Keeping Christmas Cards

What to do with Christmas cards when Christmas is over? For the past three years I have started keeping all the Christmas cards we've received. This year we more than felt the love with the amount of cards we got. I know there are a ton of ways to display the cards as they are coming in during the season but here's what I like to do. I hang a piece of ribbon down the center of our kitchen cabinets  and then as we get the cards I clip them on to the ribbon with clothes pins. The question comes up when you take all your decorations down ...what do you do with all the cards? I have started to keep mine on a binder ring and add ribbon for extra cuteness. I punch a hole in the top left corner of every card (this years took a long time) and then place them one at a time on the binder ring. I then put our family's card on top and display during the next holiday season. It would even be a cute idea to keep on a coffee table and keep out all year. Here's some pictures of what our display looked like this year. Look close and you may find your card up there. Enjoy!!!

Love, Jenna

Getting organized for 2014

Back when I first had Jonathan I felt like the days were just getting away from me. I felt like I was not a bit productive during the day...even though I was nursing a baby and somewhat keeping a household. A neighbor at the time told me about her daily chore planner and I thought it would be a perfect fix for my feeling of unproductiveness. It was a daily chore chart that I downloaded from http://www.motivatedmoms.com/. It's $8 dollars and to me it's so worth it. It covers everything from daily chores to things like renewing car registration  and changing the air conditioner filters. With this moms help you will not miss one thing and you will feel like you did something for the day. To me the idea of checking off one of the boxes made me feel like I was on top of the world. I just downloaded my 2014 planner, download yours too...you'll thank me later.

Splish Splash!

After a long day of playing hard and just being a boy, a much needed bath is in order, especially if we go to the park (which we go almost every day.)  Bath time is one of Jonathan's favorite times of the day. He's always full of smiles in the bath but the other night he was in an exceptionally good mood and I figured what the heck, let me get out my fancy camera and take some pictures of him. Sidenote, when I say "fancy camera" I am referring to my Canon rebel T3...it's fancy to me! Enjoy the pictures of my little love splishing and splashing.

 

After he gets out of the bath we put on pj's and read a book or two (depending on his attention span that night.) Here he is all clean and ready for storytime.

Ps: He still takes his pacifier at naptime and bedtime. Hoping when little Jackson comes we can break him of it, but if not it's not the end of the world. Goodnight!

 

Love, Jenna

Burlap: It's the theme of the season.

So you've seen the burlap and mesh wreaths? They sort of became the latest craze, at least in my world. My latest project was from a pinterest inspiration from an Etsy seller. I thought about just ordering the wreath and garland set until my bestest friend Lisa informed me that the set sold for $335. Her exact words to me were "you better figure out how to make that wreath, did you see how much it cost?" So I took a trip to Michaels and bought the necessary supplies and got to work. What you will need:

• One green Christmas wreath
• A roll of 5.5 in mesh
• About 10 picks-2 kinds, so 5 of each kind
• Green wire garland if you want to make coordinating garland to match

Starting with the plain green wreath, hang it on a door with a wreath hanger. This type of wreath works best because when you need to pinch the mesh and burlap (will discuss in a minute) you can use the wire branches to do so. Another perk to using this type of wreath is that it adds fullness to the wreath.

Next we will start to add the burlap and mesh. You will keep the burlap and mesh on the roll as you work. I started with the burlap first. You will grab about 8-10 in. depending on how big you want the loops. Once you have the desired fullness of that loop of burlap pinch it and grab two branches and twist them together. This will secure your burlap loop. Continue around the whole wreath. Next pull out the mesh roll and repeat the same thing working it in with the burlap. The wreath will start to look like this.

I think the wreath looks cute just like this but why not add some picks to make it more festive! You can add the picks like I recommended by adding as many or as little as your little heart desires. When placing the picks in the wreath you can again use the wire branches of the wreath to secure the picks. I also had some extra ornaments that I found in with all my Christmas decorations so I decided to add them too. Remember you can add as much or as little as you wish. Here is a picture of the final product.

Once I got down and dirty in decorating mode I started on my garland for my mantle. I used green wire garland for the base and did the same as I did for the wreath. Once I hung the wreath up and added all the rest of the décor for the mantle I decided to switch out the red ornaments with green ones. I am inlove with how it all turned out. Gosh, decorating for Christmas makes me so happy!

Family Photos

Can you believe it? Jonathan just turned two and we are just a few months away from meeting our sweet Jackson. Where has the time gone? What better way to cherish these times than to do family photos. I contacted a good friend Kelsey and asked if she would be up for the challenge of capturing Jonathans two year old photos/family photos/maternity photos. She gladly accepted the offer and we had our pictures done this past Sunday at Jesmond Dene Park in Escondido, CA. We could not have been happier with the results. Enjoy

Bows! Bows! Bows!

So I've been making bows for fun for quite some time now. I finally took the advice of many and started selling them. I have opened a shop on Etsy. The name of the shop is Jenna's Bowtique. The name was a joint effort from the hubs. When i asked him to help me think up a shop name, he suggested "Jenna's boutique" and my reply was "you mean like "bow" tique, and he said that's not what I meant but that's even better...what can I say...we make a great team. Anyhow, the shop is up and running. You can visit it at www.etsy.com/shop/jennasbowtique. I'm super excited about it. I really enjoy making the bows and it helps pass the time while hubby is gone. Now is a great time to have started this because since I don't have a craft room (a must have in our next house...I hope) our kitchen table is my work area...needless to say there is only room for one person to eat at the table. Thank God Jonathan still eats in his highchair...lol! I have tons and tons of ribbon and have started putting together holiday themed bows, but I am happy to make any special order/color combinations you may want. Hopefully baby grubby number two (and NO, I am not pregnant) is a little girl because Jonathan doesn't like wearing the bows...although sometimes I need to "try" them in his hair just to make sure they look OK in kids hair. Please visit my shop or contact me if you need bows, they are great for everyday wear and make any outfit extra special.

Op-Love Reunited

Operation Love Reunited is an organization that provides military families the opportunity for pre-deployment and homecoming photos for free. The location is up to you , the only two stipulations are that the service member has to be in uniform for some of the pictures, and they need to be deploying within a few months. We chose to have our pictures done at The Hotel del Coronado,and on the beach. The location was beautiful, and the weather was good...except for the wind!!! Hubby was OK because he has such short hair (not nearly as short as he used to wear it though), but Jonathan and I were a different story...the wind did bad things to our hair. I promise we both had tamed hair upon arrival for the shoot. We were also able to combine the session and get some great shots of the baby for his six month photos. He was full of smiles, and his eyes are just amazing in every picture. They are still super blue...I'm pretty confident they will stay blue. Overall, wind and all, we are very happy with our pictures...hope you enjoy them.