Fall Fun Series!!!

 Hey everyone just swinging by to say: IT'S FALL!! Yup tomorrow it's September and although the first official day of fall isn't until the 21st, I always count the whole month of September in the Fall months!!

And although Christmas is my favorite holiday, Fall is my favorite season!!! Last year I did the 25 days of Christmas Series and got great reviews and everyone loved it!! So this year I thought instead of trying to think up 25 new things for Christmas time, I would celebrate fall!!!

So in the next 3 months be prepared to see (almost) ALL THINGS FALL!! I am so excited to share my love of fall with you and my dear Kyra this year!! So be sure to stick around, because starting tomorrow the fun begins.

Side note: Kyra slept through the night, I think we may have survived the Jet Lag finally!!!

Fun facts about me

31 things you probably didn't know about me. 

1. I am an overachiever. I love to have a full schedule and do really well in everything I do. Proof of this is in my school work I am always one of the first people to finish my homework.

2. I am super lazy, given the choice between exercising, cleaning, and sleeping, I would choose to take a nap any day.

3. I am a total animal lover; I want to adopt every sad alone dog or cat I find. I am also slightly obsessed with both Rabbits and Horses. Guess that is because I grew up around them.

4. I love love love to draw, paint, scrapbook, and do any craft I can. Just the resources out here are a little bit harder to find and more expensive, so I don't do it as much as I wish. As you probably all notice since that section on my blog has been lacking quite a bit. But I do have one lined up just gotta find the time to do it!!

5. I love to drink wine it is my poison of choice!! It is so freaking tasty and I am spoiled in we live in the Riesling area of Germany!!! Riesling is my favorite!!

 6. I am also very addicted to Dr Pepper. I am a non-believer of addictions but sometimes wonder cuz I will get cravings for it. I know its terrible for me but It tastes so good.

7. Christmas is my favorite Holiday. If you have been following along for a while you could probably tell as I did a whole 25 days of Christmas Series this last year. This coming year I get to spend it with my family for the first time in 5 years. Although sadly I will miss the Christmas Markets and Gluwien while I am there.

8. My male celeb crush is either Gerard Butler, or Skylar Astin. And my female celeb crush is either Mila Cunis or Zooey DeChannel.

9. Sniffling is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves, unless you are on a run with a cold and have no choice in the matter, just freaking find a tissue and blow your nose.

10. I have a closet full of scrapbook stuff and I am obsessed with the IDEA of scrapbooking. But I never sit down and do it like I want to because I am afraid once I start I will never put it down. I really need to since Kyra is already almost 1.5 and I haven't finished her first year book!!!

11. I hate trying on jeans, so I am down to only 2 pair that fits and doesn't have holes.

12. Family is very important to me and I would do just about anything to help them out.

13. I have a very bad sense of  what looks good, so I have a hard time trying to decorate my house, or put together nice outfits.

 14. I love to blog. I don't know if my blog is very interesting or what people like to read about, but it is such a good way to express myself and I have a lot of wonderful people who follow and read my blog every time I post.

 15. I actually like watching a lot of Kyra's shows, and have been known to sit and watch them even when she is asleep.

16. I am bit OCD in that I have to write down everything into lists and have on going lists for chores, schedules, meals, and even what blogs I wanna write about.

 17. I find cooking very relaxing, specially when I am not rushed, and get to try new recipes. I think trying new stuff is just too much fun.

18. I LOVE German Festivals and Markets, even tho each pretty much has the same thing, there is NEVER a shortage of amazing food and drinks. So I just love going and enjoying the food and people watching.

19. Since graduating from high school, I have lived in 6 different places. Haha that is a lot considering it has only been 6 years haha.

20. I am shy. I don't like to make calls to people I don't know, and like to have Dustin do that talking with people I don't know well. I think this can come off as stuck up, but really I just am a big baby. Haha. I dunno why I have regressed back to it so much more. In College I was so different, tho alcohol makes me less shy so that could be it since I think I was drunk most of college hence why it only lasted a year. 

22. I despise folding clothes, and washing dishes. All other chores are bareable. But those two are always the last things done.

23. Traveling is the spice of my life. I am so thrilled by all the places I can say I have been, and I have a whole list of places we plan to hit still before we move back to the states.

24. I absolutly love to do my hair and makeup and try out new styles!

25. My life wouldn't be the same with out music! I love country music mostly and it just reminds me so much of being home and of my family.

 26. I love to exercise even if its not the first thing I choose to do. I do it because I love the way I feel afterwards at least on time when I don't over do it!!

27. I often think when people ask what your hobby is I should answer Dancing. Because anytime I hear a good beat I just wanna get up and dance. My daughter has gained this trait from me.

28. I am also an avid reader too, well when I have the time, that isn't taken up by school work.

29. I have 3 little tattoos. One is a rose in a secret place haha, that is for my family. One is the stars on my shoulder, the only one that was just because I liked it. And the 3rd is the Celtic heart on my arm which stands for wearing my heart on my sleeve.

30. I have a hotheaded temper. When things make me mad I don't know how to just calm down and get over it, I tend to blow my fuse when people piss me off.

31. If we were to get pregnant today I would want it to be twins. A boy and a girl!

Butterfly Invitations

Time for another craft!! So as you all know Kyra is turning 1 later this month!! And of course that means we get to throw her first birthday party this year!!! So the search to find any and everything to follow our theme of butterflies was on. The first step of course was invitations. I had originally found the really cute ones, where using wire, paper and rubber bands you made little butterflies that when twisted would fly on their own. I was super excited about this, but than the paperclips I thought was going to work were to short, and thick. And I wasn't able to find the wire I wanted so there I was with no idea what I was going to do for invites.

Than my awesome friend Micah came up to spend a few days with us and helped me look up some new ideas. We found these really cute ones and with a little creativity we were able to pull them off.

Step 1: fold a piece of construction paper in half and draw the outline of one wing on it making sure the center is along the crease.

Step 2: cut out the wings

Step 3: using your creative mind set, apply glue and glitter to different places on the wings to get desired look.

Step 4: write up/design your actual invitations. We did two per sheet, and printed on regular paper so it would be easy to roll up.

Step 5: punch a hole somewhere in the center of the bottom part of the wing. and using yarn or any sort of string, tie the rolled up invitation to the butterfly. We initially did this on the outside of the wings so it would appear to be the body. But we found with the glitter the wings were too heavy and wouldn't stay where we wanted. So we decided it looked better to put the invitation on the inside and than use tape to hold the wings together!

We took a few days to do all this and so we were later getting them out than I had originally hoped. So we had to do an EVITE also so that friends would know the date and save it. But I am super excited to hand them out this weekend!! Hope you enjoyed this simple tutorial!

Getting ready for Christmas Dinner

     To me one of the most exciting parts of Christmas is to gather around a table, eating some awesome food and just really enjoy each others company. I love to sit and talk about the great gifts we were given and the reactions of our loved ones to the gifts we got them. And of course after dinner sitting around playing board games drinking Cocoa or Egg Nog laughing and making memories to look back fondly upon for years to come. Living over seas and away from family for over 3 years now, it has been sad to not be able to do this with my family. But the great thing about Army living that I have mentioned before is that your friends become like family. So this year we are going to a have a couple people over to enjoy some delicious food and fun. 

      This will be my first time hosting a Christmas dinner at my house. I want to make it special for everyone. At least I don't have to worry about decorating the house as I think there is adequate amounts of decoration to get everyone in the spirit! The only thing that I though could use some spirit was the table. I have been admiring many table decorations on Pinterest, but some seem so formal although they are beautiful. Others are just amazing and if we had the money I would totally go all out and do them. But for what I was thinking I had the perfect idea!

        But here are some of the fancier and beautiful ideas for your table if you have the time and money to accomplish them: these pictures are not mine.

The White looks so classy and  simple!!

I love the Rustic table with the modern chairs!

Beautiful Red flowers!

Cute little gifts for everyone, and fresh pine garland!

The Reds are just amazing on this one!!

      So my simple decorations are made a lot cheaper and match all my decorations around the house with the blue and silver! I used silver tinsel as what holds it all together. Than I flipped over a couple Margarita glasses and filled them up with blue and silver ornaments, and placed the candles I made earlier on the tops!! In the center is a cute little garden gnome that Dustin bought me earlier this month because I had been looking for one everywhere!!

It may not be the fanciest but it looks nicer than just an empty table! What do you do for Christmas Dinner? Are there any games you play specifically or fun customs that your family loves to enjoy after all the gifts are open?

Sparkles like Diamonds

       I don't know what it is about Christmas time, but something about it makes me wanna decorate everything in glitter. Maybe it's how the snow glistens in the sun and I wanna bring that in to my home. Who's to say for sure. But today's craft was all about glitter. I even got a friend of mine to do one of her awesome nail designs with some glitter for you guys!!

      As I mentioned yesterday today is a give away day. You will have you choice of either a glitter and glue ornament, or a candle.

    The first craft I did was the ornaments. They were so simple, all you had to do was pour the glue on to contact paper in what ever design you wanted and shake glitter down over it. Than let it dry over night. I did both snow men and snow flakes.

      And the other craft I did was the glittery candles. This one I had a bit of a challenge with as I didn't realize you have to do a very very thin layer of glue in order for this to look right, and that you should stick to a simple design also as going crazy with it will only lead to it looking sloppy. Here are the 4 candles I did, you can easily tell which was done first and which set was done after a little practice.

 And here are the adorable nail designs that Candice did for my blog today. She does really great work, I haven't seen a design I didn't like. If you wanna check out all the cool stuff she does just follow this link http://getnailedbycandice.blogspot.de/ to her blog I highly recommend it. And if you live here in Wiesbaden I'm sure if you got a hold of her she would love to come up with a design for you :)

      And as an added bonus I took a couple pictures of Christmas things around my house that had glitter on them too :P

      So in order to win today's give away you must answer on either this blog entry or the link from Facebook the following question. And the winner will be drawn the same way the last give away was done.

     What Holiday image reminds you most of Christmas (ie snowflakes, nativity scenes, etc...)?   Mine is obviously snowmen. They just remind me of the cheer of the holidays. We always loved to build snowmen with our parents when we were younger!