Smiling's My Favorite

Christmas time is heeeeeeeeere!  I love Christmas.  You know when they start playing Christmas music in the middle of November?  Yeah, I LOVE that.  It makes the season last so much longer!  I don't forget about Thanksgiving, I just consider all of November + December as one big happy holly jolly holiday full of food, family, and glitter.  And now that I'm actually eating chocolate out of my advent calander,  I couldn't be more holly or jolly. 

Christmas craft time!  Since I've discovered Pinterest.com, I've gotten into a crafting craze.  Whenever I make something, I'll pop in a movie and forever when I look at that item it immediately reminds me of that movie.  Anyone else do that?  Anyway, this wreath will always remind me of Die Hard  ("Now I have a machine gun.  Ho Ho Ho").  All it is is a hanger and dollar store ornaments (btw if you want to try it, get twice as many ornaments as you think you'll need, the hanger fills up quickly!).  It's my pride and joy at the moment.

The rest of my "crafting" isn't really crafting.  It's just stuff we had + stuff from the yard + gold spray paint.  Nathan's Grampa made some grape juice from his own grapes (So good!) and once the mason jars were empty, I used them for decorating!  Thanks Grampa Taylor!  And Nathan's brother Adam and his wife Joanna's yard provided us with perfect pinecones and twigs.  Thanks family!

I wonder if my old roommate Rikki will recognize the red wooden beaded string in the mason jar... :)  The gold vase was a fun project.  I just wrapped rubber bands around a plain glass vase and sprayed gold paint on it.  Rubber bands come off and voila!  Easy peasy.  Thanks again Pinterest! 

Our Christmas tree!  We still don't have a topper for her.  We've just been using a pretty clip on bird I got from my lovely friend Sarah Bock.  I've had plans to make a tree skirt that I've never gotten around to.... I'm tempted to just buy one... but that's no fun!  The dolly at the bottom is from Nathan's aunt.  She had a doll collection and after she passed, we aquired this one.  I think she's gorgeous!  I named her Giselle, since I thought she looked like the Disney Princess from 'Enchanted', but most people (Taylor, I'm looking at you) think she's creepy.  I think she makes the tree look old fashioned, in a good way... like when girls asked for dollies and ballet slippers and boys wanted firetrucks and sleds.  I want to do more decorating, it looks so bare!  If I had the materials I'd deck our house out like Buddy does to Gimballs in 'Elf".

One more thing (sorry, instead of short blogs every day, I seem to just be doing long ones every weeks or so...)  We're making friends!!!  This may not be a big deal for most people, but for us it's huge.  We've moved around so much it gets annoying to make new friends.  We get to a new place and just wish we had our old friends and didn't have to make the effort.  The first few months in our new homes have consisted of me missing my old friends (Salisbury, Provo, Florida, England, or wherever they've all moved to) and Nathan just feeling sorry for me.  Waah.  And I'm a very "come to me and I'll love you forever" person, not a "hi, will you be my friend?" person.  Sad, but true.  Anyway, we hung out with some couples from the ward last night and it was a blast.  So that plus Adam and Joanna equals happy Kelsey.  Now all I need is a job!