13Dec
7

Our Christmas gingerbread village

While we were out Black Friday shopping, Ashar spotted this gingerbread village kit at Joann Fabrics. $9.99 on sale, and you could make four mini gingerbread houses instead of one big one! Of course we bought it!

(Don’t judge. I like natural foods and do-it-yourself projects as much as the next person, but I’m not baking house-shaped gingerbread. That’s my Christmas gift to me!)

Making gingerbread houses from a kit

Anyway, over the past couple of days, my mom and Ashar have been working on this as their holiday project. And they’re adorable!

There’s the Scalloped Cottage…

Scalloped cottage gingerbread house from a kit

The Awesome A-Frame…

A-frame gingerbread house from a kit

The Yellow Awning Cottage…

Yellow awning cottage gingerbread house from a kit

And the Pastel Perfect Suite! (My mother claims this bears some resemblance to an outhouse, but the poor thing is cute.)

Pastel perfect suite gingerbread house from a kit

And, since we have a sugar-loving large dog, these can’t sit out just anywhere. They’ve gone behind the glass doors of our entertainment center, which is a little unusual but certainly a good way to jazz up a DVD collection?!

Four gingerbread houses from a kit

We haven’t had time to pull off something cool like a fun Christmas activity EVERY day this Advent, but we’re doing what we can, and having a great time!

I’m linking up today to the All Year Round Blog Carnival: Winter Edition.

11Dec
0

Around and around we go…

Today’s post is just for fun.

We’ve had an exhausting few weeks in our family – traveling, illnesses, the death of a friend, lots of work projects, company coming – some good things and some bad, but by the end of the night, I’m usually in NO place to sit down and talk about what we have or haven’t learned.

I have some great ideas for posts, a bunch of photos to show off of our recent travels, some linkups I’d like to take part in and more.

But for tonight, you get this cute video of Ashar, who is a hula hooping wizard. (I can’t hoop. At all. It’s pitiful.)

Post by Joan Concilio Otto.

As a fun aside, the hoop she’s using is made from recycled irrigation tubing and covered in fabric scraps in blue and green by my amazing friend Tiffy of Love, Peace and DYE. Tiffy is a local crafty lady who can make something cool out of anything. We ran into her at a recent craft fair and of all the awesome stuff she had for sale, it was the hoop that Ashar went for.

(I, meanwhile, got some adorable earrings made from buttons, and Tiffy worked up some adorable ferns for me out of recycled bicycle inner tubes!!)

Keep spinning, everyone. Things will slow down… eventually… but in the meantime, enjoy the hoop!