Christmas Activities: Christmas Express

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I have been waiting a year to write this post! I am really excited to share today's idea with you. Today, I'm sharing a Christmas Activity that has become a new Christmas tradition in our house. It is a fantastic Christmas activity for kids as well as for the whole family. We had so much fun!

This is one of the few stops where we had to get out of the car.
My girls were a little embarrassed to be in their pajamas for this one.
I'm sure I am totally helping by posting it on my blog. ;-)

Felicity American Girl Party ~ Party Games & Thank You Notes

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I'm back with my last post about our recent Felicity American Girl Party. Today, I'm going to give you all kinds of Girl Birthday Party Ideas. I have links for you about the games or activities  we had fun with at our party. I also have a bonus for you, I'm showing you the idea I came up with for the Thank You Notes Pumpkin sent to each of her guests.

Felicity American Girl Party ~ Doll Napkins & Pass Through Cover

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Hi everyone - I'm back with another cute idea from our American Girl Party. We were having food for the girls. (Felicity American Girl Party ~ Food Ideas) I wanted the dolls to be included so I made doll accessories for each of the girl's dolls. Last week I showed you the cute cups I made for each doll. (Felicity American Girl Party ~ Drinking Cups for Dolls & Girls!) Today I'm showing you the doll napkins I made for each doll. I'm also going to show you how I made a cover for our bar/pass through area.

Above, you can see the cute little napkins I'm showing you today as well as under them the cover I made for the bar/pass through area. This area is where I place all the food and drinks for the party. I'm showing you a tutorial for both of these simple sewing projects.

Felicity American Girl Party ~ Drinking Cups for Dolls & Girls!

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OMG! I'm so excited to share today's post with you! Super cute doll accessories! For Pumpkin's recent Felicity American Girl Party I made these cups for the girl's dolls. We couldn't very well have food and drink for the girls and not have something for their doll, now could we? I didn't want to spend a fortune to buy enough of the sets American Girl sells or other brands sell. Instead, I came up with a plan and made my own doll accessories for each of the girls. While I was at it, I used a cute idea for the girls cups as well. Can't wait to show you...let's get moving...

Aren't they so stinking cute! They sure added to the cuteness factor at the party. Next week, I'll show you some things I made to add even more to the cuteness factor of this party. For now, let me show you how I made these and at the end of the post, I'll show you what I did for the girls cups as well. Cute, cute, cute!

Felicity American Girl Party ~ Party Decorations

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After taking a break from sharing our recent American Girl Birthday Party, I'm back today with our party decorations. As usual, I'm showing you not only what the birthday party decorations looked like, but I've got 4, yes 4, tutorials for you. They were so quick and easy I couldn't see doing separate posts. All of these decorations were easy to make as well as inexpensive...Yay! The hardest part, wasn't hard, it just took a while to make the approximately 50+ pom poms which were used in the decor.

How to Save on Groceries {without coupons}

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 Are you feeling it? The holiday's are upon us. This week we will celebrate Thanksgiving. Then in the blink of an eye, Christmas will be here as well. Today, I'm going to share another tip on how to save money on groceries. I'm sure I am not that unusual in that my food budget gets really stretched this time of year with all the additional food for parties, holidays and other fun events. Any small thing I can do to save on groceries really helps. (As an aside, if you want some tips on a healthy and fit holiday season, one that doesn't stretch your waistband, please check out my post: 5 Tips for a Healthy and Fit Holiday Season.)

5 Tips for a Healthy and Fit Holiday Season

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As I am sure you have noticed, the holidays are quickly approaching. It is the time of year with lots of fun, friends, family and food. It can feel completely overwhelming to attempt to stay healthy at this busy time of year. 3 years ago at this time I weighed about 30 pounds more than I currently do. Today, I'm going to share some tips on how to stay healthy through the holiday season. I used these same tips 3 years ago and managed to stay on track and lose another 8 pounds during the holidays. All told I lost 40 pounds. I'm up from that a bit at the moment and want to work to take a few pounds off during these holidays.

So exactly how do you enjoy the holidays and stay on track or even lose weight? How do you do that and not feel deprived? I'm going to share 5 tips with you today on what has worked for me. I hope you are able to find something that works for you as well.

My First Half Marathon!!

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If you read the title of this blog post carefully, it says "My First Half Marathon!!" You would be correct to read between the lines and guess that I want to do more. Surprised me, but I had been warned by many runners...so they can't say they didn't tell me. :-)

Anyway, I am super happy to tell you about the half marathon I finished on Saturday. If you have been reading my blog, you know that I started training for this half back in the summer. It feels like forever ago to me.

I knew that my IT band might cause problems and that I needed to start early because I wouldn't be able to add as much mileage each week as most training plans call for. My IT band was a problem and more so than I thought it would be. I persevered and one week before the half marathon the physical therapist and I decided to try some KT Tape. It worked and I used it again for the half marathon...it worked again! Yay! Without that, I wouldn't have meet part of my goal, to actually finish the race.

One of my other goals for this race, was to finish in under 2 hours. I'll keep you in suspense as to if I managed that one.

It was 37 degrees in the early morning before the race. Umm..cold when wearing t-shirt and shorts with a light jacket on top. Even colder when you have to give up the jacket about 20 minutes before the race starts.

Interview with a Runner ~ Me!

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First, let me say Happy Veteran's Day and thank you to all the military both past and present who serve our country.

I had a fantastic weekend with my Dad (a veteran) in town. We celebrated veteran's day with him and hopefully he felt our love and our thanks. I completed my first half marathon and just enjoyed a fun weekend with family and friends. I'll fill you in on more details about my race tomorrow.

Today, I wanted to share with you an interview I did back in September. I swapped blogs with another runner and blogger. We each answered questions about running. I realized I never shared them here with you. So, just in case you didn't make it over to her blog to read all about me and my running addiction,  I'm sharing this interview with you today.

With my family, after completing a 5k earlier this year.

How did you first get into running?

Recipe: Light & Fluffy Mashed Potatoes

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With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, I wanted to share with you my secret to getting light and fluffy mashed potatoes. I have a mashed potato recipe for you today. Every year for Thanksgiving I make 10lbs of these mashed potatoes...I never come home with any!

I'm eating these potatoes tonight...the night before my first half marathon. They are a great carbohydrate for the night before a race. I seem to do really well the night before a race with eating red meat, mashed potatoes and a glass of red wine. Since my Dad is in town for the race and he loves potatoes, I'm sure he won't mind what I have planned for dinner. Let me show you how I make my light and fluffy mashed potatoes.

Look how light and fluffy they are. I have a printable version of the recipe at the bottom of this post. These mashed potatoes are easy to make and taste great.

Felicity American Girl Party ~ Party Favor Bags {Tutorial}

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Today I'm going to show you some more from our recent American Girl Party. I made these party favor bags for each girl. If you know how to sew a straight line, you can make these bags. You can also customize the size to fit the favors you want to go inside each bag. These bags fit our Felicity American Girl Party theme really well as they fit what may have been used to wrap things during that time period. Let me show you how to make these favor bags, they were really easy.

Training Tuesday: Half Marathon Training Week 17 & 18

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Hi everyone - this will be the last post before my big race! I can't believe I have made it through 18 weeks of training and my race is just a few short days away. I think my training has really slacked in these last few weeks, but sometimes that is what life brings. My Dad keeps telling me I have built a good base and I am going to be fine. I hope he is right because I sure deviated from my plan.

Let me show you what I did the last 2 weeks.

Felicity American Girl Party ~ Invitations

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For Pumpkin's 6th birthday party, she wanted an American Girl Party. Her favorite American Girl is a historical character, Felicity. Felicity is a character from colonial times. I created these invitations for her Felicity American Girl Party. I really tried to make them to match the theme and the time period. They were very easy to put together once I figured out the different elements and sizes.

The finished invitations. 

Let me show you how I made them:

Felicity American Girl Party ~ Food Ideas

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My youngest daughter recently celebrated her 6th birthday! She loves American Girl Dolls and decided to have a Felicity themed American Girl party. I've got all kinds of ideas and tutorials for you so you can have your own Felicity American Girl party.

Today, I'm going to show you a bit of the overall party as well as show you all the food I served for the party.

I made tons of pom poms to use for the decorations. I used some in these vases on the table. 

Mashed Potatoes - Guest Post

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Today, I'm guest posting over at The Frugal Girls.

Every year for Thanksgiving, I make 10lbs of mashed potaotes. Whew! That is a lot of potatoes. I have figured out how to make them light and fluffy. Today, I'm guest posting showing you my secrets!

Come on over and learn my secrets: The Frugal Girls: Light and Fluffy Mashed Potatoes Recipe.

Have a great day!

  

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