full blown christmas mode. . .

i am painfully aware of the fact that i haven't

posted anything about my thanksgiving.

i promise i had one.

and i promise it was good.

i realized that i literally took like 3 pictures that day

and i have also been a little lazy :)

here is a picture of my glorious plate of food as proof

that it was indeed a day filled with family, food & laughter:

now that december is finally here, the theodore house

has basically been filled with jolly holiday music

and the christmas candles have been blazin.

i've been in the process of completing a few projects

over the past week or so.

one project includes making some christmas invitations to

an annual family party, & the other is a big fat secret.

more on that later;)

the other project i have been working on was finished last night & i

couldn't help but share because i am grinning from ear to ear

now that it's complete!

i had been wanting to make a 'merry christmas' banner for

a while, & yesterday i finally had time to do it!

here is my step-by-step process because i'm

sure you are just dying to know how i made it:

materials needed: newspaper, 1/4 yard of burlap, letter stencil,

red & green paper, twine, & a pen.

you also need a sewing machine, scissors, a ruler, a safety pin & glue stick

but i forgot to include those in the picture.

oops.

i started by deciding what shape i wanted the pieces

of the banner to look like.

there are a million shapes you could use: square, triangle, etc.

i decided on a shape that i don't know the name of. . .but it's cute.

i had logan make a template of the shape so i could use it

to trace all of my burlap/paper with.

i enlisted him because he is better at drawing shapes than i am.

just being honest.

after i had my shape cut out, i used it to trace out shapes

from the burlap.

'merry christmas' has 14 letters, but i traced 15 shapes so i could

have one to practice on.

heaven knows i would need a practice piece.

i cut out all my burlap shapes and then i was ready

to cut out similar but smaller shapes from paper.

does anyone know what this shape is called?

it's like a square & triangle combined??

using a similar but smaller shape, i traced the

red & green paper 15 times.

depending on the color order you want your banner

to go in, you might have more red than green or vice versa.

i wanted more green in my banner but you can literally

create whatever pattern you want for the letters.

then it was stencil time!

the stencil part is what took the longest.

i found this stencil and really liked the letters because they weren't

totally cutesy looking.

do you know what i mean by cutesy?

i'm not the biggest fan of swirly twirly letters-i wanted mine to

look more solid so that's why i went with this stencil.

it was a little tricky as you can tell because the letters are in sections.

this meant i had to cut out each piece and glue them individually

onto my red & green shapes.

it turned out just how i wanted it to though-so it was

time well spent in my eyes.

i really liked how the newspaper letters turned out.

they gave the letters a little more dimension but still looked

clean & simple which is what i wanted.

you could use any color paper to stencil your letters, but

newspaper is a good & cheap idea if you have one laying around.

after a few hours of cutting and gluing letters

it was time to sew!

can i just tell you that i have literally overcome my fear

of the sewing machine?

i don't know why i was so scared to try and use it to make

crafts-but now my sewing machine is like by BFF for reals.

first step is to take a piece of burlap and fold down

the top about 1/4 inch.

then take you letter and place it on the front of the

burlap piece, making sure the tops align.

then just align the burlap and colored paper, making sure

to sew down the folded piece to create enough space

for your twine to string through.

sew each letter individually & start lining them up.

i'm not going to lie, it's pretty exciting as

they start to come together.

after you've sewn each piece, it's time to string

them all together!

cut a long piece of twine & tie a safety pin on the end.

take each letter and string the safety pin

through the loop you created after sewing.

the safety pin helps a lot while stringing.

it gives the string a little more weight and just makes

it easier to push through the loop.

nbd that i initially tried to string the letters onto the twine

using nothing.

i was making pretty intense/annoyed/loud sounds each time

the string would get stuck in the middle of the loop.

logan walked over, assessed the situation & gave me the

safety pin idea.

bless him.

after you've strung all your letters, it's time to hang it up!

now all of our christmas decorations are complete!

we bought a tiny tree from the dollar store the other day & found

a tiny star to go right on top!

total cost of tree & star: $3.00

total cost of banner: $10.00

our first christmas decorations: priceless.

merry christmas!

Christmas really needs to hurry. . .

i have been pretty antsy for Christmas to get here.

i started listening to Christmas music a few days after

halloween ended.

don't judge.

our adventures last night have officially

flug me into full-fledged Christmas mode, & i don't

know how i'm going to stop myself from dreaming of

all things Christmas 24/7.

we started our evening at the grand opening of

a new korean BBQ place.

they passed out flyers for $1 teryaki bowls while i was at work.

i discovered it on my windshield as i was leaving & i

immediately knew that's where we were heading to dinner that night.

we only had one problem though-we wanted to invite others

to come with us, & i only had one coupon.

enter logan & his bright ideas.

he was coming home from a meeting around 5 when i told

him about the dilemma.

therefore, logan decided it was wise to swing by the

high school i work at and just see if there were any flyers

that were in the streets, etc.

he called me after he got there.

he was basically whispering & sounded like he was being

surrounded by police for robbing a bank.

"hey, so the only flyers are still on cars, & i think

i'm just going to take them off the windshields, but there are

all these kids getting done with basketball practice that are staring at me".

i wanted to die.

i told him that if he didn't feel comfortable taking the flyers off

the car windshields then he could just come home & we would

figure out another way to get the flyers.

he said he was just going to go for it.

logan came home with 4 more flyers.

if he shows up tonight on america's next most wanted

you will know why.

the restaurant was packed when we got there & we

waited over 30 minutes to get our food.

it was worth it though-it was only $1 & it was delicious!

the restaurant was connected to this asian market that

we decided to check out after dinner.

it was filled with some pretty interesting items.

logan decided to buy some pepero & he generously shared

it with the group after dinner.

after dinner we ventured to the riverwoods mall.

this event catapulted me into major Christmas mode.

it was like a winter wonderland-for reals.

they had lights on every inch of every tree, cider, free cookies,

gingerbread houses, candy, music, basically everything Christmas

you could ever imagine!

even santa was there!

sorry for the blurred picture.

i wanted to capture santa alone but he had a child on his

lap at every moment.

this pic was supposed to be a semi-secret attempt.

santa and i literally made eye contact while i was taking it &

i could tell he was thinking that i was a crazy weirdo taking

a pic of someone else's child on santa's lap.

oops.

it started snowing shortly after i took the picture

of logan with his mom and cousin.

then it really started feeling Christmas-y.

we walked around this giant toy store for a little while

& i couldn't believe how crazy the kids were going inside it.

it was pretty entertaining watching little kids pick up

every toy they saw, wave it in their parents face, & then

break into a tantrum when they were told they would have to

wait till Christmas.

classic.

i enjoyed looking at all the candy they had there.

they had quite the assortment of old school candy which

is always fun to look at.

they also had the biggest jaw breaker i've ever seen!

whenever i see a jaw breaker it reminds me of my cousin paige.

whenever she would come to utah to visit us she would always

have a huge jaw breaker that she was eating:)

the snow really started coming down while we were

listening to the live music, so we decided to pop into

bath & body works.

i have been trying to convince logan to let me buy a holiday

candle for a few weeks now:)

i literally LOVE the smell of Christmas candles.

logan hates smells.

that sounds weird- but he just has a sensitive nose & really strong

smells bother him.

i promised i would get a candle that didn't smell like sugar frosted

gingerbread men or candy apples roasting on a fire or whatever

weird candles they have there.

sorry if you have one of those:)

we settled on two candles that had a Christmas scent but

were logan-approved.

i was in heaven.

i could not WAIT to get home and light one.

the second i walked inside i grabbed the matches & light

my beloved Christmas candle.

i sat and waited for the smell to permeate & jumped for joy

at how Christmas-y our place smelled.

i was really in the Christmas spirit now.

to top it all off-it started snowing really hard!

i thought the night couldn't get more perfect, but it did.

logan suggested hot chocolate.

i love that man.

we watched the BYU basketball on TV while sipping our drinks.

i figured i would let logan pick what we watched since

i had taken over our house with all of my

Christmas-y shenanigans.

the snow outside, smell of hot cocoa, my Chrismas

candle & the flowers made our little house

cozier than it's ever felt.

bring on more snow!

it's time for Christmas!

happy birthday logan. . .

this weekend i threw a birthday party for logan.

he is turning the big 2-5.

i knew i wanted to throw him a big party but

couldn't decide if i wanted to make all the food or

make all the decorations.

there was no way i was doing both.

i decided to make the decorations because i've never

done anything like that before, & i just wanted to see if i

could actually do it :)

i started with a DIY birthday banner:

i picked the color scheme and cut flag shapes from card stock.

i bought some cute letter stickers and used those to spell

out the 'happy birthday' message.

once i had my message all spelled out, i started sewing!

let me just tell you, i was terrified to try and sew the paper.

i didn't think to buy any extra just in case i messed up or anything, so i

basically had one shot to get it right.

sewing through the paper was actually SO simple and i was

pretty much thrilled with how easy it was.

i just lined up the flags & sewed right through the top of each one!

it was the perfect accent for the party & now i can have it

forever to use in the future:)

the next little DIY project i made was a little banner

that displayed some pics of logan when he was little.

i picked a few pictures and had them blown up to 8x11 size.

it was literally like 25 cents per picture which came to a grand

total of just over one dollar to have them blown up.

i used some twine and wooden close pins to hang the banner.

i attached each picture to a wooden pin and that was that!

nbd that the banner fell down like

every 12 minutes at the party.

for some reason i could NOT get those wooden pins to

stick to the wall.

whatevs.

it looked cute while it lasted.

logan loves pie so we decided to have an assortment of them at the party.

i wanted people to know the flavors of each pie, so i had logan

help me made these little flags to stick in each one.

logan helped by cutting the wooden sticks in half for me.

i figured it was a pretty "manly" job since it involved cutting.

he was glad he could help:)

perhaps the biggest project i decided to make were the pinatas.

i saw the idea on pinterest.

they didn't look too hard to make, so i figured i would

give it a shot.

all i can say is that if i didn't have help from the lovely ashley

these pinatas would have been a total disaster!

i decided to make an "L" first by myself to see if

making the 2 & the 5 would be worth it.

i cut out the shape in cardboard, taped it together,

wrapped it in crepe paper, & voila!

i didn't fill the L with candy or anything,

it just served as another decoration at the party.

making the "25" was a little more difficult.

ashley & i cut out the shapes from large sheets of

cardboard like i had done with the L.

we may or may not have seriously struggled when we were

trying to cut out the 5.

for some reason we couldn't visualize a giant 5 and literally

had to draw little 5's on scrap pieces until we got it right.

after the challenge of the 5 we got the letters all

cut out and taped together.

then came the crepe paper.

i bought colors that went with my scheme and we cut out

strips of each color.

then we made little cuts to the bottom of the strips

to give the pinata that awesome texture.

the tutorial i found on pinterest said that cutting and taping the

crepe paper onto the pinata took a lot longer than

cutting out the letters and taping them together.

we laughed at this and thought that taping paper in a pattern

onto each letter would be a breeze.

4.5 hours later we had only decorated the 2.

i couldn't believe how long it actually took to tape all the paper

on to the number.

we had to figure out how to make it work with the

curving of the letter, etc.

i took all my stuff home and finished the 5 the next day.

i also bought candy to stuff the pinatas with.

i bought exactly what i wanted to go inside the pinatas.

i figured i had spent so much time on them i was going to fill

them with whatever the heck i wanted to eat:)

when all was said and done, the pinatas turned out exactly

how i pictured them.

if i ever make any again there will definitely be some

tricks i learned along the way that will make the

process go A LOT faster the next time.

the pinatas were super fun at the party.

we destroyed them one at a time, & i may or may not

have shed a tear watching all my hard work be demolished.

everyone had fun taking a turn batting the big "25".

i would like to say the pinatas were just for the kids

to enjoy, but we had a fair share of our friends take a whack

at breaking each pinata.

i think they enjoyed it more than the kids.

tanya ended up breaking the pinata & i got a great shot

of her hitting it & all the candy flying out.

expert photographer right here.

i had so much fun making all of the decorations

for the party, and i loved being able to have all

our friends & family enjoy logan's special day.

we have such nice friends!

i know that logan loved having all his loved ones

come & enjoy some pinatas & pie with us.

i am lucky to be married to such a sweet person.

he treats me like gold & i couldn't ask for anything more:)

happy birthday log!

love you!