Everyday Live Happy

I love Christmas. The trees (yes I said trees.) The lights. The feel in the air and in our home. However, unlike stores that have Christmas out before Halloween, I don't decorate until Thanksgiving dinner is over. Thanksgiving is an often over looked holiday. I don't have many decorations for it other than a few pumpkins that go with my Halloween decor as well. But I love that we have a holiday that is all about gratitude. I am a truly blessed person. I have so many things that I am grateful for. The food is great of course, but more importantly is that we get together with family. We eat, talk, laugh and enjoy being together. We watch movies, play games and eat more pie. It's a great holiday - especially when it isn't my year to cook! I hope that before we pull out all of our Christmas decorations that we take time on Thanksgiving to reflect on what we are truly thankful for. Here is a list of a few of the things that I am thankful for (in no particular order....) M...

We have a tradition at our house that we love. We have done it off and on for many years, but we have done it every year for the past 10 years. We make a Halloween house. Think gingerbread house for Halloween. We make it out of graham crackers so we can make the tallest, spookiest looking house. We have got together with friends many of the years, but not this year. Kids, schedules, work and holidays don't make it easy to have a day that works for many people. So my daughter and I put together our house for this year. Like I said graham crackers and hot glue until you get something that you like. We have made these for years so we kind of have an idea of what to do to so it turns out according to our idea. Most years our houses are pretty similar, but never exactly the same. Since it's a Halloween house you want it to look run down and haunted. So perfect lines and perfectly broken crackers are not needed. In fact the more mismatched it looks the better. Then com...

It is finally October! It is one of my favorite times of the year. It is finally fall. The leaves are changing color. It is sweater and boots season. And most importantly, it is time to celebrate Halloween! I LOVE Halloween! I'm not exactly sure when this obsession started. As a kid I loved dressing up and going trick or treating and carving jack-o-lanterns. Now I try to decide for months what I'm going to be for Halloween and what costume I'm going to make for my daughter. We have it narrowed down to a couple of options. I have all of my decorations (and there are many!) up by the end of September. We go to the pumpkin patch near our home complete with a hay wagon ride around a field of pumpkins. We have a get together with friends to decorate Halloween houses. (Think gingerbread house except with graham cracker house creations and decorated to look like a haunted house! It is great!) Of course with the invention of Pinterest my daughter and I have already come up with...