Christmas Tour Link Up

It's finally here! I'm linking with with Curly Crafty Mom,  Lindsay’s Sweet World , Our Pretty Little Girls, Wife Mommy Me for our Home Tour Link Up! I have a ton of pictures so let's just get to it.

Let's start upstairs...since that's the first thing we decorated. The kids LOVE our anything goes tree, it's colored lights, nothing fancy and it's Mr's favorite part of Christmas. Opening each ornament and remember where we got it, who we got it from, it's fun to share those memories with the kids. Each year the kids get to pick out one ornament, this year Mini Fox picked out Sofia and Baby Fox picked out a Batman car.

 Yes she has two Sofia ornaments, one from last year from a friend and then she picked it out this year.

 

 

This year we let the kids put the ornaments where ever they wanted...it was so cute, watching them try to fit 6 ornaments on the same branch. hey whatever floats their boat. This type A mama backed off and let them have their fun.

 

My old Strawberry Shortcake ornament, from the early 80's. She asked me, when I get older can I have this one?

Tree all done, notice most of the ornaments are on the bottom half. So darn cute.

This is my oldest ornament. I got it before I even came to the United States. I was supposed to come in November but there was a mix up at the adoption agency and I didn't end up coming until January, but my grandparents bought me this anyway.

When we moved into our house I wanted a new stair case, when we remodeled it I didn't realize that it was going to be the central thing in our house. But I'm so glad that it is, I just love it so much and we pretty much found the perfect tree to fit in with the curve. Yes it's fake, allergies (in case you didn't know, I'm allergic to every plant, tree and grass in California), and it's perfect.

 

Here's a before picture for you.

 

 

I just love polka dots, so of course when I saw the display that had most of this stuff on it, I needed it ALL, my mom helped me pick out what I needed and how much I was going to need.

 

What is not pictured, all of the silver bells that Mr's mom gave him, she bought him one each year for 30 years. I need to polish them, and well that didn't get done before I took these photos. I did a video last year how we put up our Christmas Tree and how we decorate it here. And if you want to see how we decorate our banister click here...I'm rocking my awesome cast, this was about a month after my ankle surgery.

I just love decorating my mantel, I feel like it's a bit bigger than a normal mantel so I have a lot of room to play with.

I just love how it looks at night all lit up.

I finally did more with my kitchen window this year. Usually I just fill the jars with ornaments and call it a day. But last year I attempted to do something with it, but this year turned out perfect. I love the candle and lighting it after dinner while doing the dishes, just gets me in a festive mood.

In my kitchen there is a secret door that hides our heater, a few years I had this brilliant idea to wrap the door with wrapping paper, and put all of our Christmas cards there. I just love being able to look at all of the Christmas cards, throughout the season.

Before:

Finished product, image all of our holiday cards on this...it's super fun.

 

Moving onto the front entry of the house. Just last year I started decorating the entryway table. I changed it up a little this year and found some new things to put on it, but I'm loving the way it came out. And I have no idea where that Santa book came from...I was unpacking things and it was just there...

 

 

I realized after I completed the table, it's a whole table of Santa stuff. The box on the right is a Fun Fact Santa countdown. Each day the light turns green and a new message from one of the elves or Mrs. Claus gives you a cute message.

 

On to the last spot in the house, the front door. You can find the tutorial for this wreath here. I love how whimsical and fun the wreath came out. All bought at Hobby Lobby on 50% off, can't beat that.

 

 

So that's it, it's not much, but I love all the festivities. I'm hoping this year Mr. puts the Christmas lights outside. Oh speaking of which...we do have a lighted Christmas tree outside, but we only put it out there on Christmas day while we are hosting Christmas dinner. I think it's fun, and it's just outside the three sets of French doors. Of course I can't find a picture of it, but just image a Christmas Tree outside as your eating dinner.

 

Now it's your turn! Link up below all of your Christmas decorations! We love to snoop see how you decorate your houses too! 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Linking up here and here

Christmas Blog Hop: Recipes

Happy Monday Foxy Friends. Today the ladies at The Blended Blog have decided to give you a few weeks of Christmas blog Hops, today is Recipes, next week is Home tours and then the last week is Christmas Memories. If you're coming over here from Lana's blog, welcome! Thanks for stopping by!

In full disclosure my aunt gave me this recipe, and I've changed in a bit, but not much. I had these big plans to show you a step by step, but then when I got to actually cooking it, I was also cooking 4 other things (we decided to do another Thanksgiving Dinner) and forgot that I wanted to take pictures, I should have written a note on the stove. Oh well...and the recipe is?....Mashed Potatoes!  Now these aren't any normal mashed potatoes, nope, these are the easiest and best mashed potatoes you'll ever eat. It takes one pot, and all you have to add at the end is butter and mash away, no draining water, nothing, it's all done for you.

Ingredients:

4 pounds of Russet potatoes, peeled and quared and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
12 tablespoons of butter (mine was salted)
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 1/2 cups of whole milk (could use half and half if you wanted)
1/2 cup of water
Salt and Pepper


Directions:

Step 1:

Place cut potatoes into a colander and rinse under cold water until it runs clear (you have to look closely as it's not totally obvious, the water is just slightly cloudy, but not much, took me about a minute before mine ran clear), drain thoroughly.

Step 2:

Melt 4 Tablespoons of butter in large pot over medium heat, add potatoes, 1 1/4 cups of milk and all the water (if you are using unsalted butter, add 1 tsp now), cover.  Bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer, stirring occasionally until potatoes are tender and most of the liquid is absorbed. (30-35 minutes).

Hint: My potatoes were super tender, and falling apart when most of the liquid was absorbed, you want a bit of liquid left, so when you mash they is something there to mash it up with

Step 3:

Off heat, add remaining 8 tablespoons of butter and mash with potato masher until smooth. I have not tried this with an electric mixer, as the potatoes are so soft that it takes about a minute of mashing. Fold in the remaining 1/4 cup of milk, until liquid is absorbed and potatoes are creamy. Enjoy!

And this is how it looked on my plate, yum! We have left overs for days, which makes me incredibly happy.

How easy is that? No draining of the potatoes, no having to put through potato ricer, can't get any easier than that!

Also on a side note: I made my killer stuffing recipe, and they turned out looking better this time, here's the new picture, if you want to get that recipe, click here.

Now hop on over to Carrie to see what she's cooking up!

 Linking up here

Friday Favorites #95

Happy Friday Foxy Friends! I have today off, woo hoo! Get 13 days off, work 4 get 3 more off, I'm liking this! Going to try and get some shopping done with Baby Fox is in school...now what to get, what to get...it seems that the better deals are online these days. But it's hard to "window" shop when you have no idea what you're shopping for, that's why like wondering around the mall...anyone else? Anyway, onto Friday Favorites...

In case you missed it this week:

Monday: Christmas Traditions
Tuesday: 5 Steps to Picking the Perfect Holiday Card
Wednesday: Fall Favorite Party Dresses
Thursday: Christmas Wreath

So much has happened since I did a last Friday favorites, I don't know where the time goes, it just seems to slip away, and I skipped the last two weeks, oops! Oh well, I'm catching up now, and I'll try not to make it too picture heavy. The most favorite thing we've done lately, taken our very first family vacation! Not a weekend away, but for 6 nights we were in Cabo! The kids did GREAT on the plane!

We pretty much did a LOT of hanging by the pool, lots of eating and lots of good family time. The best part of the whole trip, we're waiting in the customs line and I asked Baby Fox, what was your most favorite part of the trip? I thought he would say, eating ice cream every night, or swimming all day, playing with his friend...nope he said "being with family", melt this mama heart into a million pieces.

Lot's of this happened.

The kids got pineapple juice everyday, which NEVER happens at home, but when on vacation...live a little right?

The first time we took this picture? We asked someone, and they're like all good, so they leave and I go to look at the pictures, and they actually didn't take any pictures, like literally nothing was on the camera...I think people forget how to use real cameras...

Lot's of throwing the kids in the pool.

Looks how tan they got...they were obsessed with one of us trying out the fish eating thing...

So of course some of us caved...I have to say, it really did work.

We have a tradition that we get our Santa pictures the day before Thanksgiving...why you ask? Because the first year we went after Thanksgiving and had to wait for 45 minutes in line with a 1 year old...not fun. Now we make an appointment and go before Thanksgiving, and usually they let us do several sessions of photos if the ones they took don't turn out. No one cried this time, and we got all smiles.

Serious talks with Santa

 

 Thanksgiving was awesome with family and friends. Lots of yummy food, good conversation and lots of laughs.

 

 

I just love this picture of the three of us (my mom and sister).

Kids table...one of the kids is missing due to not feeling well, but by the end of the night she was all smiles and giggles.

 

Food!!!!

Ahh, there's the missing girl, these girls are 7 weeks apart and are super cute together, they're finally at an age when they actually play together.

Same chair, same position 3 years later...

 

I'm know I'm beating a dead horse, but Gilmore Girls...did you watch it? My sister, mom and I watched all 6+ hours in one sitting, it was glorious, no kids, no responsibilities and lots of junk food.

Another show Mr. and I have binged watched the past two weeks...Westworld on HBO, anyone else? Great Sci-Fi if anyone is looking for something like that.

Oh and a bonus, we're doing another Thanksgiving on Saturday. We felt that we didn't get enough Thanksgiving and since we didn't host we had no left overs, so what do we do? Do it again! And just in case you wanted to know, the only whole turkey we could find was 23 pounds...for 5 adults, who's coming?! Happy 2nd Thanksgiving!

Linking up here

Christmas Wreath

Hello Foxy friends! It's the start of a new season, which means I have another Christmas wreath for you. I went to Hobby Lobby on Black Friday to check out their deals, and I scored all of this stuff for 50% off. Although when does Hobby Lobby not have everything for half off? Anyway, let's get to it.

What You'll Need:

Burlap Wreath (I've been using the same wreath over and over again, but click here for my full tutorial, click here for the video)
Sign to put in middle (I almost always start here, find the sign, buy the "fluff" to match this and this and this would work)
3 Fun Candy Themed Sprigs
3 Ornament Sprigs
1 Roll of Deco Mesh Ribon

Note: In the end I didn't end up using the Merry Christmas burlap ribbon, perhaps for my next wreath.

Directions:

Start with a plain wreath, I took apart this wreath and this is what I had left:

 

Step 1:

Add in the deco mesh ribbon, if you don't know how to do it, follow this tutorial here that I made.

 

Step 2:

Add the sprigs of candy, I didn't divide them equally on purpose so there would be a space for the "bow"

Step 3:

Fill in the spaces between the candy with the ornament sprigs.

 

 

Step 4:

I felt that the ribbon I was going to use that said Merry Christmas didn't really fit the theme that I had in mind. I had some left over Deco Mesh, so I tried to make a bow, but it's super hard. I was just playing around with it, and realized that it rolled very nicely, so I made a rolled "bow". I think it's fun and matches the theme of the wreath really nicely.

Step 5:

Add the sign, I found one that said Santa Please Stop Here, but really any sign will do. And here is the finished product.

And on my door it looks like this:

There you have it, our Christmas wreath, last year I got the burlap part done and never finished, so literally on our door was a blank burlap wreath, pathetic right?  I bought enough supplies and have an extra burlap wreath laying around, so hopefully this weekend I can make another one...I'm thinking I might put that one over the fireplace...hmmm....where to put it, where to put it.

Linking up here