening playing with their new toys (and ours too ;)). Christmas morning we always wake up bright and early and open the presents with the girls that Gerrad and I have purchased for them (and Santa, whoops). Then we go over to Gerrad's mom and dad's around 10am to eat a big breakfast spread and open more gifts. We usually spend most the day over there just playing with all the kids and enjoying time together as a family.

The girls and I usually have an evening where we'll bake a few goodies, and dance around to Christmas music. I typically have them help me drag out all the Christmas decorations, and put some of them up. They like to pick where things should go, and help me hang ornaments on the tree.

A tradition in our neighborhood is that all the homes on our street line the sidewalks with candy canes and string white Christmas lights on them, Gerrad is always in charge of getting all those put up. We also put quite a few blow up decorations in the yard for the girls, its their favorite thing. We spend pretty much EVERY night in December driving around looking at lights. I think I secretly love doing that as a family as much as Macie and Addaline do! 

We also have a fun tradition with our group of friends. We get together and have a 'girls baking night.' We all get together, the husbands all entertain the kiddos while us gals bake up a storm, every Christmas goodie you can think of, we make! This year we're adding a 'Tacky Sweater Party' to our list of December events.

Days 1 -3 are November 22 - 24

**** NO BLOG CHALLENGE ON Thanksgiving! ****

Day 4 will pick back up on November 26th!!

Just a Friendly Reminder!

Just a friendly reminder that The 12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge starts MONDAY! You will be able to link up on either mine or Aly's blog starting Monday (we're hoping to use the same link code).

Hope ya'll have a GREAT weekend. I'm excited that tonight we have NO plans, whoo hoo! Relaxing with my babes is going to be fabulous!

Thursday Tidbits

Totally just made up that title, you like?! HA! I have lots of random thoughts going on, so I figured I'd put them all together in today's post.

* Have any of you seen the commercial for Starbucks, about the Holiday Drinks are Coming? Did you know... you can buy a holiday drink today through Sunday and get one FREE from 2-5pm??? I know, I know, not the most opportune time of the day, but totally worth it to me! I'll be taking full advantage of this deal this weekend!

* I've been trying to compile a list of things I want for Christmas... So far, these are the ONLY 2 things I'm coming up with. A cricut, which happens to be on sale Black Friday at Michael's for $69.99 and at JoAnn's on Saturday (day after Black Friday) for the SAME PRICE! I not only want one of these, I NEED it (does that make it sound more believable???).

And I'm STILL lusting after THIS necklace (which sold but I'm sure the seller could duplicate it). At this point, I've decided if I don't get it for Christmas, I'm just buying it for myself :o)

 

 

* I have a Holiday Open House that I'm participating in this weekend, but I've been SO busy keeping up with orders, that I feel like I haven't had any time to prepare for it. I'm hoping to get some things made for is ASAP!

* We're going to Kansas City for a date night Saturday night with some friends, and I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to it. I need a date night with Gerrad after these past few crazy weeks.

* We're having a tacky sweater Christmas party mid December with our group of friends, and I'm SO excited to try to track down the tackiest sweater I can find. One of my friends said we could hit up her mother in laws closet, so here's to hoping that pays off :)

* Gerrad works 4-10 hour days, and has every Friday off (LUCKY), so with the holiday next Thursday, somehow it ends up being a holiday on Wednesday as well, so by him taking off Monday and Tuesday, that lucky dog has 10 days off in a ROW. Can we say JEALOUS???? I'm off Weds-Sun, so I'm looking forward to my 5 days off. WHOO HOOO!

* Not that ya'll care, but we have managed to eat at home every night this week, that is no small feat for us. That's HUGE people! Here's to hoping I can keep it up!

Are you all getting your ideas lined up for the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge yet? Aly informed me this morning that she is already stock piling posts, I better catch up!! EEEKK!!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I'm SOOO excited... This is my first time participating in 'What I'm Loving Wednesday' over at Jamie's blog. I've been reading it for quite a while since a lot of blogs I follow participate in it, so I thought I'd join the fun! Who doesn't love to blog about something that they're currently loving?

One} I'm loving the leaves changing! Its one of my FAVORITE parts of fall. Its always so refreshing to drive down the street and just look at the trees (This is a pic of Central Park from NYC when we were there a few weeks ago, SO beautiful this time of year).

Two} Leggings/Boot combo. Its currently my favorite thing to wear. I've been avoiding the look for a while because I wasn't 100% sure it would look ok on my body type, but so far I've been able to make it work. And now I'm loving it!

Three} Scentsy Sugar Cookie scent! It smells SO good, and makes me want to stay in the kitchen and bake all day.


Speaking of baking, last night I was in a cooking mood, not only did I make dinner, I made a cheesecake, AND sugar cookies. The cheesecake was a packet mix that we had purchased at a fall festival, all you had to do was add cream cheese and whip cream, lets just say, I did NOT pick a good flavor, boo :(

Four} These boots I purchased from Target a month or so ago. I've been wearing them with EVERYTHING! They are the perfect color, seriously. They are a taupe color (they look lighter in person) and go with brown AND black.


Five} All things Christmas! I am really in the mood to decorate, but have been trying to hold off. I'm thinking this weekend I will get out all my decorations and start putting things up! YAY! Our neighborhood has a tradition of lining the sidewalks with those big plastic candy canes, with lights strung on them. Gerrad put ours up this past weekend when it was so nice outside, which got me in the Christmas mood even more. After he put ours up, quite a few people on the street followed along and did the same. I just LOVE this time of year, seriously!


Six} Getting all my ideas gathered up for our SUPER fun 12 (+) Days of Christmas Blog Challenge that I'm hosting with the one and only, Aly! Are you going to play along? I hope so!

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge!!!

 Yes, that is me and blog bestie, Aly!!! Yes this isn't probably the most flattering picture.Yes we're being total goofs.Yes I am excited for the HolidaysYes I will stop and get to the reason for this post!  *******
Without further adieu, Aly & I are hosting.... The First Annual"12 Days of Christmas" Blog Challenge!



<center><a href="http://thehallfamilyof4.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://i808.photobucket.com/albums/zz9/shannonywebb/Persnickety%20Pages/aly5.png" /></a></center><br /> **Grab our button **  Start Date: Monday, November 22nd {Topics}
Day 1: Christmas/Holiday traditionsDay 2: Black Friday/General Shopping Tips & TricksDay 3: Most meaningful gift/best gift you've receivedDay 4: Tips/Tricks to a Budget Friendly holiday seasonDay 5: Favorite Holiday Movie/TV Show SpecialDay 6: Gift ideas (what do YOU want? We all have family/friends reading our blogs...so let them know!)Day 7: Holiday Craft/DIY (If you don't make anything, what do you WISH you could make?)Day 8: Least favorite thing about the HolidaysDay 9: Favorite Holiday recipe Day 10: Favorite Christmas Songs/CarolesDay 11: New Year ResolutionsDay 12: Show us your decorations (indoor/outside)Day 13: Favorite Cookie RecipeDay 14: Oprah's Favorite Things: What item(s) would you want if you were in the audience? Come back on Monday to link up! I hope you all join in! Days 1 -3 are November 22 - 24**** NO BLOG CHALLENGE ON Thanksgiving! ****Day 4 will pick back up on November 26th!!(don't mess this up girls! i will hunt you down!) PS- Yes, I realize there are 14 entries and it's the '12 Days of Christmas' ... Aly and I just couldn't cut any of the topics!!

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Additionally, I'd like to thank Shannon from Persnickety Pages for creating the blog buttons for Aly and I. She had a SUPER FAST turnaround and is so creative! So if you're looking for something BIG or small for your blog, check out Shannon!

I'd also like to thank ALY for being SO patient with me with all of this html business. This girl is seriously CLUELESS when it comes to codes, etc... So thanks Aly for bearing with me, I know I was a huge pain!