Small makeover

My blog got a mini makeover! I am so excited for the change. The design before was my {very} sad attempt to make my blog unique. I found this wonderful women who offers a few free ENTIRE blog design sets!

As you can see by my explosion of posts, I am much more dedicated to my blog than ever before. I love the word of blogging and have big dreams for my blog. I think I came up with a name for my etsy shop - Snicker Doodle Dandy. I was sitting there thinking of my favorite things hoping that would help with a name. Snicker Doodles are on my top 5 {maybe #1} favorite cookies, so there you have it folks. What do you think?

Today, I babysat the twins {boy/girl 4-year-olds) and we made handprint turkey Thanksgiving cards! We also made playdoh pizza, watched old school Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and played in the snow. Goodness. I had such a fabulous day with them!

As I am making all my Christmas gifts, it is so hard not to post the fun pictures of them. My family is probably the only ones who read my blog at this point, so posting the pictures would definitely spoil the surprise. Therefore, I have an idea.

In an effort to write about something else other than my Christmas presents, I would love for my readers to offer topics for me to write about. The topics can be in the form of questions or simply "dinosaurs." It is all up to you and I'm excited to see what's in store. For now, I'm going to get back to my Christmas crafts.....

{PLEASE stop me from talking about these!}

More about snow

Today was a snow day. I have never had a snow day in my life, so I felt like a little kid getting a snow day off school!!

Except for the fact that I still went in to work for a few hours... Class was still canceled and that was aaaaaawesome.

The rest of the day I spent doing this:

Finishing up a Christmas gift on the floor. Heater blaring. Netflix watching. Back now hurting.

I spent about 5 hours or more on this floor today and cannot wait to give this gift! It is just about finished and I am so thankful for some time off to finish it.

This was my dinner. A chicken chile verde burrito thanks to Trader Joe's along with some Trader Joe's happy face wine. Mmm Mmm.

Tomorrow is another snow day {partially at least...I am going to babysit all day for a family whose children have school off} and Wednesday is a day off too! I have so much time to finish up projects. Up until Christmas, I don't think you will stop hearing about how excited I am about my gifts. You can handle it.

Oh and by the way, my backyard currently looks like this:

This is a bad picture because I took it through my upstairs bedroom window at night. {Did you think I would sacrifice my semi-warmth for a picture?} Anyway, everything is covered by 3 - 5 inches of snow. Yayyy for Washington!

Snow

Today it snowed in Seattle.

Here are two pictures from the debacle.

(poor quality from my phone and then via facebook...)

How is there this much snow in November? One inch on my car. I have never driven or lived in snow. LUCKILY, there was no snow on the ground up in Seattle. These pictures were taken down in Auburn where Kevin lives.

I also had a near death experience with what I believe was black ice. Long story short: my car was perpendicular to the road in a tunnel on a freeway off-ramp. Terrifying describes it in one world. Thank God - literally - that there were no cars immediately behind me. The fun has just begun! I'm excited {attempting to be} for this new adventure.

I finished 2 of my Christmas handmade gifts this weekend! I set myself due dates for the rest of them. I cannot wait to post picture of them after Christmas. I am so excited to give them to my family!!

By the way, does anyone have any good ideas for a name for an Etsy shop? I want to get my shop going and the only thing holding me back is a name...

Christmas Crafts

I have been so into crafting lately that people have begun to laugh at me. I made a decision to finally pursue all of my crafting ideas and I am completely loving it! I am in the works of designing my own Etsy shop {ETA: ??} Selling my cards is one of my life goals and I cannot wait to make that come true.

My roommate asked me yesterday if I ever just have a day off where I lounge around. After asking that question, she immediately added -- not including days you are sick. I just laughed and realized I don't really ever stop moving. I LOVE days off because I can finally get so many things done. Getting things done is relaxing because then I can stop repeating my TO DO list in my head!

I also helped a girl I babysit for organize her house yesterday. I spent 3 hours reorganizing her pantry, living room closet, bathroom, and partly her 1-year-old's dresser/room. She told me she would buy ANYTHING I thought would be helpful to organize her house. (Even a label maker!!) It was a dream come true. I LOVE to organize and I had a blast coming up with ideas for her house. Future job option? I think so!! {It also helps that she gets so excited about my ideas and makes me feel like a million bucks!} It was such a success.

I am also in the process of creating 2 Christmas crafts. The first is a kid-friendly advent calendar that I am going to send home to JJ and Luke (niece and nephew) for when they are at Grandma's house. Here is the tutorial where I got the idea. You include treats and a little Christmas-y activity for the day.

The next project is a smaller Christmas version of this wonderful book page art that I have been dying to find a reason to make.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Jones Design Company blog {the place I got this idea}. It is definitely one of my top 3 blogs I look forward to reading every day! Check out her ideas: they are magnificent.

I also just bought some felt and pretty fabrics to make all sorts of fabric flower items. I really need to open up shop on Etsy. That will have to wait until after Christmas. I absolutely, completely, totally, entirely cannot wait to give my family their Christmas gifts.