Announcement

I have an announcement everyone. Pink Peonies will be moving! I am moving over to Wordpress, so please give me a couple of weeks to do so(and to enjoy the holidays). I will be running full swing at the very beginning of January. My new domain name will be particularlypink.com, so look out for me there!

A Christmas Story

I cannot believe how fast this week has gone by. We have less than 2 weeks until we make the trip to California for Christmas at home! Yikes. And get this, there is still no snow here. What the actual heck. Tomorrow we are supposed to go sledding but since it isn't supposed to snow for at least a week I don't see that happening any time soon. 

Good news, as of today there are only 18 days until Christmas!

Tonights advent calendar activity was to watch a Christmas movie, so we went with....

A Christmas Story!!

Classic.

Actually, this is a movie that I did not grow up watching(I think my parents weren't super into it) so I hadn't even seen it until I was in college. But I love it. I think it is so funny. So in the spirit of Christmas I thought I'd share my top 7 favorite scenes from the movie(in no particular order). You're so welcome. 

1. "I Can't Put My Arms Down!!"

Living in Rexburg where it often gets into the negatives, I have felt like Randy many times in my life.

2. "Daddy's Gonna Kill Ralphie"

I just love the innocent truth to this scene. Randy is so concerned for his big brother after Ralphie got into a fight, that he hides under the sink and cries. And can we talk about how good of a mother she is? She rocks.

3. "Jingle Bells"

So much of this reminds me of our family. The singing at the top of their lungs, the look on the dad's face while the children are yelling in his ear, and the inevitable car trouble. Ah, good times.

4. "He looks like a Deranged Easter Bunny"

Um, yeah. Classic scene. It's hard as a child to appreciate the weird and strange gifts you sometimes get from family members, and this just sums it all up.

5. Mall Santa

Terrifying. Just terrifying. I mean, how many of us have pictures of ourselves as little kids crying or screaming or looking absolutely horrified on santa's lap. This scene shows what kids see when they sit on Santa's lap and it is awesome.

6. Soap in the Mouth

I was an angel child so I never actually got soap in my mouth, but I did see my older siblings go through the ordeal. The parents reaction to the F-dash-dash-dash word in this movie, is just hilarious.

7. Chinese Restaurant

In the movie a whole bunch of dogs get into the house and destroy the turkey so they end up going out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. The chopping off the duck's head gets me every time. Great ending to a great movie.

What do you guys think of this movie, fans or no? 

Sugar Cookies and Hot Cocoa

It has been a wonderful weekend full of Christmas Cheer at the Greer's place.

On Friday we made and decorated sugar cookies;

I found the link to an awesome recipe here and it really is the best sugar cookie recipe ever. Thank you Katrina! I even got Michael to help me make the cookies which is a rare occurrence. Then we got our supplies all together and got the party started.

It took a few tries but we eventually got the icing down; it was super runny and would spill over the edges after two minutes, making a big mess. We ended up with some really cute cookies though, and my favorite one was my wreath cookie (bottom right-ish).

Then Saturday night we all got together for homemade hot cocoa and the Polar Express. 

My sister and brother in law took the reigns for tonights event which was great because I was crazy busy all day with internship stuff. More to come on that later!

They gathered all sorts of additions for the cocoa for us to try, including peppermint chunks, dark chocolate squares, cinnamon sticks, orange shavings, marshmallows, Nutella, and peanut butter. Unfortunately I only got to the peppermint with dark chocolate before I was stuffed. Maybe next time we'll have to do samples in shot form so we can try more, because that stuff was rich! We enjoyed our hot chocolate while watching The Polar Express-who doesn't love Tom Hanks, honestly.

 I am so grateful to have family so close this time of year to enjoy all of these fun festivities with. It really wouldn't be the same if Michael and I were living far away from any other family. What are some fun family traditions you guys like to do? Happy counting down to Christmas!

Snowmen Pizza and Brooklyn Nine-nine

21 Days until Christmas!!

Tonights Activity: Make Snowmen Pizza

Dinner tonight was super easy and super fun. Snowmen shaped pizzas!

We just used crescent rolls, marinara sauce, Italian blend cheese, and pepperoni.

We shaped them into little snowmen and viola! We have snowmen pizza!

Dinner in 15 minutes and really yummy too! We ate dinner while watching Brooklyn Nine-nine because we love this show. Its super funny. 

Merry Christmas!!

Gingerbread Houses

22 Days til Christmas: Make Gingerbread Houses!

Again, we had to rearrange our advent calendar today because of the lack of snow. It actually did snow this morning, but then it rained and washed it all away. Sad. One of these days we ARE going to build a snowman. 

So today we made gingerbread houses! We all got our kits ready to go and then proceeded to make them pretty. This is a tradition that I have adopted from my husband's side of the family, because we never really did them growing up. But they are so much fun!

Here's mine; I am so proud of it because I usually am awful at these, but I think it turned out okay!

Here is Garrett's, very nice!

And here is Michael's. After eating frosting and candy the whole time, he looked at it and said, 'yep, I think I'm done now!' Silly boy.

We had a blast making them, and now we are one step closer to Christmas!

Hope all is well-

23 Days Until Christmas

So I missed my post yesterday and here's why. Our event for yesterday was to take our family picture, and it did NOT go well. We got all dressed up, grabbed the dog and went to the local park. Cooper is not cooperative to say the least. And husband felt like he was getting sick and didn't want to stand in the cold anymore. So we got 4 pictures taken and they were all no good. Big bummer.

But here was today:

23 Days til Christmas: Watch Frozen

This movie is adorable. It's not exactly a Christmas movie but thats okay.

We were supposed to build a snowman today but there is no snow.

That is really weird for where we live. 

And its putting a damper on my Christmas plans. Pray for snow here in Idaho!

Until then I'll just keep watching fun Christmas Movies!

25 Days of Christmas!

Its officially Christmas time!! I am so excited! I have finished about 95% of my christmas shopping already, which means that I can just sit back, relax, and enjoy the christmas season. This year I made an advent calendar to help me stay organized and make the most out of the month. I found this tutorial here and ended up with this baby:

Not bad right? I love it. 

So for the next 25 days I'll be sharing our christmas adventures with you all. 

And.....

Today was the first day!

It is officially 25 days until Christmas!

Today's Event: Decorate the Christmas Tree

The perfect activity to set the mood for the next 24 days. And let me tell you, i am pretty obsessed with our tree this year. I started planning for it a few weeks ago, and decided to go with a silver and gold, rustic christmas theme. (My husband thinks themes for Christmas are stupid, but I love). I started with these ornaments:

and found the idea for the pinecone ornaments, which I obviously had to recreate as soon as I saw them. They are my favorite things about the tree this year! Then I added some gold sparkle icicles and viola! Day one complete! Here is the finished product:

What do you think?

Merry Christmas Season Everybody!