Weekend Recap and How We Store Our Christmas Decorations

Mr. got his Christmas gift in the mail and had to put it together right away. He's so excited to get a little cardio in the morning before he leaves for work.

Saturday was a stay at home type of day. My dad dropped of some donuts for the kids.

I wanted to get the Christmas decorations down. So while they ate breakfast/donuts and watched Star Wars, I started taking stuff down.

I thought I'm always curious about how people store things, so this is how we store our stuff, in bins, and lots of them.

A side view to get the depth of the bins. I have to admit that there is one more large bin that was in the garage that houses one of our Christmas trees and a few odds and ends.

In our garage we have lots of cabinets, on this top shelf we store all of the decorations for the Red/Black/White Christmas Tree.

A little closer up, the thing on the middles shelf on the right is a scarecrow that I forgot I had for Thanksgiving.

To the right of the cabinet we keep some of our Halloween/Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations. Plus some camping stuff and that big box on the far right is left over carpet from our carpet installation...6 years ago.

In our third car garage we have these bins. One of them is old clothes and things from my childhood, two of them are extra toys that we rotate and the other four are for Christmas decorations.

Oh and one last spot, Remember how the one of the large bins hold a Christmas tree? Well the very bottom of the tree doesn't fit in the bin, so it goes there on the top left shelf. There's also some climbing gear (that jug in the middle of the two bins is climbing chalk.)

After we got most of the Christmas stuff put away we took the kids over to the park, the kids like taking this "secret" passage to the park, yes she's wearing her Pj's, we couldn't get her out of them, and why fight it? It's a lazy Saturday.

She was so excited to ride on her scooter. She was running to me to retrieve her scooter.

She is still trying to get used to the scooter, so her brother was helping out, my heart was bursting with pride and love.

and this is the reason it's best if Daddy takes the kids to the park by himself...I had quite a few heart attacks! Yes he seemed as high as this picture...I was sure he was going to go flying off.

Speaking of flying, he does like to jump off the swing, at least he has enough reason to jump off when he's a little lower.

Sunday Mr. took Baby Fox to the movies to see Star Wars.

Mini Fox and I went to my favorite store...we sent this back as a reply.

She's saying, "[I'm In a] Basket Full of Stuff"

We were at Target, then went grocery shopping and came back ate lunch and she took a nap while I did some blog stuff. Pretty low key weekend if you ask me. Just what we all needed actually.

How was all of your weekend? 

Linking up with  Erin for Weekend Snapshot4, B Loved Boston and Champagne & Suburbs  for Weekending

Friday Favorites #52

First Friday Favorites of the year. This year

This week on the blog I wrote quickly recapped the best Christmas break

Recapped my December in Numbers

Shared my first week of hair styles from my Hair Challenge.

and last but not least finally shared our family photos we took last year, and our Christmas card!

Remember my hair post from Wednesday? When I got home, Mini Fox saw me and immediately wanted hair like me...I tried to get a picture, but she wasn't in a picture mood. But I did it the same exact way and she was so excited. I can't wait for her hair to get a bit longer so I can do it everyday.

Oh my gosh...this lady, crazy town.

#WorkoutGoals, much?! Watch this sprinter's insane stair jumps! https://t.co/4Ehtr3fCgR

— Kathie Lee and Hoda (@klgandhoda) January 7, 2016

This video, hilarious...totally the opposite of the video above. 

New Year's Resolutions
Realistic as hell
Posted by Funniest Videos Online on Friday, January 1, 2016

Caught these two snuggling and playing the iPad, which when we asked Baby Fox what he wanted to name his iPad he said "Smarty Pants", he's so funny. The first couple of times he asked for Smarty Pants I stared at him blankly, until he told me with a huge disapproving sigh, like Mom how could you forget.

I love this family of mine. I just wish the shadow from my arm wasn't across Baby Fox's face, but I'll take it :) You can't see this, but both kids decided to wear their Batman Jams.

Linking up with Erika, Andrea, and Narci for Friday Favorites, September Farm and The Farmer's Wife for Oh Hey, Friday! April and the girls for Five on Friday, and Jennie for Friday Favorites

Family Photos

I just realized that I never showed you guys the family photos we took back in October! I showed you our outfits, but never the pictures, and I showed you the envelope of our Christmas cards, but never the card inside, fail on my part.

I am in love with this card! FYI on Cyber Monday Shutterfly has an awesome sale, it's 50% off, plus another 25% off of that, deal and a half! But they only run the extra 25% off on Cyber Monday, so start planning now! The "Merry Christmas" is actually Foil Pressed, it was so pretty in person.

Warning: This is going to be picture heavy...

 

My favorite of the kids:

 

Some Other great family photos

 

Silly picture. I seriously have never taken a good jumping photo, haha.

Favorite of Mr. with the kids

 

Nothing gets me more than Father/Daughter kissing photos, so cute!

Blue Steel faces

 

My Favorite of Me and the Kids

Favorite silly picture..let me preface this by saying it was about 85° that day, we were hot and Baby Fox was sweating, so while walking to the different locations we starting taking off his sweater...Just had to get this shot.

And then of course of me and Mr.

I absolutely LOVE how the pictures turned out, now to try and figure out where we're going to take next years photos...and oh what to wear, what to wear...

See last years photos here.

Also linking up with Amanda, for Thinking Out Loud, Vanessa and Penny for Thinking out Loud, Lulia, Stephanie and Sarah for The Ladies Collective, Annie and Natalie for Thoughts for Thursday and Joey and Kristin for Stuff and Things

Hair Challenge 2016 - Week 1 + Link up

If you're new here, welcome! I hope you'll participate in my hair challenge at least one time, if not for a month, see how you like it. Last year I really wanted to concentrate on make-up. I was completely lost when it came to make-up, so I spend some serious time on Youtube and practiced a ton. I now actually enjoy putting make-up on for just a regular day, instead of reserving it for Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and those very special holidays.

This year I want to focus on my hair, trying to figure out those soft curls people keep talking about, or just doing a messy bun that looks effortless, they keep telling me, "messy bun in 10 seconds" I'm more like, huh? What?! How is that possible?! Try more like 10 minutes...no make that 20 minutes. So this year is all about intentionally doing my hair more and maybe in the process I'll be able to show you how to do a "quick half up do in 5 seconds" haha, j/k, but you get my point.

Once I decided I was going to turn my One Week Hair Challenge into a full year, I was on board and even did my hair for Christmas. Go me!

So I still have to work on how the front of my hair looks. I have such a defined part that it's hard for it to want to stay together on top of my head, if that makes sense.

But at least the back looked pretty darn good.

I'll go ahead and pat myself on the back...hehe.

This is the tutorial that I sort of copied. Her's is fuller, how does she do that? I will figure that out! I'll keep you all posted.

I went back to work on Monday, I actually had to go into the office instead of sitting on my comfy couch, so I decided to try and do my hair. I had about 2 minutes before I had to leave to catch the vanpool and at 4:30am I just don't think you're thinking all that straight. I got to work, thinking my hair looked okay, then around 9am, I decided to get breakfast and take a photo...and boy did I get a surprise, it looked awful!

I immediately took it out, left it down and after breakfast I ran to the bathroom to try something else. This looked much better. Nope I don't wear any make-up to work. Actually I do, I wear concealer, powder and a hint of blush, so I don't look totally dead. Imagine what I would look like without those things, yikes! Maybe one day I'll do my make-up before work, my problem is that I have NO eyelashes, seriously, I put on mascara and you can't even tell I'm wearing it and then by hour 2 it's gone and then I just look like I've either been crying or been out all night, neither option is a good look. I love fake lashes, but don't think I could do those everyday. What do you all do?

For a first go, no brush, or hair products, I think it turned out pretty good. Now to just get thicker hair so those big spaces don't show up....hey it's the first week, hopefully I'll look back at this at the end of the year and just laugh.

Link up what you try and do, even if it's a fail, we'll all learn something in the process right? Like this weeks lesson, don't try and do your hair in 2 minutes at 4:30am. Doesn't have to be fancy...just something out of your usual style. Happy Wednesday!

An InLinkz Link-up

Also linking up with Andrea and Let's Be Friends Blog Hop, Tucker Up, On Trend Tuesday, Cappuccino and Fashion, Sydney Fashion Hunter, Pampers and Pearls, Happiness at Mid Life, The Pleated Poppy, Shopping My Closet,  Let It Shine, More Pieces of Me,  Pumps and Push-Ups,  A Lovely Little Wardrobe, Grace,  Leanne and Lisa