It's {already} Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

I know it seems early, but if you haven't already, you might want to start thinking about your Christmas cards. 

Many photographers are booked up for Christmas sessions, but not all is lost!  You can have a friend, neighbor or family member snap a few shots to use for your family Christmas picture.

If you can't get a good picture of everyone together, consider using an online website to create a photo collage with a Christmas message.

Shutterfly has an easy uploading system with tons of templates to choose from.  They have Christmas designs, photo cards and even Christmas address labels. 

I've been making my grandmother an 8x8 photo book through Shutterfly (Diapers.com emailed me a free code!) and it's been VERY easy to put together.  You can upload multiple pictures at a time and, even with my slow computer, they uploaded fairly quickly.

So if you don't get a great Christmas card picture, consider using a photo collage with "good" pictures of each family member.  If nothing else, have everyone make a funny face and use that as your annual family picture.  Who sits around smiling all the time, anyway?!?!

(this was almost our Christmas card last year, but I decided Jason should be included and he was still in my tummy)

Christmas is just around the corner...the sooner you get your cards printed, the less stressed you'll be in December!

The 5 Love Languages...The Kid Edition

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman should be required reading.  Everyone has a primary love language that they use to express love for others and, in turn, feel loved by others. The book explains the concepts in more detail and, when I first read the book a decade ago, it was fun and interesting trying to figure out the love languages of friends and family.

The Five Love Languages are:

- Words of Affirmation

- Quality Time

- Physical Touch

- Receiving Gifts

- Acts of Service

Before reading the book, I naturally assumed my love language was "gifts."  I loved finding the perfect gift for someone and I loved getting gifts.  Birthdays and Christmas were huge in our family...growing up, we opened our presents for, what seemed like, hours.

But as I read the book, I realized that my love language wasn't gifts at all.  It's actually my grandmother's love language and she passed down a tradition of over-buying on special occasions to my mom and her sisters, creating more of a family expectation than anything else.

My actual love language is acts of service.  What was misleading is that, throughout my life, I've always found ways to make gifts for people, showing love through the act of making the item, not necessarily the gift itself.  I love making people cards, scrapbooks, I used to cross stitch gifts and more recently, I bake and give away care packages all the time.

Now that I have kids, I decided to try to dig to figure out their love language.  Obviously, all kids need a balance of all five: lots of praise and encouragement, plenty of quality time with mom and dad, tons of hugs and affection, fun gifts, and things done for them that they can't do for themselves.  But I wanted to learn which one stood out above all the rest.

Before diving into The Five Love Languages for Children, I wanted to see if I could discover the answers on my own.  I know for the adult version, there's a multi-question test in the back of the book (you can take the test online here), but there had to be an easier way to pull that information out of my kids.

So at dinner this weekend, I just asked them simple questions:

Me: "Would you rather have everyone at the table each say something nice about you, or get lots of hugs and kisses?"

Ryan: "Hugs and kisses!"

Kaylin: (blushing) "Have everyone say something nice to me."

Me: "Would you rather get lots of hugs and kisses or presents?"

Ryan: "PRESENTS!"

Kaylin: "PRESENTS!!!"

Me: "Okay, would you rather get a present or have someone surprise you by cleaning up your..."

Both kids: "PRESENTS!"

(this was suddenly a game of "who can yell 'presents' the loudest without laughing")

Me: "Would you rather have lots of compliments or a family movie night?"

Both kids: "PRESENTS!!!"

Me: "Um, I didn't say anything about presents that time.  Presents is OFF the table."

Ryan: "Could you ask if we want Mario Kart for the Wii?"

Me: "No.  We're not talking about presents anymore..."

Clearly, my kids are excited about Christmas and thought that they would get whatever they picked from the list. 

But after going through the questions without the possibility of presents, it was clear that Kaylin's love language is "words of affirmation" and Ryan's is "quality time." 

At this age, I think the best way to discover your child's love language is to ask how they prefer to receive it rather than give it.  Though, knowing Ryan and Kaylin's answers now, it's so obvious: Kaylin has a meltdown when Ryan calls her names, she often asks Mike if he thinks she's pretty and she is constantly giving compliments, often hoping for them in return (Ex: "Mommy, you're so pretty," answered with, "Thank you, Kaylin - so are you!") and Ryan has a hard time spending time alone, he hates being sent to his room and he loves, loves, loves Family Day on Sundays.

I hope that knowing their love languages will help me to meet their needs better.  Clearly, I need to give Kaylin lots of praise and find opportunities to spend one-on-one time with Ryan.  Now if I can just get them to realize that it's not all about the presents...or is it?

Fall Holiday Inspiration

Have you ever played Bunco?  It's a mindless dice game...usually played by stressed out, over-tired, giggly moms. There's truly nothing to it, but it's more of an excuse for a Girl's Night In once a month.  I highly recommend it.

I've been with the same group of Bunco girls since Kaylin was born.  Each month the hostess themes the decor and this month was obviously Thanksgiving.  I had to share the centerpiece with you...

Melon body, pear head, skewer feathers.  HOW CUTE is this!??!

And her daughter made this sweet little pumpkin at school...


While I was taking pictures of everything, she brought out these White Chocolate covered Oreo Mummies (that someone made for her) to show us, leftover from Halloween.


Thanks, Erin, for your awesome inspiration!!!

Tuesday's Time Saving {Closet Clean-Out} Tip

I've neglected sharing my time-saving tips over the last several months, but for now, they're back.

This one is for your closet.  I can't believe I JUST learned about this tip.

The idea is to turn all of your hangers around backward.  As you wear something and it goes back into your closet (after it's clean, of course), put it on a hanger facing the right way.  Every 6-8 months, go through your closet and donate everything on the hangers that are still facing backward.

Simple, yet genius.

I did this about six months ago and am truly shocked at some of the items that I didn't wear this summer.  Clothes that used to be my go-to favorites are clearly no longer on the top of my list.  So they are being donated to someone who can use and appreciate them.

If six months is too often to purge, do it every year.  Or as you transition your clothes from cool to warm seasons.  But my rule is non-negotiable: if I haven't worn it in a year (unless I've been pregnant or nursing during that time) it's outta here. 

Meal Plan 11/8/10

I'll be trying new recipes for a while and thought I'd comment each week on the previous week's new dishes. Our rating system is simple: thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle.

In my last meal plan, we tried Broccoli and Chicken Noodle Soup which I played around with to create my own  crock pot version, which I posted on my blog.  We had the leftovers yesterday for lunch and I was reminded JUST how good it is.  Seriously...I'll be making this often.  The whole family rated this TWO THUMBS UP.

The Maple Grilled Salmon was a little too sweet for my kids' taste, considering we usually prepare our salmon with steak seasoning, so it's super salty, not sweet.  I substituted the honey for the maple syrup, which might have messed it up, too.  Mike rated this TWO THUMBS UP, the kids and I were more THUMBS IN THE MIDDLE.

I've made Ranchero Mexi-Chicken Crostada a few times before, but it had been a while.  My BFF reminded me that I left out the cilantro once and it was very blah.  This time, Mike wanted a third helping, but it was gone.  The adults and Ryan rated it TWO THUMBS UP, Kaylin (who hates tomatoes) rated it THUMBS DOWN.

This week's menu:
Monday - Southwestern Chicken and Bean Pasta
Tuesday - Ravioli with Balsalmic Brown Butter Sauce
Wednesday - {Frugal} Bean Stew with Whole Wheat Bread
Thursday - Vegetarian Tamale Pie
Friday - Chicken Fried Rice
Saturday -Happy Birthday, Honey!!!
Sunday - {Crock Pot} White Chicken Chili with cornbread

Snacks:
Banana Bread
Quinoa Waldorf Salad
Monkey Munch

Creamy {Crock Pot} Broccoli and Chicken Noodle Soup

I modified a soup recipe tonight that was a huge, HUGE hit with my family.  Mike raved with every bite, the kids asked for more, I was even pretty impressed with myself.  And now I'll to write down what I did before I forget!

Ingredients:

2-3 chicken breasts* (I use frozen chicken)
2 cups chicken broth*
1 cup onion, finely chopped**
1 cup celery, finely chopped**
1 cup carrot, finely chopped**
1 cup pre-sliced mushrooms
1 garlic clove, minced
3 Tablespoons butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk (skim is fine)
2 cups small broccoli florets
1 cup half and half
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4-6 oz. angel hair pasta or thin spaghetti, broken into 2-3 inch pieces

Directions:

- IN THE MORNING - place chicken breasts and chicken broth in the crock pot.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours, until the chicken shreds easily with two forks.  Shred the chicken in the crock pot and leave it on low while you do the following...

- 2-3 hours before you want to eat, coat a pan with cooking spray and put on medium-high heat.  Add onion, celery, carrot, mushroom and garlic to the pan.  Saute 5 minutes or until liquid evaporates, stirring occasionally. 

- Reduce heat to medium and add the butter to the pan, stirring until the butter melts. 

- Sprinkle vegetable mixture with flour and cook 2 minutes. 

- Gradually add the milk and cook 10 minutes or until the mixture thickens slightly, stirring consistently.

- To the crock pot, add the broccoli, half and half, salt, pepper and the vegetable mixture.  Cook on low for 2 hours, until the broccoli is tender.

- 15 minutes before you're ready to serve the soup, add the pasta to the crock pot and cook on high until it's softened, about 12-15 minutes.

- Top each serving with shredded cheddar cheese.

* for a vegetarian soup, eliminate the chicken and replace the chicken broth with vegetable broth
** "finely chopped" is about 1/4 inch pieces

(Next time, I'm going to try dumping everything in the crock pot in the morning, shredding the chicken at the end.  I would need to figure out how to incorporate the flour without resulting in clumps, and I'd need to add the broccoli later in the day, but if anyone tries this method, let me know how it turns out!)

Q&A Wednesday - Scrapbook questions answered

(I received the following questions about my recent post, Scrapbook Layouts Galore.  I figured I'd answer them all at once.)

Leanne Friesen commented, "I LOVE these pages. my style is exactly the same, and seeing as I am 2 years behind, you have greatly inspired me to get back at it! I'd love to see more! So are you saying that your kids get 4-6 layouts a year put in their scrapbook and the rest of the pages go in the family book? I just had a fourth baby, and I have been thinking of ways to simplify my system."

Actually, the only books my kids have are their baby books, which span my pregnancy through their first birthday.  Most of my scrapbooks are family scrapbooks, but I do have a couple of "Friends and Family" books (for memories outside of our immediate family) and my horribly neglected "All About Me" scrapbook.  Oh, and my Picture of the Day scrapbooks, one for 2009 and one for 2010.  They're so thick that I'm considering doing the digital version from now on, just for space-saving sake. 

Basically, all of the seasonal layouts for the kids are mixed right along with birthday celebrations and Christmas pages, all in chronological order.  And, of course, they're labeled. Because I'm Type A like that.

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Erin said, "These layouts rock!! Do you use a sketch book? I love your style."

Why yes, Erin, my layouts DO rock. ;)  I'm kidding.  But yes, I use the Becky Higgins Sketches book as my default go-to.  Sometimes I follow the sketch exactly and other times I change it up to fit my needs better.  It all depends on how creative I'm feeling at the time.

I also created a notebook with references to layouts I like in past Creating Keepsakes (CK) magazines.  Granted, I haven't updated the notebook since 2009, but it's still very helpful.  And because I have my past issues of CK in magazine holders in my craft room, they're easy to find.

Everything I do is based on the number of pictures I want to include in the layout, so I always flip through the Sketches book or my own notebook before creating a layout.  For my notebook, I organized it by number of pictures with reference to the issue of CK and the page number.  I also have lists of special occasion layouts that I like (summer, birthday, holidays, etc.) to get inspiration from.

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Dawn asked,
"1. Do you print your photos at home or a store? Do you usually use 4x6?
2. Are the basketballs stickers or did you make them? If so how, I really like them.
3. How long did it take you to make all of these {layouts}?"

1. I used to print all of my pictures at home, but I read a few years ago that the ink on photos printed at home might not stand the test of time.  I don't want my pictures fading in 25 years, so I started ordering prints.  I have a folder called, "Waiting to be Printed" where I copy pictures once I know I'm using them in a layout.  From there, I usually wait for Walgreens, Snapfish or Shutterfly to run a free prints special or free shipping promotion to get the pictures cheap.  My pictures are all picked out, all I need to do is upload them to the site and place my order.

I almost always print in 4x6 and crop smaller, because that's the size that photo sites run specials.  There are some layouts that I use 5x7 or 8x10 pictures (sometimes cropped), but I print those at Costco because their enlargement price is cheapest.  Plus, I can pick them up when I'm shopping and avoid shipping costs.

2. The basketball on Ryan's layout is orange paper that I drew lines on (with a Sharpie) and roughed up with dark brown Distress Ink  I like the way it turned out, but honestly, I had to add it to cover up the fact that the white strip of paper (where I printed the journaling) was a few centimeters too short for the page.  It looked silly, so I had to cover it up.  It was a happy accident.  :)

3. Tough question to answer.  I'd guess maybe 30-45 minutes per layout - ?  I work in phases.  Generally, I'll sit down in front of my computer with my notebook and decide which pictures I want to use on my layouts.  I sketch the way the pages will look and copy the pictures into the "Waiting to be Printed" folder on my computer.  It took me about 4 hours to plan the 120 pictures I printed with Snapfish's recent "100 free prints" promotion. (I think it's going on through the end of the month with code OCT10PRNT)  Once the pictures arrived, I'd say I spent about 15-20 minutes choosing the papers, cropping the pictures and adhering them all together.  Maybe another 5 -10minutes per page typing, printing and cropping the title/journaling, so I'd guess approximately 30 minutes per layout, not counting the planning or ordering the pictures.

Meal Plan 10/25/10

I'm trying some new recipes this week.  Crossing my fingers! 

I already put Thursday and Sunday's meats in the marinade and back into the freezer.  Hopefully I'll remember to pull them out a couple of days ahead of time so cooking is easy those nights!

Monday - Ranchero Mexi-Chicken Crostada
Tuesday - Rice, Bean and Cheese Casserole
Wednesday - Broccoli and Chicken Noodle Soup (add carrots)
Thursday - Maple Grilled Salmon with mashed potatoes
Friday - Shepherd's Pie
Saturday - {Meredith's wedding}
Sunday - Orange Teriyaki Chicken with vegetables and brown rice