Oh, the Magic of Disney!

One of my favorite parts of taking Skylar to Disneyland is her absolute joy when she sees the characters!  She usually spots the characters and says “It’s (insert whatever character we happen to run into)! I need to ask him something!” or “I need to tell them a story!”.  She gets so excited and just can’t wait to ask whatever question is running through her head.  It is an absolute joy to watch!

This trip was no different!  After Peter Pan literally ran into Hailey by the teacups, he stopped to visit with our family.  Skylar was so excited.  She launched into a story about how he fought Captain Hook and how exciting it was.  She was so animated!  The best part was watching the two of them interact.  I was able to capture a bit of their interaction in photos.

It started out with “Um…Hi!  I’m Skylar.  I’m your biggest fan!” and just went from there.

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As we walked away Skylar said “That was AWESOME!  I love him!”

So thankful for the magic of Disney and the absolute joy that it brings my sweet girl!

And thank you Peter Pan!  You are doing it right!

Make it great my friends!

JuJu

If you missed the re-cap in pictures of our Christmas trip to Disneyland, you can see them HERE!

Wishing You Love, ALL Year Long!

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So those of you who know me well, know that I am not a big fan of Valentine’s Day. Why is there ONE day during the year to show your loved one that you really love them?  I totally believe that it is a day that merchants can charge $100 for a boquet that you would normally get for $15.  Don’t get me wrong…I love flowers, chocolate, and tokens of affection as much as the next person, but it means a heck of a lot more to me when Chris brings me those things on a whim, in July!  I am extremely blessed to have a husband who shows me and tells me that he loves me every day of the year.  For that, I am truly thankful!

Now that I have all that out of the way, I do like to do fun love themed things for the girls around Valentine’s Day and now that they are being homeschooled, I try to still do Valentine’s with them as that was one of their favorite things to do at school. Since they are not getting a ton of individual cards this year we made sure to get them a fun card.

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I will also admit that Valentine’s brings some of our favorite candies packaged together.  What other time of year, besides Halloween, can you get Twix and Snickers together in fun-sized packages?

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I have an entry table that I decorate around the different seasons throughout the year and during the month of February I do decorate it in a fun love theme.  The subway art hanging above the table came from the lovely ladies of Eighteen25.  I love their blog and all of their fun ideas.  I actually have a subway art for just about every season, holiday, etc.  They all are housed in the frame and I just open the back and rotate them.

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Each year I add to the mix and this year I made these yarn-wrapped LOVE letters. You can find the tutorial HERE.  I will just say that they were not as quick and easy of a project as I would of liked, but I do love the finished product.  The frame with the “love u” art also came from Eighteen25.  That frame also houses multiple 4×6 sized holiday themed prints.  This makes a really fun gift that keeps giving all year long! You can find the links for the subway art and 4×6 framed art HERE.  The heart shaped candy dish is just a bowl from Target that I adhered to a candlestick that was given to us as a wedding present.  I glued them together with E6000, which can be found just about any place where craft items are sold (Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn’s, Wal-Mart).  That was another really simple idea I saw on the Eighteen25 blog.  Their blog is truly one of my favorite, go-to places for projects.

This year we actually put a box of goodies together for my sweet friend, Heather who is experiencing her first Valentine’s without her husband.  As many of you know, going through a year of “firsts” after the loss of a loved one is so very hard.  We wanted to shower Heather and her kiddos with love as they go through this day without Buddy.

I do hope that you have a beautiful day with your loved ones, but most importantly, I hope that you shower those loved ones with love and affection all year long!

Make it great!

JuJu

The Antics of our Elf on the Shelf, Gracie!

Hello friends!  So excited to share the adventures of our Elf on the Shelf, Gracie with you today.  I need to give a shout out to my grandmother and Aunt Carol who shared the Elf on the Shelf craze with our family last Christmas.  I admit that I was originally against adding in this tradition, but I am really glad that we decided to do it!  The girls LOVED Gracie, but I’m pretty sure that Chris and I had even more fun with Gracie’s antics.

For those of you who are new to my blog, both of our girls are on the autism spectrum.  They are very literal and we usually know exactly what they are thinking, as it just spills out!  Hailey cracked me up with her almost daily comments about what Gracie had done.  I’ll add her thoughts below the pictures.

WHAT A “CUTIE”

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This was our first morning with Gracie and the girls thought she was pretty funny. Hailey jumped in on the fun and continued to take parts of the orange away during the day.

GOING FOR A SWIM

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“Good thing she didn’t eat all the Cheerios, Skylar would have been mad!”-Hailey

ENJOYING THE VIEW FROM ABOVE

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“That’s hilarious!  She must not be afraid of heights like you are mom!”-Hailey

HIDE AND SEEK

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TAKING A BUBBLE BATH

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We went down to Phoenix for an overnight trip and the girls didn’t want to take Gracie with us.  They wanted to see what she would do while we were out of town. This presented a challenge for Chris and me.  Gracie got all settled into her bubble bath right after the kids got in the car.  When we returned home the next day, the marshmallows were pretty stiff from sitting out for about 24 hours.  Hailey said, “Well that can’t be comfortable!  Why would she want to bathe in hard marshmallows?”

TAKING OVER

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“I can not believe that Gracie knocked the angel off the tree!  That should definitely put her on the naughty list!”-Hailey

SUCH A JOKER

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CELEBRATING SKYLAR’S BIRTHDAY

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“I can’t believe Gracie didn’t eat all of her cake!  It was SO good!  Can I have the rest?”-Hailey

JUST A SIP

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“Well that’s a waste of a perfectly good straw!”-Hailey

A LITTLE LIGHT READING

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This is a really blurry picture, but Hailey’s comments were some of my favorite.  She said, “Oh my word!  Why is she reading Twilight?  Who told her those books were good?”

MISSING SANTA

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REPLACING OUR STOCKINGS WITH UNDERWEAR

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“Wow!  I hope those are clean!!!”-Hailey

SUGAR HIGH

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GREEN MILK

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“EWWW!  How’d she do that?  That is really weird!”-Hailey

VANDALIZING

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“What a waste of toilet paper!  You’d better save that, I’m sure we’re going to need it!”-Hailey

Thanks for reading about our adventures with Gracie!  The girls were excited that she left a note saying goodbye and that she would be back next year.

Blessings for a great New Year for all of you!

Make it great!

JuJu