Christmas Highlights

Happy day after Christmas!!!! Here are a few of my favorite pictures taken yesterday. I think the absolute best part of Christmas is little kids in their jammies with huge smiles on their face.

Bailey "helping" Claire open her presents. Claire is just trying to read her book, she did care about the rest of the presents.

Claire peeking through the window of her new doll house

What do you think, did we have enough pink at our house yesterday?

Claires favorite present. She has spent most of the last 24 hours sitting in it. Maybe someday she will learn to get in moving.

This is the one day of the year that I actually enjoy having a huge mess in my house.

Sights of Christmas

The sight of Christmas by Bailey Sherwood (Notice the baby Jesus is on top of the stable and the angel and cow are inside)

The Big Day

Today was a VERY big day at our house, or at least a very big day for our little 4 year old. Today was the Christmas program at Baileys preschool.

From the second she woke up, there was excitement in the air. We spent the morning choosing out the perfect outfit, practicing her line, putting curlers in her hair and we even had to put on a little of moms makeup to make sure she was extra beautiful.

The program was fabulous! It only took 45 minutes for 14 kids to say one line each and for the class to sing 6 songs. The program also only had to be stopped 3 times so the teacher could tell the kids to be quiet, stop cheering for one another and to keep their appendages to themselves. All in all, the perfect Christmas program.

Few of my favorite things

I have never understood why the song "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music is considered a Christmas song but it is played all the time on the Christmas radio station. At any rate, I was listening to the song the other day while driving and started to think of a few of my favorite things. Of course there are the obvious favorite things like my hubby and girls, but I was thinking more superficially of things that I like that I have around my house.

Then I started to think, I would love to know what are some of my friends favorite things. What if they know about something I have never heard of that would make my life complete.

Then I thought of this, what if I asked everyone to tell me 2-3 of their favorite things. Do you have a favorite scented candle that makes your house smell heavenly, or a recipe that your family would eat every night or the perfect type of blanket that keeps you so warm? Whatever it is, I want to hear about. Then if anyone actually responds, I will make a list and post it for everyone to see.

I will start off the list with 3 of my favorite things right now:

1. I LOVE microfiber cleaning clothes. I bought a package of 25 from Sams Club a while back for about $8 and I seriously use them everyday. They clean up spills so quickly, are perfect for using with Windex to wash windows and stainless steel appliances. They even makes fabulous dolly blankets.
2. A few days ago my good friend Alene introduced me to Frontier spices and their chicken flavored broth powder. LOVE IT!!!! It makes the best chicken broth and gravy. So much better than bullion or Swanson chicken broth. Here is their website http://www.frontiercoop.com/ or if you live in the Mesa/Gilbert area, you can buy it at Shars Kitchen Store.
3. At this time of year, I love to make a homemade simmering potpourri. Here is what you do.
Put 2 slices of orange, 2 slices of lemon, 2 bay leaves, about 6-7 whole cloves and a cinnamon stick in a pot. Cover with water and simmer on your stove top. Or if you have a mini crock pot use it. I usually buy the spices at Walmart in their Mexican food aisle, so much cheaper than the regualr spice aisle.

So there you go, a few of my favorite things, what are yours?