Christmas Activities 2014

First of all let me just say it is SO overwhelming trying to catch up on blogging about everything. I have missed blogging about pretty much all of summer, lots of birthdays, the birth of my first niece, Halloween, Thanksgiving, a quick Vegas trip, and prepping for our baby. But I just decided I am going to just skip it and just do a quick recap of the past few months and just go on with the future.

Before Nixon was born it was a special time to be able to not only be prepping for our little one but also to be celebrating and experiencing all the Christmas festivities going on!

The weekend before Nixon was born we went to a friend's party!

Nixon kissing his cousin!

After having Nixon and before my crazy Christmas day we were able to squeeze in a few Christmas activities! Two days after getting home from the hospital my family wanted to get some quick Christmas pictures taken. My brother had just came in town for Christmas and so we headed down to Google Fiber where they had a photographer and little Christmas photo backdrop set up. Nixon was only 4 days old! I love these pictures because look how little he was!

Grandparents and the Grandkids 2014

My Family 2014

Our Family 2014

The weekend before Christmas my sister and sister in law wanted to have a little Christmas Pinterest idea photo shoot. My niece got some pretty dang cute ones of her in a box full of ornaments. Nixon's photoshoot on the other hand didn't turn out too great. But it was still fun!

On Little Christmas Eve. (a Danish holiday my family celebrates) we went and took pictures of Nixon and my niece with Santa Claus. It was freezing cold at the outside Santa at Riverwoods but we still went! We just dressed Nixon up in his little, fuzzy bear suit!

After the Santa pictures we went and looked at different lights around the Sandy/Draper area. There are a bunch of musical lights out there and we really wanted to go see the Tree of Life, which was amazing.

On Christmas Eve. my Grandma from Washington came into town. My family just spent time together. The guys watched a movie late while us ladies just talked and went to bed. 

My Grandma and Nixon

Christmas Eve Snoozin'

This is Halloween. Fa La La.

Halloween in our house marks the beginning of decorating pretty much for 3 straight months. And I love it! Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I grew up with a mother that decorated for every single holiday and that made every single holiday a fun time to celebrate life!

Since my Mom is so cute and decorates so fun, I since having my own household have decorated for  every single holiday too! So I will give you a little tour of all my Halloween decorations. This tour isn't just for you (you are totally welcome to steal/manipulate ideas) but it is also for me so I remember next year when I am decorating for Halloween so I can kinda do the same thing-ish.

I will tell you about the new things I added this year to our Halloween decor! I try to do it for cheap, but still fun!

Crows 
I bought these $1 crows at the community dollar store. They are perfect and have little wire on their feet to wrap them around things.

3 Crows

Zoomed in on the crows on the lamp. It was a little hard to get them to stay. TIP: Just play around with the wire.

Zoomed in. Just stuck the wires on his feet into my plant.

Another crow on a lamp.

Banner
I made a banner from a Printable I found on Pinterest here. I printed each letter out and used purple ribbon. To keep them from flying/flopping around I tapped one part of the letter to the ribbon so that they wouldn't flop around.

Witch Table
I saw this idea on Pinterest too. There were no instructions or anything of how to do it...so here are INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOU:

• Buy cheap, used black boots - the pointier the toe the better (D.I. for $4.99) 
• Then cut out your boots heels. Matson cut out the heels of my boots for me with a really thick knife. It got kind of messy...

• Ribbon
• Add ribbon to your boots for an added cute touch. 

• Buy striped witch tights (Savers for $3.99)
• Cut the top part of your tights off (the crotch) and put them over your table legs. Then put on the boots and the bottom of the tights will sneak out the bottom of the boots looking like the heels.

Super cheap and a unique, fun Halloween decor!

Misc.
Our entertainment center has a few new things this year. The Trick or Treat sign with Pumpkin. The candy jar on candle holder and the spider web. And another print out that I printed off of Pinterest.

The spider web is another dollar store purchase ($1 store was a hit this year)! Was perfect for our house because we do not have any spider Halloween decor. Just what I needed!

Zoom in on the candy jar. I filled the candy jar with black & white candy balls. I made the little label.

"Say Boo & Scary On" was framed in a $1 store frame along with preexisting decorations.

I printed out my Fall List (I posted it in a previous post) and last year I bought corn like this from the grocery store. I will keep it every year to reuse and reuse. Just put in groups of 3 with little leaves or other fall colored fake clowers tied around them.

My sister made the wreath for me for my birthday. I added the orange ribbon for Halloween. My mother made the quilted pumpkin pillow.

Zoomed in on Wreath.

I got these super cute pillows at Target after Halloween last year for cheap price. Go day after Halloween for good deals at Target, ShopKo, and other stores like that. Usually 75%-90% off.