Socially Acceptable

It's officially December, which means that on my blog, it's now socially acceptable for me to post Christmasy pictures.  That being said, this year we brought out our Advent calendar house.  I bought this a few years ago for Jer and faithfully filled up each day with treats and treasures.  It was a lot of work, but made for a memorable Christmas month.  This year, I thought that it would be fun to bring out again and do as a family.  

This morning, I told the kids about it and they opened the first door to find this note.  They were super excited and it was a fun way to start off the month.

The cinnamon rolls were my best ones yet, thanks to a thicker cut and the miracle that is "bread flour."  Then, while the boys were on a bike riding trip with Stockade, Ellee and I had a fun afternoon shopping in Riverhead, where I picked up everyone's "little surprise" including mine which was this bag of deliciousness.  Since I had $4.00 in rewards for Walgreens, I ended up getting these for free.  

In other random Saturday news, I was super excited to try out a new idea for dish soap.  I normally just have a bottle of Dawn sitting by my sink for washing up dishes quickly.  However, a few days ago, while on Pinstrosity, I read this post.  I thought it was a funny attempt at a pretty cool concept.  Since we live in the antiquing capital of the world, it's my overall goal to find a cool antique bottle at some point, but since I had this glass coke bottle on hand, though I thought I would try it out with what I had.

I opted for a wine "pourer" and it works wonderfully.  I think that it might look a bit cooler with a bit bigger of a bottle, but all in all, I was pretty happy with the outcome.  My Santa Coke bottle is festive and it was fun to try this little project out.

Speaking of projects, the kids and I made this one tonight.  My dear friend Laura gave me a few flattened glass ornaments yesterday when I was at her house.  After reading this post, I knew I wanted to try to create this ornament with the kids.  Christian opted to draw a few woodland creatures (and they turned out wonderfully), but Ellee chose instead to draw our family.  I suppose that the ornament might make a touch more sense with the woodland creatures, but for this proud Mom, I know that this will be an ornament that I treasure for years to come.    

All in all, it was a great Saturday.  Hope you all are enjoying the beginning of the Holiday season as well!