Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 3

Day 3 of the Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge! Yay!

Today's topic is Holiday Decor

I love decorating for Christmas. My husband and I just finished decorating part of our house and it's not nearly where I want it yet. We put up a TON of Christmas lights (all white of course) as well as a few garlands here and there and some wreaths. I just realized that we don't have any stockings! How can you decorate for Christmas and not have any stockings?! I think I'll have to go out and buy some... or maybe make some??

Anyways, I don't have any pictures of our house decorated (it isn't that great anyways), but I wanted to share a few ideas from pinterest (of course) that I love.

Source: 4.bp.blogspot.com via Alison on Pinterest

Source: iwannatalkaboutbrooke.blogspot.com via Alison on Pinterest

Source: andersonfamilycrew.blogspot.com via Alison on Pinterest

Source: sixoneseven.blogspot.com via Alison on Pinterest

Do you think the tree skirt would be easy to make? I'm a newbie sewer and I'm thinking that would be a fun project!

What do you decorate with?

Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 2

Day 2 of this Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge! Two days in a row of posts. Did I mention before that I'm excited to be blogging again? Anyways, day 2!

Today's topic is favorite holiday tradition new or old.

Alright, my husband's family does some pretty great things. I never knew you could do this when I was growing up, but you can pay a fee to get a permit and you can cut down a tree in the forest. Why haven't I done this before?!

So each year his family takes a few sleds and a saw and drives up the mountains a ways to cut down a Christmas tree. We usually end up running around and playing in the snow most of the time before we search. Last year we found a great hill to sled down. I think we spent a few hours sledding.

When you go up there you have a whole forest to pick from! Needless to say, you can get pretty picky with your Christmas tree. This will be the first year that my hubby and I will get our own tree. YAY! :)

That is my favorite holiday tradition. I'm so glad to be part of it!

What's your favorite?

Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 1

Today I'm going to start my favorite season *Christmas* with a holiday blog challenge. You should do it too :)

The topic for today is favorite gift received.

I thought about this for awhile and there are two gifts that I think are my absolute favorite.
My first gift would be Christmas 2003. My aunt gave me a weekend getaway at her house to scrapbook. Before this date I had never scrapbooked, but I had seen my aunt's many times and I loved them! She is a scrapbooking genius :).

My scrapbook from that weekend is very... how shall I say this.. bland. BUT, she showed me so many cool scrapbooking tools that have stuck ever since.

The weekend opened my eyes to scrapbooking and all things crafty! Now I can't imagine not scrapbooking or having fun with crafts.

My second favorite gift was more of a gift I bought for myself. My Canon Digital Rebel XTi camera. It's my baby :)

I'm excited to be taking part of this blog challenge. I hope it will keep me blogging!

Goals. And life as I know it.

I have finally finished my list of 101 goals to complete in 1,001 days! I'm excited! This may be, however, the organized/list-making side of me being on a kick right now. Anyways, it was fun making my list! It was also fun being able to mark some items as being in progress :)

Life so far has been at a stand-still for the past few months. Nick and I aren't really doing anything worth writing about. Nick has a few bands on the west side he's part of, but getting over there doesn't happen all the time and the pay isn't too great. Our goal for next year/whenever we can afford to do it is to go to the west side so that Nick can be closer to Seattle.

I have also come to the conclusion that I don't really like subbing. I enjoy teaching kids and working with them. Some of the classes that I have been to have been great, but there are some that I just don't like going to. I have been keeping a journal to write notes in for myself because the experiences I've had substitute teaching so far have been really beneficial. I've learned what I don't like, what I can tolerate, and what I want in my future classroom. I've also learned some great management tools.

Therefore, I have decided that I'm not going to try and shoot for just public school teaching. I'm looking into teaching preschool and even at Head Start programs. I actually have found 2 jobs teaching preschool on the west side. I think that for me, and for our financial benefit, me finding a full time job would be the best thing to do for us. I'll probably still apply for public school jobs come the time to apply for them, but I've applied to way too many schools and have received nothing in return besides letters of regret.

That is the plan for life at the moment and we'll see just where God decides to lead us.

Enjoy the list :)

Alison