Santa Wreath

Guess what kind of party my girlfriends and I had for Christmas? A Pinterest Party! Yes you heard me, we decided why not gather all our Pinterest obsessed friends and do a Christmas themed craft night. We did a gift exchange with a homemade Christmas craft found on Pinterest and also everyone brought an appetizer they made from a recipe they found there!

It was absolutely fabulous and everyone had a amazing time! We had wine, food, girlfriends, and crafts. Everyone chatted and mingled while talking about all the yummy new recipes we wanted to try after tasting the other ladies. There were all kinds of crafts and only two ladies brought the same thing, no one cared though since it was double sugar scrubs! After we all received a craft {white elephant style picking} everyone voted for the craft they thought was the cutest. The winner was Angie and I was the lucky one who got to take her craft home with me! And no I didn't rig the numbers drawing, I was the last one to get my number. 

Anyhoo, back to the crafts. Angie took a big hanging metal star and used mod podge to adhere Christmas scrapbook paper to the front. Then she took three rectangle pieces of wood and did the same thing to front of them and then added the letters J, O, and Y to the front of each to create a free standing JOY sign. It's super cute and I will definitely be displaying them next year! The craft that I made was a wreath, a Santa wreath to be exact. I think it turned out really cute and can't wait to have a Pinterest party for every holiday!

I took a round styrofoam wreath and wrapped it with red burlap fabric

Then I took the pre-starched black felt at Hobby Lobby and cut about a two inch wide strip and hot glued it straight across the wreath

Next, I took silver felt and cut a square piece that would just cover the width of the belt and cut the middle out so it looked like a belt buckle and hot glued it on top of the black

Finally, I took white fur and cut it into the shape of a beard and hot glued it to the top so it fell over the front and looked like santa's beard above his belt! 

What do you guys think? I love how it doesn't scream santa but you can see how it looks like him with red round belly that has a big belt over it and his white beard just over the top of it. 

Hair Tutorial: Braided Sides

After all the votes were tallied up, the braided side image won {aka #7} If you forgot what it looked like, check it out here. You can do this style with your hair parted in the middle or on whichever side you prefer. I wear my hair in the middle most of the time so that's what I did for this tutorial. I started off with clean blow dried hair and then curled the ends.

I started by taking about an inch and a half to two inch section of hair from the front near my face

Then I started a braid with that section

Once the braid started to move further and further back I would take small sections of my hair and do a french braid {I only took hair from the top part of my head to add to the section that crosses over not every time I crossed over like a normal french braid}

I only did the french braid until I got the braid to where I wanted it and did a normal braid on the end the rest of the way so I could pin it and add volume to the crown of my hair. This is what it should look like before it's pinned

This is what my hair looked like from the front with both sides done

Another angle 

The side view

This shows how I used bobby pins that are the same color as my hair to secure the braids in the back. I kind of pulled the hair from my crown up before I pinned it so I have volume. It was super easy to do and I hope you guys can follow the instructions pretty easily! Let me know about other hair styles you want to see a tutorial on!

Asher's First Christmas!

Well the votes are in.......yes Asher is the most spoiled little boy in the whole wide world! He made out like a bandit for Christmas and being the best baby, Santa brought him tons of stuff. Our two day extravaganza started off at the in-laws house for Christmas Eve brunch. Being the adult child that Jd is, he insisted his mom let us three open one gift each like he got to when he was a little boy. Asher got a huge stuffed animal duck, Jd got some yummy coffee, and my fabulous hubby gave me a new {and much larger} memory card for my camera! Yay that was the perfect first gift to start off our Christmas. We hung out with them for a few hours and then headed over to my grandparents house for Christmas Eve dinner. We stuffed ourselves and were then ready for the craziness to begin. We are Swedish/Norwegian and my mom's side has always opened half of their presents on Xmas Eve and half on xmas day. Being the awesome traditionalists that we are {and greedy little bastards} we dug right in and opened gift after gift. People don't actually believe me when I say it's an entire event at our house for Christmas, but it truly is! We eat at 5:30 and don't get done till around 9. And by getting done I mean just finishing opening the gazillion of presents. Insert gasp here.

Next is Christmas Morning. We woke up to our beautiful baby boy sleeping in and not waking up once at night! We wore him out the night before. Then the hubs, Asher, and I opened our stockings. Santa brought Asher bubbles, a soft baseball, new socks, and lots of cars! We didn't have to change seeing as how we wore our Xmas pj's and headed right over my parents house. We noshed on my dad's amazing Christmas breakfast that he whips up every year and started opening more presents! We got tons of amazing stuff but the best gifts of all included the TW STEEL watch I got for JD, the leather jacket my parents got me, and my to die for Christian Louboutins from my perfect man! I love love love him! Asher also scored with a cozy tikes truck from santa. After packing up boxes of gifts, we drove over to JD's parents house. We opened more presents and then ate a yummy Christmas dinner. I feel like it's all a blur. So many gifts, so much amazing family time, and so many calories headed straight for my thighs! After dinner we celebrated with some champagne and the Bears game! We are so lucky to have such amazing families and the fact that we are able to spend the holidays with all of them! Thank you all and we are so happy to spend Asher's first christmas ever with the people we love most!!!

Getting ready to open his present and JD's parents house on xmas eve

Aw my snuggle bunny

He loved pulling tissue paper out of the bags!

In my santa suit at great grandma and grandpas house

Their little photo shoot

He is obsessed with my grandpa

So excited for lots of presents!

Uncle drew and auntie michelle with little santa

Asher buddy grandpa

Xmas Eve Gifts

Grandma and Asher boy

Our little families first Christmas Eve

Opening his stocking!

Investigating his bubbles

Perfection

LOVE LOVE LOVE CHRISTMAS

More snuggle time in our Xmas jammies!

His first gift was his favorite of the whole day!

wrestling with his lion pillow pet.....thanks grandma and grandpa hill

Jd opening his tw steel watch he has wanted for three years!

He was so excited to get it, look at the grin

Oh I am one happy momma with my christian louboutins!

Asher playing with his new toys in his christmas pj's

Look what I found mom

One of his hundreds of trucks that he got

Thanks grandma hill for my awesome sweater!

Have you ever seen anything so perfect?

He absolutely loves his new cozy tikes truck!

Yes I let him play with his truck in the house.....he's the boss

Learning to be a handy man with daddy as he puts asher's toys together

He thinks he's a big boy already and can build stuff!

We are so blessed and didn't need any of this stuff but we are grateful to have received it. Thank you so much to our family, friends, and God for everything. May we be as blessed with this next year coming up!

My Greatest Gift

With Christmas being tomorrow I am stopping to remember the things in my life which are the most precious, the things you can't buy, and the things that can never be replaced. I am most thankful for my blessing and gifts which are not things at all, they are my son and husband. These are the only two blessings that I actually need and everything else is just the frosting on the cake. When I met JD I knew he was special. We were together from the night we met and as much as I refused to say he was the one at first, I would use the phrase "he is different from other men." I had never met a mad who let me be who I wanted to be, who didn't try to control me or tell me what to do, and who didn't care what other people thought and just loved me. He was special and still is. He is my other half and he gave me the greatest blessing of all, my son. Now I have two amazing men in my life. I never understood what my friends were talking about when they said,  "you can't describe the type of love you have for you child. It's not like loving anyone else in this world." I used to think they were crazy and just those woman who were obsessed with their kids. Now that I have Asher, I know exactly what they mean. You can't "tell" someone or even "show" them what a mother's love is, it's too amazing to describe. Once you have a baby they are your everything. You gave them life and they, in return, show you what the true meaning of living and loving is. I look back on my life before Asher and think, "what did I used to do? why did I even wake up? did I actually think my life would better doing anything else then being a mom?" There is nothing more important to me then these two boys and they are my entire world. Thank you God for my many blessings, I may not be the richest, prettiest, or most talented person in the world, but I am the luckiest. God has given me everything I have ever wanted and I have never been happier. Thank you for the gifts I will receive for Christmas but I really don't need anything else. I have the best of everything in our little family of three and could never begin to explain how thankful I am!

Merry Christmas everyone and count your blessings as often as you can!

This is how my life started!

It was true love from day 1

The reason I wake up in the morning

Asher leaving one of his gift for mommy on the tree!

I never knew what love was until God made me a mommy

Christmas Wish List

I know this is a little late but here is my Christmas List! I didn't ask for too much this year because I had my big splurge item that I am crossing my fingers for. What you may ask is my splurge item? These babies!!!!

They are Christian Louboutin Maggie Cap Toe Pumps, could you die? I don't think i will ever take them off if I unwrap these gems on Sunday! I saw them at Barneys and knew it was love at first sight!

I was also seriously considering getting my lips done as a Christmas gift but decided to put it on hold for awhile {one day I will get them done.....I have been wanting to for about 8 years!} I also wanted to buy and new queen bed for our guest bedroom, but seeing as we have only had people stay with us three times I think the one we have is fine for now. The rest of my wish list is mostly for my wardrobe.....I wonder what I am going to get?

Seriously die for these Elizabeth and James sunnies {I want them in black, duh}

One of my clients told me about this book and couldn't stop raving about it

This dress from ASOS

This dress from ASOS

A white basket for my pink beach cruiser! 

Ok so I wanted this Large Runway Michael Kors watch until I heard that the brown color on it wears off the longer you wear it! Are they for real? Why would I want a half brown watch?

So I told my mom that "ASHER" needed a new place to store all his new toys that he is going to be getting but I'm not sure if she will get one for Christmas or his Birthday in two weeks so we will see. Also, I told her initially to get a black one but I am obsessed with this four drawer white one from Z Gallerie

I didn't ask for this for Xmas but I swoon over this artwork every time I see it! This baby is from Z Gallerie as well

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