Santa Claus is Coming to Town

The clock is a tickin' and Christmas Day will be here in a blink of an eye. This momma has been bustlin' around making sure everything is ready for ol' Saint Nick to come visit us on Christmas morning.

Here's a sneak peek into our Christmas decorations:

Katie helped set out the snow village this year.

Katie made me the glass snowman globe.  It is so cute!  I've got my Paperwhites growing that my mom gave me. 

Doug suggested hanging big ornament balls all through the house this year.  I really like them.

A few of Katie's new ornaments

Since Rapunzel is showing, I have to tell you that Katie got to see "Tangled" today with her grandparents.  She told me a little about the movie tonight, but overall really liked it.

We are hoping to replace the back & side door in the future, but I think our walls look good.  Now, I'm having a tough time deciding what to put on them.

Doug and Henry fixed the trim above the cabinets, but I'll wait until after the Christmas vacation before I paint the maple over the cabinets. 

We have Ruddy greeting our guests and yes, he has a rednose. 

This door display will be welcoming our guests for Christmas Eve.  I've been working on it for the past couple of days, but I think it's finally complete.  I didn't want to junk it up too much, but I had to add LED mini lights and gold shatter proof ornaments to it.  I created the wreath years ago, but still enjoy it. 

Fingerprint Snowman Ornament

I'm sure you remember this post for a Fingerprint Snowman Ornament.  I found time to make Colton's ornament and it was so much fun doing it.  Sure, I had to have two tries but it was so worth it because this is the finished product:

Call it a mom thing, but I just think this turned out so adorable and it's something Colton will have for as long as he wants it.  I did do some things different from the original instructions.  The instructions tell you to dip the child's hand in paint and then place it on the canvas.  Yeah, tried that . . . it didnt' work.  It just splattered white paint all over everything including the blue canvas.  Ugh!  After painting a second coat of baby blue paint, I painted the white paint on Colton's hand and then placed it on the canvas.  Sure, there were some imperfections, but I just took a little blue paint and fixed it.  Simple as that.  The instructions tell you to use a fine point Sharpie to do the drawing, but I enjoyed painting on the characteristics.  It's up to you.  Katie didn't get to finish her ornament because she was gone most of the day because she was enjoying the day with her grandparents.  I told her she could finish the picture tomorrow and I'll probably let her use the Sharpie just because she's inexperienced.  This is as far as we got with Katie's:

Yeah, I'll have to do some fixing on this one tomorrow. Haha!
I have been so busy today, but got so much done.  I went ahead and baked 2 dozen chocolate chip cookies and turned this -

into this -

I was able to make over 4 dozen Christmas (Red Velvet & Chocolate) Bon-Bons.  You can get the recipe from my recipes under "Holiday Bon-Bons".  You can use any flavor cake mix and frosting.

We received an early Christmas present in the mail yesterday.  Sarah made Katie and Colton scarves for Christmas.  The kids love them!  Thanks Sarah!

Colton got a little carried away with his scarf.  I guess he felt like he needed to shake the devil out of it.  LOL!  It got to be a big game with him because the more we laughed at him, the more he shook it. 

Tomorrow, I have another day planned for baking. I'm hoping to try my hand at making Stained Glass Sugar Cookies. Wish me luck! I promised Katie that we'd make cut-out Christmas cookies. Katie also has to finish her ornament. As traditions go, tomorrow Katie and I will be sleeping under the big tree. She is calling it our "Polar Express Party." Hey, whatever will get her to sleep better, it doesn't matter what she calls it. She's real excited for Christmas and is very hopefully for the Strawberry Shortcake playset. I just hope Santa remembers. I guess we'll have to wait and see.