Tuesday, January 15, 2013

October, November, December, Oh My!

This is my attempt of dusting off my long neglected blog, and updating on all things holiday. From the time school started, this year has been one giant blur. And now its mid January….how did that happen?!

Throughout the year, at lease once a month Layla asks us how much more time till its Halloween and she can go trick-or-treating. The good thing about this is that as the time nears I get to use it as leverage. Don’t eat your vegetables? Guess you wont be able to go trick-or treating…. Go clean your room so you can go trick or treating….. stop whining or I wont be taking you trick or treating! Yes, I know this is not the best parenting idea. But sometimes you do what you need to do to survive.

Jason carved the pumpkins this year. Way more impressive than my triangle eyed, lopsided smiley pumpkin of years past. Show off.
Western Night at the kid's school....how freaking adorable is Layla's teacher?! Its also a nice shot of her self cut bangs. 
Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) and Frankenstein. Layla's costume was easy. Her birthday is at the end of of September so we always talk her into wearing her new princess dress for Halloween. Done. Landon's costumes are getting progressively more involved. For this one I bought a toddler sized jacket and spray painted salvation army womens platform boots. Then of course makeup. Took more time, but the outcome was great....however, he wore it to school and left it in his classroom. So his trick or treating costume was the same baggy army uniform he's worn for the last three years. oh well. 
At school they do a costume parade. Everyone dresses up. Every single kid, teacher, staff member and even many of the parents dress up. Here is a pic of the office staff as the cast from the Wizard of OZ.
Trick or treating with a 5 and 10 year old can be difficult. Thankfully we have managed to find a balance that suits us and both our kids. This is how it goes....Layla hobbles along in her light up high heels while I take pictures and Landon complains that we are not going fast enough. Then, Layla kicks off her shoes and runs barefoot from house to house with her brother while Jason and I stay on the sidewalk and eat the fruit of their labors. 
Not a holiday related pic, but i'm including it because its adorable. Our neighbor's son turned a year old in November and they rented a bouncy house. Hours and hours of fun.
My lovely book club ladies invited me to see the final Breaking Dawn with them, so I pulled out my cheesy handmade (Eclipse themed) shirt for the occasion.
Layla's Thanksgiving celebration at school. They churned butter and ate rolls, corn, cookies and apple cider.


By the time December rolls around, I have way too much on my to do list. I blame Pinterest. I found a tutorial for this tree made of an old book....looked cool and the one at anthropologie was 50 bucks so I thought, "hey, I can do this for super cheap. I already have tons of old books!" Don't worry I didn't go hacking into my first edition Gone With the Wind, but I did have a mass produced Black Beauty from the 80's. End product is great. However, measuring and cutting took forever...assembly took even longer. Worth it? Now that its done I can look upon it fondly and not want to kill the stupid pinner that called it "easy." 


I also made a wreath from scratch. This was actually much easier than I had originally thought. Quick trip to Michaels for ribbon, etc and a stop by a christmas tree lot for free branches and I was all set. Since I have no outside work area I spread my beach blanket on the kitchen floor and got to work. FYI if you ever want to attempt this check out one of the many how to videos on youtube.
End product was great but i didnt wear gloves and my hands looked like this for 2 days.
 Santa came to our street! Redondo Beach Police organize this every year. 

I got lucky at Michael's on christmas eve and found the last gingerbread house kit in America....then I made Jay put it together with the kids. It was a prized thing in our home for a whole day until the dog knocked it off the table and ate it.

There are two neighborhoods close to us that decorate. Not just a few single houses, with a few lights, but whole freaggin neighborhoods. Were talking trains that wrap around small cities in the front yard, playing christmas movies on a screen on the garage door, kids selling cookies and coco every few houses, and lights draped from the trees making a canopy. gorgeous.

Santa's cookies!
Glitter wrapping paper...great in theory, but much much harder to put into practice.
Our Christmas morning tradition. Prettiest batch I have ever made. 

All the Rosa family on Christmas Eve! :) 

1 comment:

  1. Love love love this whole post!!! And love you even more than that. =) Miss you!!

    ReplyDelete