Soul’s birthday came and went and now this weekend’s is Ben’s. Oh boy! Thankfully, most of my Christmas shopping is done (gotta order two more things) and most of it is wrapped and under the tree. Yeah! I always think it is funny to wait until right before Christmas to wrap a gift because a tree looks so much prettier with things sitting at the bottom, so I always make sure to get my wrapping done early. Next week in this space, I will share some quick and easy Christmas DIY’s for you and your kiddos. We have all sorts of art projects going on here!

Learned and links and a giveaway…

– True whole heartedly believes in Santa. So cute!

– Glow slept until 6:30am! Now, if she can just do that every night.

– My sister is a really good hairstylist! And I am loving my new color!

– My denim shirt (pictured above) is new fave (will probably get worn everyday) and came from this shop.

– This message convicted me and I want to have intentional kindness. I don’t think kindness and faithfulness are words that describe me.

– My BFF is a teacher and is raising money for her classroom library through DonorsChoose and whatever is given by Dec. 12th, this Monday, it will get matched by the program. The class has $400 dollars left to go until they reach their goal, so please help a classroom of underprivileged children in the Los Angeles area and donate here.

If you donate ($1, $5, or even more!) then you have a chance to win a polaroid camera! It is the season of giving after all and this would be a wonderful gift to give to a classroom. In return, one of you would get a gift as well! Just go here to donate and then come back to this post and tell me you did so! This is the honor system, but if you win, I will ask you to forward me the receipt of your donation as proof. Giveaway will end next Wednesday, Dec. 14th!!! Note: Use the code SPARK at payment to make sure your donation gets matched!

Thanks friends and have a happy weekend!!!

*****UPDATE: The goal for my BFF’s class was reached! Thank you so, so, so much to all who donated!!!!!!*****

POLAROID WINNER IS KERYN EGAN!!! EMAIL ME YOUR ADDRESS AND I WILL GET YOUR CAMERA TO YOU! thank you everyone who helped support this class full of kids!

The random robot chose… carrie murphy, whitney reeder, and peppermint mocha mama. Congrats lovely ladies and please do email me to claim your prize! Thank you everyone for your support and there will be plenty more giveaways very soon!!! xoxo, Rubyellen

It’s been kinda cold lately. California cold. So when it came time to get dressed for school, we just threw on whatever was cozy to keep her warm and something comfy enough for the playground. True says the playground is what school days are all about! And it wasn’t raining, but rainboots were what was near as we were rushing out the door, so worked for me!

What is your idea of cozy comfy clothing?

p.s. thank you, thank you for all your votes so far! the contest ends friday at midnight, so keep ’em coming and you might just win a $250 gift certificate to any online retailer you want! vote/comment here.

Sure, she still keeps me up at night and I haven’t had a full night’s rest in 3 months, but this littlest gal is the easiest of my little gals at the current moment. The bigger ones spend their days fighting and not listening, even Soulie gets into trouble with her feist, but this little one is pretty obedient, so far. I do know that will eventually change. Until then, I am treasuring these somewhat much easier moments with Glow.

This gal is two, but she doesn’t really talk all that much. She is just barely starting to put sentences together, so when it came to her birthday, we were kind of at a loss at what to do. Then it dawned on me, this girl loves sweets, so with Christmas around the corner, we thought it would be appropriate to have a gingerbread house birthday, where she could indulge her little tummy to her heart’s content. And indulge she did…

We had the little celebration on Sunday afternoon and I used this recipe to make the gingerbread house pieces and icing instead of buying a kit, which I would have gladly done, but the ones I saw contained hydrogenation. My only change is that I added some pumpkin pie spice to the mix and lessened the ground ginger, other than that, it was absolutely delicious. Also, I doubled the recipe so we could make 4 houses, but we only ended up making three and the girls ate the remaining pieces. There were sweets galore strewn all over the table, so you can imagine my Soulie’s sheer delight to be next to it all!

Ben and I helped put the frame of the house together, but the girls did everything else. Eventually though, Soul stopped building and just started eating.

Instead of a cake, we used the house that Soul was working on and put two candles coming out of the chimney. We thought it was kind of clever and when she blew them out after we sang Happy Birthday, it looked like smoke was coming out of the chimney!

Their little houses came out so cute! Sure, the roofs are put on exactly and you probably wouldn’t want to live in them if you lived in a rainy area, but they are my girls’ little works of art. And I think for Soulie, this was the absolute perfect way to celebrate the second year God gave her. She is God’s little work of art to us. She is a little ball of feisty, who grunts and shreiks to communicate, but when she is sweet, she is oh so sweet! Just like these gingerbread houses. And I don’t think anyone can resist her “big cheese”. Our continuous prayer for her is that God would open her eyes to see His truth and that she would long to be a soul winner for Him.

Our little big baby turned 2 on Saturday. Last year she had her breakfast birthday bash, but this year was more low key. She got our traditional breakfast in bed, but the rest of her day got upstaged by my sister’s wedding shower, though we did give Soul her own celebration on Sunday.

Her breakfast in bed was simple… some cornflakes cereal (this is new to her, so she was all about it), a little gingerbread man (to elude to her little celebration coming the next day), and the traditional vegetable animal always made by her Papi, which was a mole from a sweet potato. The birthday girl was obviously quite happy with her little breakfast! And we love that smile of hers too too much! We call her smile the “big cheese”.

p.s. don’t forget my three giveaways below and enter this one by leaving a comment here to win a $250 gift certificate to any online retailer of your choice if my ideabook wins!