Cookie Exchange Invitations (Free Download)

Every Christmas season for several years now, my family has had a cookie exchange. The host and guests vary from year to year but the core group of me, my mother & three aunts is the same. One of my aunts is hosting this year so I made these invitations. If you are hosting a cookie exchange and are in need of a cute invitation, these will do this trick!

You can print them as blanks and handwrite on them or you can edit the jpg file on any photo editing software like photoshop or picmonkey.  I made them as 5x7 because my local AC Moore always has very inexpensive, white envelopes for the size.

Click here to download

Happy baking!

Elf on the Shelf 2014 Calendar & Shopping List

Hello internet!

It's been a while. I know, I know. You thought I gave up on this blog didn't you? SURPRISE! I'm back. And I have something fun(and slightly crazy) to share.

So it's October 3rd and while I love me some autumn, I also am thinking of my favorite time of year that is fast approaching: Christmas! So last year, we did the Elf on the Shelf thing. It was fun. Ethan enjoyed it but I found myself often unprepared and just throwing the elf anywhere after a while. This year that is not going to happen. This year, I have a plan. And a calendar. And a shopping list. My Elf on the Shelf game in 2014 is going to be ON POINT.

Now, I know what you are thinking: this chick is crazy. I accept that assessment. I own it and relish in it. In fact I am taking that assessment and covering my bed in it and then rolling around naked in it. Because one person's crazy is another person's awesome.

Without further ado, I give you, the calendar:

Basically, I went on pinterest, pinned 27 days worth of fun elf stuff, and then made this spreadsheet. I think its GLORIOUS. The column on the right has the list of things you need. 

Here is the pdf if you want to download it yourself:

super awesome elf on the shelf calendar

Some of the days involve printables. I have every day labeled on my pinterest board, where you can find all the links to those:

super awesome elf on the shelf pinterest board

Nothing Like Waiting Till the Last Minute!

It is 2 days before Christmas and I have 4561561515641531 things to do!!! In addition to last minute shopping, wrapping and baking, I decided to make a doctor's appointment and a dentist appointment for today so I can get some last minute maintainence before our deductable starts over in the new year. I am usually not this bad with procrastination. This situation is the result of a several smaller situations that happened all at once (snow storm, getting sick, etc.) but I won't let it ruin my Christmas spirit!!

2009 Christmas Cards

Our First Year

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to our new blog. We are replacing our wedding website (tear) with this blog so that we can keep in touch with our giant extended families as well as our friends that are scattered throughout the country. People have been asking us what we have been up to since the wedding so here is the VERY condensed story of the last few months:

NOVEMBER 2008:
For our honeymoon, we went to Sandals Royal Bahamian in the Bahamas and it was fantastic! We have never been more relaxed in our 10 years together. :

All-Inclusive is the way to go! While we were there, Mark celebrated his 30th birthday. I arranged for us to have a couples massage on the private offshore island, and also had a "Bahamian" birthday cake sent to our room .

Every day the staff would put a new bottle of champagne in our room fridge and every night after we had dinner, we would sit on our balcony and drink it.

We highly reccommend Royal Bahamian. It was worth every penny

It was hard getting back to the every day routine but things did not stay boring for very long. The day after thanksgiving, we drove 10 hours to Delta, Ohio, to adopt a 10 week old pug that had been rescued from a puppy mill in Michigan. We found him on petfinder.com and fell in love. We named him Gatsby and brought him home to become part of our family. Here is a picture of him in the car on the ride back to NY

The end of November was also when we had Marcia's Bridal Shower (Mark's Brother's Fiance.) It was a great party and she got lots of cute and nice stuff for her and Chris's cottage.


DECEMBER 2008
Things with our new puppy definitely got off to a rough start. We noticed he had some congestion so the first day we had him home, we brought him to the only vet that we could get an appointment with, who told us he had a cold and that he was too young for antibiotics and sent us on our way with some vitamins. Two days later we were back in the vets office: Gatsby was barely breathing. He had a full blown case of pneumonia, probably caught at the puppy mill he was born in. He was in the hospital for 4 days, and it was very touch and go for a while. We were very upset. Even though we only had him for a few days, we were already so in love! When he was well enough to come home, we babied him like crazy, snuggled a lot and also dosed out lots of meds and nebulization treatments to get him better. He started bouncing around with energy and putting on weight and we were so relieved!

Christmastime brought lots of parties, including our friend Kamila's Second Annual Holiday Party that she has to benefit needy families in our area. Every guest brings something for the family that Kamila and Chris have chosen to adopt. In addition to that, Kamila and Chris bought some raffle prizes, and they had a raffle and a 50/50 to benefit Gatsby! I was telling Kamila how much his hospital bills were and she decided to try and raise some money because she is such a good person (and obviously a good friend!)


We also went to Mark's Aunt and Uncle's Christmas party that they have every year. Miranda drank a little too much wine and broke not one but TWO wine glasses!! They were replaced, don't worry! That party is always a good time!!


We had a great Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. Santa Dog brought Gatsby lots of stuff Kristin and Miranda also sported matching Christmas pajamas

JANUARY 2009
Happy New Year!!

The big event of January was Chris and Marcia's wedding, which took place on January 17th at Holy Cross in Nesconset, followed by a reception at Larkfield Manor in East Northport. Mark was a co-best man and Miranda a bridesmaid. The sun was out for the day and Marcia looked BEAUTIFUL in her sparkly wedding gown.
Miranda mentioned that it would be nice if it started snowing after everyone arrived at the reception hall, and it did! Who knew? Everyone had a great time and we are betting the pictures in the snow come out spectacular.



Which brings us to now. Everything is going really well for us! We are in the process of picking out photos for our wedding album and songs for our wedding video. Gatsby is almost 10 lbs. and we are taking him to puppy kindergarten class in February. We are so excited about these next few years. We are hoping that some exciting things happen that we can share with you like buying our first home and maybe, just maybe a little baby is in the cards. If anyone would like to see ALL the professional wedding photos, we have uploaded them here: Our Wedding Pictures


Let us know what you think!!
XOXO
Miranda