5 Books To Read This Holiday Season
I love to read, but I haven’t had a lot of time to dive into books this year. With the arrival of our new baby and moving, I feel like I won’t have a lot of time to read before the new year, but I am going to really put forth effort. It truly is my favorite pastime and I have always enjoyed reading. Here are a few holiday-related and non-holiday books to add to your reading calendar this month!
Holiday Gift Guide for Her
This is probably one of my favorite gift guides to put together because I love to shop and find great deals on the cutest things and share them with you! Plus, it helps me put together my wish list as well (coming soon!). It’s still Cyber week, so there are some great sales going on and now is definitely the time to shop! I did most of my shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but that doesn’t mean I can’t buy a few extra gifts for friends and myself, right? Can I get an Amen?
Ladies, you deserve some fun and cute gifts this year because you work hard and in heels, no less! Unless you’re me. I’ve been wearing mostly flats since having my babies. Moms still deserve all the best things because most days you are covered in poop and spit up or whatever the kids had for lunch and bath bubbles and more poop, so, you need to at least be in some comfy yoga pants and the cutest slippers.
Here are some of my favorites this year! I could literally put about 500 other pairs of boots on this list, but I tried to keep the selection minimal. Maybe I should do a separate post on boots? What do you think?
Holiday Gift Guide for Her:
Thanksgiving 2016
Thanksgiving this year was hectic, loud, crazy, tiring and completely wonderful! Doing anything with the three kids right now is very difficult. We are still adjusting to life with three and taking them all out is not the easiest. Three kids pitching fits and crying in Target is less than thrilling. Thanksgiving was very tiring because we were going all day, but it was so fun. I love getting to see all of our family in the same day. It is so nice to catch up and let the kids run wild outside. They had a lot of fun, but we went all day without naps, so by the end of the day, we were all exhausted and ready to get home.
Cyber Monday Deals and Picks
I LOVE shopping the holiday sales! This year,I did most of mine online, but I did get out with the crowds a little bit on black Friday and got some great deals! It is a family tradition for all the girls to go Black Friday shopping and I am not one to break traditions. Before Black Friday, I had not bought any presents and now I only lack two and a few Santa gifts for my kids. Today, the sales continue with Cyber Monday and I am listing a few of my favorite and picks from each below! Happy holiday shopping!
Holiday Gift Guide for the New Baby
Last year was Sophie’s first Christmas and this year will be Weston’s. I love firsts, but there is something about the holidays that is even more special. Baby’s first Christmas in particular is such a sweet time. I love celebrating Christ’s birth and remembering my own baby’s birth. It is a wonderful time of reflection and remembering why we are all here in the first place. It’s also fun to dress up a new baby and bundle him in red and green and all the cable knit and flannel everything. We are all so smitten with our new little boy over here and these are a few things that we have loved and need to be on your new baby’s holiday gift guide!
Celebrate the Holidays with Minted + Giveaway
If you’ve been around my blog for a while, you know how much I adore Minted. I rely on them every year for our holiday cards and wouldn’t buy them anywhere else! They are so beautiful and wonderful quality. I am never disappointed. They have so many holiday cards and decor to choose from, so I am making it easy on you and have pulled out my absolute favorites!
Christmas Traditions + Peppermint OREO Cookie Ball Pops
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #OreoCookieBalls #CollectiveBias
Family holiday traditions are so important I remember after Ryan and I got married, we talked a lot about establishing traditions for our family because we were being pulled in so many directions from both of our families. I think we attended over 10 Christmas gatherings between our two families and a work and church party. It was nuts. It left very little time for our own Christmas celebrations, so we talked heavily about it that year and decided to make a list of traditions that we will make time for every year no matter what. These have become especially important since having our babies.
Christmas Traditions Every Family Should Have:
-Decorating the Christmas Tree together
-Driving around town to look at Christmas lights
-Seeing Santa Claus
-Baking Sweet Treats
This year, We chose to make our own rendition of the OREO Cookie Balls! We ran out to Walmart to purchase our ingredients and made Peppermint OREO Cookie Ball Pops and a few Peppermint OREO Cookie Balls. They were delicious! My favorite part was the memories we made in the kitchen together. My son was covered in melted chocolate and my husband enjoyed eating them once they were made. This recipe is so easy to make! The only tip I have is that if you choose to use peppermint sticks instead of regular sucker or cake pop sticks, dip the OREO Cookie Balls once in your white chocolate and then once they cool, insert the peppermint stick before dipping them a second time. This gives them more coverage which is best when dipping anything dark into white chocolate. It also held the peppermint sticks better (because they are so thick) if they were already dipped once.
Ingredients:
-1 pkg (8 oz.) brick cream cheese, softened
-36 OREO Cookies, finely crushed (about 3 cups)
-4 pkg. (4 oz. each) semi-sweet baking chocolate, melted (I used vanilla almond bark)
Optional Ingredients:
-1 teaspoon Peppermint Extract
-Peppermint Sticks
Make it!
-MIX cream cheese and cookie crumbs until blended.
-SHAPE into 48 (1-inch) balls. Freeze 10 min. Dip balls in melted chocolate; place in single layer in shallow waxed paper-lined pan.
-CUSTOMIZE it with your own ingredient additions or decorative skills.
-REFRIGERATE 1 hour or until firm.
What is your favorite holiday tradition? Check out more delicious holiday OREO Cookie Ball recipes here!
6 Things To Look Forward to The Week of Thanksgiving
I love the week of Thanksgiving. All of the excitement and hustle and bustle of the entire week is so thrilling. It’s also the kick off to the holiday season. It’s non-stop shopping, wrapping, eating, and celebrating from here on out to 2016! – At least, it is for my family. So what are the 6 things I’m most looking forward to this Thanksgiving week?
Black Friday Shopping – Most people don’t like to fight the crowds anymore now that you can do a lot of shopping online, but there is just something about getting up really early with my aunts, grandma and cousins and going on a mad shopping spree to get all of our Christmas presents.
Cooking and Baking – I’m not sure how much cooking I will be doing this year since we are moving, but I think my mom put me in charge of the grape salad. wah wah. Oh, well. There is always next year, right? I do so look forward to walking into my grandparent’s house and smelling her amazing cooking and baking. She is an incredible cook so Thanksgiving is always a pleasure at her house!
Lots and Lots of Eating – Who doesn’t look forward to the eating? I don’t care what kind of diet you’re on, Thanksgiving is the one day a year you should break it and enjoy the delicious food. I’m looking forward to all of the classics this year: turkey, dressing, chicken and dumplin’s (this is a staple in my family) and my Maw Maw’s lemon pie! Yum!
Smack Talking and Watching Football – It’s Rivalry week which means Iron bowl time in Alabama (War Eagle). Let’s just say that fans of opposing teams tend to stray away from each other this week and probably a week or two after. Sad, but true. We are very mature about our football games around here.
Family Photos – I love taking pictures with all of my family. We have made it a tradition to take a photo of all the girl cousins on my mom’s side of the family every year now for a long time. It’s fun to see how everyone grows and changes over time. These photos are so precious to me and I look forward to them because I am a bit of a picture hoarder.
Visiting with Family and Friends you don’t get to see very often. – I love spending time with my extended family during the holidays. They have also been a huge deal to my family and so we celebrate big. I have lots of cousins and now several little second cousins and I love seeing them. We have way too much fun together and we always go Black Friday shopping which is hilariously fun.
What are you most looking forward to this Thanksgiving week?
Fall Bucket List
Happy First Day of Fall! Eekk! My absolute favorite time of year! Here is my bucket list for this season! I can’t wait to do so many more firsts with Hampton including take him to the pumpkin patch, Trick-or-Treating, taking him to his first Auburn game and introducing him to Hocus Pocus. That is an important one.
Other thinks on my list are to try out a few new recipes, bake some chocolate chip pumpkin bread for family and friends, go on a few dates with my love, and the big one – celebrating Hampton’s 1st birthday!
What is on your list? Do you have any exciting plans this season?
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