Happy Holidays!  I hope you all had a loving holiday filled with family and friends.

So, Santa brought us a Guess Who by Hasbro.  What fun!  Turns out Grandma and Grandpa bought one for the house, my aunt bought one for her house for the grandkids.  Cousins bought the game.  The list goes on.  We bought the version that comes with two sheets – one people and one animals.  We can then go online and download more sheets to print ourselves.  How fun is that?

We have played this game way too many times to count since Christmas day.  We play it almost every day.  This of course got me thinking of numerous other versions that currently only exist in my head.  I am working on a template where you can download your own clip art, photos or whatever you want so the “characters” would be endless!  The only thing holding you back is your imagination and your printer!  I will post as soon as we get it worked out.

We have been having so much fun with our Crayola Crayon Maker!

pouring the melted crayons into the molds

We made custom crayons for all the kids in the family as a present to them.  How cool is that?  I cannot stress how much fun this thing is and fairly easy.  The worst part is cleaning out the metal tray.  I have a wooden stick I used for my cuticles that works like a charm because of the flat end.  I get the dried, melted wax off with that and it’s on to the next color combination.  We advise using numerous smaller pieces of contrasting colors, rather than longer pieces.  Doing so will lend you a more marbled, tie dye look.  Tres Chic!

crayons starting to melt

Here are pics of each part of the process.

Start to finish takes about 20 minutes if I remember correctly.  The longest time is the cooling period, in which you cannot open the lid to remove your newly formed crayons.  This is obviously for safety reasons so that nobody burns themselves and then whines that they managed to burn themselves on a toy.

Crayons cooling in their molds

I think I speak for most everyone when I say, Christmas cards are adorable.  I love getting them in the mail.  It makes it seem more like the holiday season has arrived when I open my mailbox and there are bright, festive cards from loved ones inside, right?  Years ago, I was really on top of things and even managed to hand deliver my cards on Thanksgiving to my family.

This both impressed them (Kelly, I don’t know how you do it!) and delighted me as I saved a small fortune only having to mail to friends.  As the years passed, and apparently so did my focus, I found cards to be such a hassle!  I had long since given up on getting the kids’ pictures taken professionally as this generally ended in tears and frustration.  I would snap pictures through out the year and generally took a great picture of them that I would send as our Christmas card.  Pretty brilliant, right?

Well, yes.  IF they get out in time to be delivered before the holidays.  The last couple of years I decided that if they get it by the 24th, I am doing good.  But I always longed for the more organized, timely me of years past.  Reminiscent of the Ghost of Christmas past, I was doomed to repeat my current, lame ways unless I put forth some effort.

Years back, I was organized.  I mean really organized.  I had a packing checklist that I developed after countless trips home where I forgot something, or sometimes numerous things.  Along these lines, I typed everyone’s addresses into a label document so all I had to do was print them out, slap them on the cards and voila! my cards were ready to be sent out in no time flat.

I even had adorable clipart that I aligned so it would print on the labels.  First, you printed the sheet with the clip art; next you printed the formatted addresses on the same sheet.  I even had my own Christmas labels for return address labels.  I tried to take the stress out of a nice holiday tradition.

I panicked this year, when I realized all of my addresses were gone!  I looked everywhere in the computer and sure enough, I still had my address labels and the clip art, but none of my friends or family’s addresses.  I buckled down and retyped them, saving them for next year.

I suggest you do the same to save yourself some hassle in the coming year.  Now that I have them saved, as I get new addresses, or someone moves, I simply go into my document and either edit or add the address, save and I’m good to go!  As I receive new cards I quickly add those addresses into my document.  Here are customizable christmas labels for the clip art if you are interested.  I know it’s a lot in the beginning, but it saves so much time in the future!  It really is worth its weight in time.  This also lets you know exactly how many cards you need so you don’t have to guesstimate and inadvertently leave someone out!

Let me know if you have any holiday time savers.  Goodness knows we can all use some!

In honor of the holiday season, I am sharing some of the best presents we have experienced in our household.  These are our experience or opinions, as my daughter’s birthday is in November.  I hope this list gives you some good ideas in case you are having a difficult time deciding this year.

My kids are art fiends, so when we saw the Crayola Crayon Maker at the store, we knew it was a must have.  I also thought this would probably be one of those hard to find gifts, so I got this in early November.  My daughter got this for her birthday, so we have already played with it.  How awesome!  You put in your bits and pieces of crayons and presto, change-o you get brand new swirly crayons.  Coolest present ever!  Seriously though, this is a must have for the art lover on your list!

Another winner is the Lego Master’s Builder Academy.  We recently went to a Lego KidsFest, where the kids got to go to a session with a Lego Master Builder.  While at this session, we learned more about this cool set that .  It comes with a detailed design book with diagrams and building tips to build a model.  It also has an exclusive Minifig, which is sought after by collectors.  Kits 2-6 are available for purchase to build upon the skills learned in the last kit.

We have a lot of techies in our household.  One of the games I was impressed with is Scribblenauts.  This really innovative game is a unique puzzle/action-platforming game for Nintendo DS/DSi in which solutions to challenges faced in-game literally take shape out of the words and phrases that the player spells out.

Another game we love in our house is Little Big Planet 2.  This game allows the gamer to create scenarios that can be shared with friends and rated.  More importantly is the creativity of this game.  The adorable sackboy is the main character that can be individualized and saved.  This game is an adventure, a creative joy and won the Game of the Year for the original Little Big Planet.

A classic game that is hours of fun is Guess Who by Hasbro.  At Thanksgiving this year, we re-discovered this classic and had some amazing family memories.  I highly recommend this classic.  They have the original version, electronic versions, and even travel versions.  This game is sure to make game night a hit in your house too!

Please let me know what toys made your nice list this year.

As the holiday season is upon us in full swing, I want to take this time to say how grateful I am for my family, friends, health, my career, and all the joy in my life.  I find myself reflecting on past times when money was scarce, stress and worry were at an all time high and the general outlook looked bleak.  What a contrast to today.  While we don’t live in a mansion or have the newest cars, we are rich with blessings.  And you really can’t put a dollar sign on that, can you?  Really helps to put things in perspective and makes me even more thankful for the little things in my life that make me smile and gives my heart joy.

It’s easy this time of year to get caught up in the sales, and give in to the panic and over-extend ourselves financially and emotionally.  To quote a favorite film in our house, “How about some perspective?”  Don’t give in to the chaos.  If your cookies don’t turn out picture perfect, or you don’t get the “it” toy no matter your efforts, take a deep breath and realize it’s going to be OK.  Seriously!  I wouldn’t steer you wrong, would I?

So, go tell your loved ones today how thankful you are for their presence in your life.  Don’t wait!  Your heart will feel joy and you will share that love with the people that mean the most in your life.  Pay it forward.  Take some time during this season of excess and crammed schedules to reflect, inhale and find a moment of quiet and peace.  Just five minutes!  You can carve out five minutes for sanity, right?

I wish you all peace, joy, love and gratitude.  And Zen – don’t forget the zen!  What do you wish for?

Since it’s been quite a while since my last post, I wanted to update everyone on the garden experiment this year.  Our garden did well and grew like it was on steroids.  I got cucumbers that were at least 3 pounds!  And tons of them!  I got some huge squash and zucchini.  Things were growing good in our neck of the woods…. But all good things must come to an end, right?

I started noticing the blossoms were dying off and didn’t really pay that much attention, because after all, they’re not all going to survive – that was what I told myself at first.  I got alarmed as I noticed that every time I watered, there was a small commotion of flying beetle like insects that would fly away. Again, I didn’t give it much thought until one day I decided to google yellow and black beetles on cucumber vines.  That’s when I decided to take some serious action.

To the local nursery, Oakland Nursery, to seek advice.  The recommendation was made – which I purchased and promptly applied.  The promise was that this worked fast and was still safe on a food crop.  Take that, cucumber beetle!  Well, I will admit I did get some satisfaction spraying those little demons with wings.  The satisfaction was short lived though.

After a while, I was under the impression that I was actually spraying them with the insect version of Red Bull, however.  They weren’t dying off and they didn’t seem phased by the stuff! Back to Oakland to get a better product to kill these horrible beasts.  I returned to the back yard with a renewed sense of cockiness and a secret hope to smother these pests once and for all.  A couple I managed to directly hit with the hose, knock to the ground and smoosh beyond recognition with my hippy sandals.  I will admit, I did resound an evil laugh on those occasions.  Now it was personal.

On my third run to the store and my third different product I was starting to wonder if I had just waited too long and should just cut my losses.  The inner perfectionist in me was never going to wave that white flag, but the outer hippy in me was telling the perfectionist to give up already.  Just grab the 3 pumpkins that were still on the vine and run!  Run into the house and be happy they didn’t take you down with the blossoms!

While I lost the battle with the tiny yellow and black swarm, my tomatoes grew in comic proportion.  My three tomatoes broke free of their cages, grew so heavy that the cherry tomatoes fell over, and grew along the ground with glee.  From there, the two other tomato plants followed suit and toppled to the ground.  No staking would keep them upright so I gave up that battle quickly. The Romas were quite tasty and we made some great sauce from them.  But they didn’t yield much crop.  I got some huge beefsteak tomatoes, but much to my disappointment, they had rotted on the vine!  I didn’t realize until I grabbed one and the flesh squished under my fingers.  Gross – I didn’t get one of those darn it!

I tried a couple things this year that I heard about from family and friends.  If there is one thing that will get my attention, it’s the statement, “You can’t do that!”  I had read somewhere that you can train cucumbers, squash, small pumpkins and zucchini onto a trellis.  Well, of course I HAD to attempt this!  I had limited space in my raised bed, yes.  More importantly was the tone of the delivery from numerous people who gave me their loud and doubting opinions. “Hey, check this out,” I’d say as I’d guide the nonbelievers to the trellised raised beds.  My grinning face would gaze upon their confused expressions as I’d tell them everything that was growing on the hodgepodge of tangled vines.

I will admit it was great to have some successes and unexpected experiments gone well. The planning for next years’ garden is formulating in the way back of my mind as we speak.  I will keep you posted to any hair-brained ideas I decide to attempt.  I am sure there will be more than one.  There always are. How did your garden grow?  What were your successes or failures?  I love to hear about all of it.  Please, do share!  I can’t wait to hear from you.  Ciao!