CRAZY christmas crafting taking place (warning controversial gift) DEN DO NOT TELL DRE

I HEART modge podge!!! This stuff can be used for anything!!!! I got together with the best for a night of (lets get all this shit done that we planned to spread out and enjoy and now we have no more time and it is stressing us out) crafts. The first thing is a gift for a girlfriend of mine, it goes with some other appropriate items in a gift bag...PHOTO COASTERS!!! We were racking our brains for what to use as the coaster base for the photo we have seen it done with cork but couldnt find any that wasnt too thick. So what did i come up with roaming the isles of Home Depot...yes home depot is what i just said...

Rubber wall base!! like you see in the hospital along the base of the wall (hence the name) lol. It worked perfect!!! So step one we cut the wall base strip into coaster squares.Printed out the pics we wanted to adorn the coaster with....Modge podge thin coast onto base then smooth photo onto it, when that is dry modge podge a thin layer over photo, when dry repeat one last time. Also same idea with the modge podge and photo onto miniatue art canvases for ornaments...HERE IS THE CONTROVERSIAL GIFT...I have a friend who is oober political and controversial, he loves to get a rise out of people with his facebook status'. And i wanted to give him a gift with that theme this year...This one fell from the sky...I looked through his status' for this one...Happy holidays is what terrorists say...LOVE IT! So i traced the saying onto freezer paper...cut it out for an HOUR with an exacto knife, Ironed it onto the shirt and painted over it.And this is the final product...HILLARIOUS...he will get a kick out of it!!!

We also finished up our now ripe vannila extract by straining it and bottling it in our personalized labeled bottles.

The funnel i got at home depot for a dollar on clearance hahahahahaThere is the bestie straining it with coffee filters which took forever...We ended up pouring it through a mesh tea steaper. Below are my bottles Its all ready to go...now for tie blankets...tommorow. I am too tired to do them tonight.

Oh and tommorow me the best and our moms leave for BOSTON, I surprised my mom for christmas with this trip...2 nights in a hotel, shopping eating talking...should be so much fun!

G&B

I just watched the new episode of Guliana and Bill... She Hyper stimulated and went to the ER by ambulance. That is my 2nd worst fear about IVF. But my number 1 fear is that it wont work.
I have set a goal for us of a year. my new years resolution is to get a sticky pregnancy. and if we dont get pregnant through IVF this coming year, then we will start an adoption process. I will have a baby, a family of at least 3, by 2013. Because me and my wonderful husband deserve it. We deserve to share all this love we have for eachother with a little bambino.

Holly Jolly Blog Hop

Hey all thanks for stopping in!! I just did a decoration post below please see that for all my holiday shopping/ decorations.
I want to share my recipe for Chocolate covered Peanut Butter Balls. This recipe will be at every one of my Christmas parties this year. Everyone LOVES it!!!

Chocolate covered Peanut Butter Balls

Balls:

2 sticks butter, softened
2 c. peanut butter
1-1/4 to 1-1/2 lb. powdered sugar

Sauce:

1 (12 oz.) pkg. chocolate chips
1 lg. Hershey bar
1/4 bar of paraffin

Mash together butter and peanut butter. Add powdered sugar, and mix well. Shape into 1 inch balls and freeze overnight. In a double boiler, melt together the chocolate chips, a large Hershey bar, and food-grade paraffin or beeswax.
Dip balls into chocolate mixture and place on wax paper. Refrigerate until cool. Use toothpicks to dip balls.

Join the Blog Hop and Share your recipe for day1!!!

IVF??

I need to sit down with my RE Mr. Dr. but right now me and DH are really leaning towards IVF as the next step in the new year. I just found out I am lucky enough to have an insurance that covers 6 IVF cycles per live birth. All we would have to pay is our $40 copays per visit and meds. So here we come back to Mr Dr for a consult on our situation now and IVF. The appointment isnt until Jan 11th at 3:30pm. IT WILL TAKE FOREVER.

Kicking off the Christmas season

We went to an ACTUAL tree farm this year! It was fun and we found the perfect small tree!!! Last year we put our 8 foot tree in a part of the cathedral cieling living room, but this year i wanted to put it under a little alcove in our living room. So we went to this farm and the options were to ride a tractor to the back woods and find a tree to cut down or out front walk to find one in the smaller wooded lot. It was freezing and i didnt have my cocoa so we chose walk to the smaller lot. And it only took us 15 minutes to find her...she's a beauty.The beautiful view.Im a tree hugger!!! This is her!!!Jason being a "man" and cutting our tree down. It is funny how things like this make them feel like they are "providing" in the most origional caveman sense of the word LOL.The only tree he's been able to carry one handed hahaha!!!Leaving the farm...I LOVE MY NEW CAMERA...early christmas present...Okay I bought it for myself Black Friday...YOU CAUGHT ME.

Speaking of Black friday, me and my sister in law Nicolle went shopping at 2:30AM this year. This is us taking a very touristy picture near the LL BEAN boot in freeport even though we are Mainers. I reccomend doing this, go find a touristy place in your town and take a pic even tho your not a tourist ITS FUN!!!

Above is us in the middle of LL bean ville. The lights were soso pretty. Below is our tree fully decorated in the alcove I was talking about. What kind of tree do you do?? Upside down? Color themed? Ribbon and bows?? I do the classic eclectic ornaments over the years tree. So I thought i'd bring you through my favorite ornaments and their story.

This ornament, i realized sadly, will see its last year on our tree this year because it is getting moldy hahahaha. Our nephew made it for us 2 years ago. This is one of those SMORES ornaments. It was given to me by my step sister last year (we do ornaments for eachother every year.)

This is an ornament given to us from my bestie, LOVE YOU and love this ornament!!

And in the above seen tourisy pic Nicolle gave me this fat fish ornament a few years back. It is very "us" and that same year I gave her the brother of this fish filled with blue glitter without knowing it.

Me and my hubs exchange ornaments every year and this year we bought our ornaments when we picked out our tree. This is the one he picked.

And this is the one i picked.

We got this last year, first year at Jolin... I got this ornament from my second mother KS atleast 8 years ago when I was in Girl scouts!!!

Favorite ornament of all i got as a very little girl. It was a ballerina back when i danced. I love this ornament so much it reminds me of christmases with my mom. I will cherish it forever. This is a Tiffany & co. ornament i got from my aunt linda the year my meme died. She gave one to all the girl cousins to make us feel better.And this year for the winter season we bought ourselves a new LLBEAN down comforter and duvet. It is so warm and i love sleeping under the same blanket as the hubs. The dogs had ruined our nice one last year and we had been sleeping under 3 seperate blankets each to stay warm lol.

The begining of our house decorations. The hubs surprised me with this blow up snowman this year. He was all set up when i got home. So adorable of him. I am putting a christmas tree on the porch this weekend too.



I hope everyone is doing whatever makes them happy this holiday season, carrying on traditions or starting something new!!

We named our baby

Everytime i go to upload the first pics on my memory card are of the days we told our parents we were finally pregnant. It breaks my heart to see them. We were so happy. Now Christmas is coming and instead of getting baby things and putting up our baby's stocking we are grieving and everybody else is enjoying Christmas with their kids and forgetting my baby ever existed. Kayden did exist inside of me. and i miss kayden so much.

On the third...uhh i mean fourth...i mean well a bunch of days of christmas we made...

Okay so i havent written in too long. So I had a fabulously busy Thanksgiving and Black friday...(got most of my shopping done and overall saved more than $600.00) I made centerpieces seen below from stem flowers from our local florist and baskets and floral foam from the dollar tree, add a few candlesticks i already had, voila!!!
Me and Danielle have been making 2 doughs each week and freezing them to make cookie platters for our gatherings and gifts the week of Christmas. She is pretty hardcore with a mixer!!!

We obviously have to make sure they wont kill anyone...ahem...So we make 3 of each to sample (the third is for her hub-to-be...he is spoiled!! This is the week we made thumbprint cookies and pumpkin chocolate chip. and after...jelly goes on after you bake lol...epic fail. But proves it is good to do a trial run. LESSON LEARNED. So I have 3 weeks left and only a million crafts still to do lol. I gotta go get crafting.