Advent #14 & #15

Alex's Baby's First Christmas Ornament, it was a gift from a good friend, who loved Alex to bits.

This is one of the orange balls that Casey brought home to me on his infamous Department 56 trip. I love it, especially because I would have never bought it myself. It makes me smile every time I see it.

So yeah, 10 days away. Holy! Today is my crazy day to clean the house, it is in sore need of it.Our lovely home has patiently waited all week while laundry piled up, dishes sat and sat, the floors became dusty and dirty, and the bathroom, oh my lanta, the bathrooms started to talk and explain their messy predicament. So today is my day to run the washer and dryer non-stop, to use every cleaning supply we have, to pile bags of garbage on the curb, and to finally get some order in this place. I also need to find time to go to the post office (the horrors!), bake our Christmas cookies, wrap the presents that I have done, and finally put up the lights outside. But it is all happy joyful "make your family happy" kind of doing. That is all I can ask for. So iguess I better go get started, right after I have a yummy breakfast and enjoy the thick fog that is out this morning.

advent ornament # 13

Every girl deserve a frou frou ornament!! Got mine at Crate and Barrel last year.

So this year we decided to do a reverse 12 Days of Christmas for Alex. Each day there will be a surprise gifty under his tree in his room, he loves that darn tree. Yesterday was Day #1, and he got a Christmas Nerd Rope, ahhhhh Sugar. I did promise him that if he got candy for his 12 days of Christmas gift then he could eat it all that day. *sigh* I think I might regret that, but a promise is a promise. Today's gifty is a Santa head Chia pet. Hhahahahhaah we shall see how that goes over. And he knows that all these itty bitty gifts are from Mom and Dad. No Santa Credit here!

Advent Ornament #12

This is my birthyear ornament from my moms collection. My parents also had a silver bell engraved with my name and birthyear. The little prayer girlie spins around. I just love how time this looks, not retro at all. It also really touches me to think of my parents picking it out to celebrate me.

Advent Ornament # 11

This porcelean ballerina was one of the ornaments that I snagged from my mom when I moved out. I always loved her hair and the pale skin she has. In my young mind I always imagined her as part of the Nutcracker Ballet.

Advent Ornament #10

We are now in the double digits for the advent countdown, which means we are that much closer to Christmas, 15 days!!!

I love the "lace glitterwork" on this ball ornie. In fact I am trying to recreate the design in some cookie decorations today. You can also just spy part of my green star ball in the lower left corner as well. I just love the ornaments from crate n barrel.

Advent Ornie # 9

This Big Bad Boy is actually a lovely teal-y color with lusty dots of blue and pink and ribbons of gold. He is the He to my Pink Elephant She, that will be posted tomorrow.

Lusty, that is a good word for colors!

Advent Ornament #8

Another Crate and barrel ornament. This one reminds me of the cartoon movie the Sword in the stone, the part where the wizard and the witch are dueling she turns into a dragon and he beats her in the duel by turning into a virus. This ornament looks like the spots that showed up on ther belly.

Advent #7

This ornament is my most treasured ornament, because it has Alex's handprint from around 2 years of age on it. His preschool teacher was amazing that Christmas making all sorts of keepsakes for us parents. This time she painted their hands white, wrapped it around the ball and then painted little snowman on the fingers and tied on a poem. *sigh* I just love the smallness of my bug's hand.

Advent Ornament # 6

This Mickey ears ornament is part of a pack of 20 in rainbow hues. My parents bought it for us the year we moved from San Diego to San Antonio. We always went to Disneyland, seriously at least twice a month and we were missing it horribley. The October after we moved, my parents went to Disneyland for their last time right before their move. I asked my mom to pick me up a special Disney ornament and she came back with 20 of them!! Alex absolutely adores them and I love them because they fit into our ball theme, are not to cartooney, and they make me think of Disneyland at my favorite time of year, winter.

Ornament Advent #5

Sweet little bird. I actually have two of these birds, they are part of a Wedding set. Our friend Camille bought us a set of ornaments that she customized with our weddnig date, names, and year. It came with garland and were meant for a mini tree. I think we actually got them as a wedding gift, either that or a Christmas gift. Anyways, I love his tail feathers and the entire set. I do think my favorite memory about this ornament was Camille's excitment over buying Christmas ornaments, she is our Favorite Mexican Russian Jew so ornaments are not something she usually buys. Gotta love her humor!

Advent #4

Mister Porqupine here is right up there in my top five favorites, simpley because he is so darn cute. His nose is a sharp little point that I always worry about breaking when I pack him away each year. If I remember correctly I got him at Crate and Barrel, a secret super place to buy ornaments.

Advent Ornament #3

This Santa of the Sea ball was bought at the After Christmas sales when I was heavily pregnant. Casey and I were just starting to create our ornament collection and we were so surprised that this guy was not snatched up by someone.

Advent Ornament #2

This ornament is my second favorite ornament because of the Casey story behind it. One year about a week before Christmas Casey had a job up in Anahiem CA. He drove up for the day and instead of coming home right away and battling the crazy traffic, he went to Down Town Disney to do some Christmas shopping.

I asked him if he could stop by Dept. 56 and pick up the Orange Sequined ball ornament that we were looking at the weekend before. When he arrived there he couldn't remember which one it was exactly so he bought ALL the orange ball oranaments he could find. I will never forget him walking in the door looking like Santa with dozens of bags hanging off of him. He had gone to the Lego store and bought gifts for all his nephews, neices and Alex. He had bought me gifts at Illuminations, Dept 56, the glass store, AND he brought me home Beginets. My sweet Santa Husband made this ornament my favorite because of his huge generiousity. It is so big and heavy that we always have to hang it at the top of the tree looped on a big thick branch.

Because it made his Day

Last night Alex and I put up our Christmas tree bit by bit, depending on each page of Homework he completed. He had fallen behind in his weekly homework packet, so I told him that we would decorate a section after each completed page. All that is left is the Christmas dishes ( but I am having a very hard time finding cabinet space for them) the Holiday table linens, some random decorations, the tree train and one small aside table to be "dressed". It does feel great to have up all the ornaments, the bulk of any years decorations.

For the next 25 days, I am going to have an Advent of Ornaments, here is todays oranement:

#1 Winter Angel

This has been my favorite Christmas ornaments since EVER! Every year when my mom would unwrap her 100's (and I am not kidding about that number) of ornaments, my angel would be the one that I looked for eagerly. I tried to make her the first one on the tree and off the tree each year. She is very beat up, her slippers are slowly shredding into nothingness, but she has a fluff from one of our flocked tree still on her head. I think that was the last flocked tree we had in 1989. Every year I make sure that bit of flocking is still there, lightly pushing the spongy feel of it back into her hair between her sliver halo. I love my winter angel.

Some of you were wondering what Betty does all day long, here she is in her naptime bed glory of an Alex blanket. He leaves little beds for her all over the house of his favorite blankets and random towels. She loves them of course.