Mel's Box of Chocolates

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In case you didn't know today is the last day of 2008. *actually now that this post is finally ready to be published there are less than 4 hours until the new year. Anyways. Another year. Gone. I remember thinking how crazy my parents were when they always talked about how fast time went by when to me, as a child, it seemed to drag on forever. Now that I am (ahem) older I find myself complaining of the same thing. You blink and the day, week, year, is over. For our family 2008 was a pretty good year. I decided to follow the blog back in time to remember the memories we created this past year. Here are a few of my blog highlights... January: I Started the year with some new goals of course losing weight was at the top of the list. I worked my butt off tackling my National Boards , but with a new style February: I went on my first teacher conference to sunny Florida without the kids, came back to enjoy a family night out at Disney on Ice , and learned that "E" does not sta...

Today we are saying goodbye to Christmas 2008. The tree has already been disassembled with the ornaments packed away. Toys have been put in their rooms (not put away there, but small steps people) Time to start the hunt for Christmas decor to put in their bins for next year. Adios Christmas! Hello New Year. What about you? Have you started taking down your Christmas decorations? If not, when do you usually put things away? Don't forget to visit 5minutesformom to see what people have been tackling. Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

I just had to share some conversations I've had with Dylan and Zoe... Me: Dylan, don't you want to go sit on Santa's lap with sister? D: No, he is fake anyways Me: (thinking Oh No this is it, I have to confess) Why do you say that? D: Well everybody knows that all these Santas's in the malls and stores are fake. The real Santa is way too busy at the North Pole so they deliver all the messages to him. Me: Oh I see. D: Yeah, and I already told one fake Santa what I want so I don't have to tell another one. **************************************************************************************** Scene: Zoe and I are walking into the grocery store. Me: Shoot, I forgot my cell phone in the car (it had my grocery list in it) Z: That's okay mommy I have mine and you can use it. Zoe proceeds to pull out her Princess phone from her little purse and hands it too me. Z: There now you can call anybody. Go ahead. Call them. Why yes, I did make a few phone calls from the ...

From our family to yours... We wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a New Year overflowing with blessings and happiness! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

The reindeer have been fed... The cookies and milk ready with a note to Santa included... All that's left to do is dream of those sugar plums... which I'll get to as soon as I figure out what the heck they are! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

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Listen carefully when Santa repeats what my son asks for. What do you think? Do I have an incredibly thoughtful son or do you think he was bribed by daddy? Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

As a teacher, I am always looking for crafts around the holidays that I can do with my students so they can create something to give their parents for a Christmas present. This year I had the students paint Christmas ornaments. These are very simple and relatively cheap to make, but are beautiful and practical gifts that parents, grandparents, teachers, friends, and just about everybody will enjoy. What you need: Clear ornament balls - The iridescent ones provide a beautiful finish Craft paint Ribbon Take the hanger part off the ornament and pour one color of paint in the ball. Swirl around to cover part of the area inside. Then choose another color, pour it in the ball and swirl to cover more area inside the ball. You can choose to add another color or just leave it with only two. Make sure you swirl the paint around to cover the entire inside of the ornament. When the inside is completely covered put it upside down in an egg carton to let the extra paint run out and the ornament dry...

Remember when I wrote about the Christmas card dilemma ? Well after reading all of your comments and receiving more and more cards I decided that I needed to leave Scrooge behind. So last night I conquered the Christmas cards. I had picked up a few packages of photo cards for only $1 each and then tackled the Christmas photo. I kept going back and forth between these two. I finally decided on the second pix so I printed up a gazillion and then got to work on the cards. When we were at the craft store the other day Dylan and Zoe really wanted to buy some holiday stamps so we decided to use them to personalize our cards. The kids enjoyed stamping and coloring the cards. Five hours later, I had a big stack of cards piled up and ready to send off. Thank goodness for Google so that I can find all the addresses that I lost!! Merry Christmas Cards! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

What a week this has been! Monday night I stayed late at school trying to get everything ready for my Christmas Program Tuesday night. After school, I had to make a stop at a craft store to pick up things for a last minute project I wanted to do at school that involved painting glass ornaments. Wait until you see them! You will be running out to your craft store too. By the time I got out of the craft store it was almost 6, I had two tired and whiny kids who were starving. Lucky for them I had a Pizza Hut gift card and there was one in the same parking lot as the craft store so we headed in. By the time we got home it was almost 8 and time to sign all the homework, check papers in backpacks, take a bath, snuggle a bit, and head to bed. I was tired and couldn't wait to go to sleep, but for some reason I didn't get to bed until after midnight. My dang reader kept calling my name and thoughts kept popping in my head for a new post. I kept telling myself one more and before you kn...

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I f you didn't get it from the title, I'm about to share what the kids are as a Christmas present for their Grandparents. Therefore if you are Grandpa, Grandma, Grampy, or Gramma you should NOT read any further. For everybody else... May you be inspired. Every year I try to do some craft with Dylan and Zoe so they can create gifts for their grandparents. This is what we came up with this year. What you will need: 1 acrylic 5X7 frame 1 plain white 5X7 mats that will fit a 3X5 picture Sharpie Markers A 3X5 school picture *Of course you could always buy the frame and mat to fit whatever size picture you have. Have the kids decorate the mats however they would like. I did ask mine to write their name and the date somewhere on the frame. When they are finished attach their school picture on the back. Cover the back of the picture with red, green, or whatever color you desire construction or tag paper. Voila.. Homemade picture frames that personalize those school pictures. Oh a...

I decided to participate in BooMama's Christmas Tour of Homes this year and instead of just posting some pictures thought it would make a great vlog post. So grab a Peppermint Mocha Latte and help yourself to some chocolate while I take you on a tour of my home and share with you some of my Christmas decorations. Thanks for visiting!! Don't forget to visit BooMama to find more houses you can peek in and see some their Christmas decorations. Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

The other night we took the kids to watch a Christmas Parade in a neighboring town. The kids snuggled under blankets to enjoy the show. While they waited for the parade to begin somebody gave them a candy cane to enjoy. They both decided they did NOT like peppermint! There were actual Macy type balloons which were neat along with the local businesses floats and school bands. It was actually a very loooonnnngggg parade and even the kids begin to tire out of waiting for Santa to arrive. But, he finally made it and the Christmas season officially began for them. The first sighting of Santa as he headed to his house. Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

Because you all know how I can't get it together for Christmas this year green I am this year I have decided that the only Christmas Card will be posted right here for the world to see!! Why the Bah-Humbug? Well first of all, I like to send personalized Christmas cards. You know pictures of the family, the kids, the beach. So I usually start in November figuring out what picture I'm going to use, then I upload it somewhere, and wait for them to arrive to send them on their way wishing Christmas Cheer here and there. Up until last year I had these little index cards that had everybodys address from when we were married. Over the years I had added new addresses and discarded some, but I had a pretty good address book thingy going. Then last year I thought, "You are way to techy to have index cards with addresses and not an address book on the computer where you can just print out labels." So I entered every address in a neat little spreadsheet, alphabetized and e...

Imagine how your kids are at home the week before Christmas. Now imagine being in a room with 20 kids. Yep, that is how this week will be for me in my classroom. Please pray. Oh and if you want to send a bottle of wine that would be appreciated too. It's only 5 days right? I can do this, I can do this, I can do this... Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

Zoe and I were playing with my new toy and decided to record our experiment with making gingerbread ornaments. As you can hear I decided to make them with my class at school, but since I had not used the recipe before thought I would make sure it would work before I tried it with twenty 3rd graders. Watch what happens and enjoy Dylan's commentary on the whole thing! Oh and I apologize for the length of my first vlog. Although I must say that I did use the editing software for my Small Wonder to at least take out 4 minutes of nothing. I promise to attempt to keep it to smaller amounts of time in the future though! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

As I stumbled into the kitchen this morning to start making my coffee this is what I encountered Oh yes, good morning to me! I'm looking at the bright side though... at least I don't have to to feed the cat for awhile! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

Last Monday was Dylan's 8th birthday and he made out like a bandit with three celebrations. On the Friday before he got to fill up my truck with boys for a kid party. This has to put me on the top of the awesome mommy list, because as a teacher taking 5 boys age 8 on a Friday afternoon was could make me certifiably insane. Anywho, I drove them to Bonkersville where they ran around for a few hours on all the inflatable toys. They definitely had a blast going bonkers. Afterwards it was pizza, fries, and cake at Grotto's. While they were waiting for the food they kept busy playing games. I think everybody had a blast and the kid party was a success. On Saturday night we had a family party to celebrate. Dylan picked out the menu of steak, Caesar salad, corn, crescent rolls, and ice cream cake. It was nice to have a quiet party without a million kids running around my house. Finally, on Monday Dylan's actual birthday we treated him to his favorite dinner at his favorite restau...