Family Fun Night at the Library

Hello Blogger Friends!

Many of you may not know that I am the director of a substance abuse prevention center and I serve six counties in Northwest Oklahoma. I truly love my job! I get to have so much fun coordinating all kinds of events and activities and then I get to participate! But the greatest thing I love about my job is the people I meet where ever I go that I have built relationships with and the fact that my work is making a difference in the lives of the children and families we serve. Now I definitely don't do it alone! There are so many wonderful volunteers that have a passion for preventing substance abuse and I couldn't do my job without them!

These are some of my friends that are part of the community coalition in the town where they live. I love each one of them dearly! Our coalition sponsored a "Family Fun Night at the Library" last night. It is held each month in this small community and it is a chance for parents to have positive interaction with their children making crafts, playing games, singing songs, and other kid-friendly activities.

We had a gingerbread theme for our Family Night and the kids played a musical chairs games. They walked around the table and when the music stopped whomever was standing on the gingerbread man on the floor got a prize!

Then the new associate District Judge read the kids a story called "Gingerbread Mouse". She lived in a gingerbread house until Santa brings her one of her own!

Then the kids got supplies to make their own gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, frosting, and candies. It was such sweet fun!

This little guy was so cute and his parents were so sweet and patient with him.

His little house turned out to be pretty cute too! But not nearly as cute as he is!

This brother and sister worked very hard on their gingerbread houses. They were so cute!

Isn't this little one the cutest thing! He did such a good job!

All of the children had such a fun time at our Family Night. I know the parents and volunteers had a great night too. There were about 75 people that showed up to our event and that is the second most of all the Family Nights they have had at the library! That's pretty great for our first try! When we got done that night I was reminded of why I do this work every day. It is because those families that came last night were touched in a positive way. They were given an opportunity to make a wonderful memory together. I helped do that. I feel so honored and blessed!

I Wish Many Blessings and a Merry Christmas to You My Sweet Friends!

Love Tammy

My Christmas Cottage Living Room

Merry Christmas Blogger Friends!

I decorated my living room in red, white, and silver this year and it turned out oh so pretty!

Here is Miss Molly in her red Christmas dress. I tied a red and white striped ribbon around her waist and gave her some lovely sparkly jewelry. She looks like she is ready to greet any carolers that may come by to sing us a Christmas song!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in here!

I love my fireplace mantle the most. I think I say that every time I post a picture of it. I think you can tell why it is my favorite.

A sweet vignette on an accent table. That candle is heavenly. It smells like cranberries!

Here is the shelf above my television. I made the NOEL letters and covered them with glitter. They sparkle when they pick up the reflection of the lights on the Christmas tree at night.

I just love how beautiful this room is for every season and holiday but I hate how ugly the TV is in the middle of the room. Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

See what I mean?

I bought a white tree a few years back because I wanted to use pinks and pastels to decorate with, but it looks just as beautiful with red and silver on it, don't you think?

The ornaments are so beautiful when they all come together. They came from so many different places but they still work together like they were meant to be!

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my sweet Christmas cottage living room. I can't wait to see all of your pretty decorations too! I hope you have a merry and safe holiday season and an abundantly blessed New Year!

Blessings to You!

Love Tammy

My Christmas Cottage Kitchen

Hello Blogger Friends!

I am so excited to show you how pretty my sweet Christmas cottage kitchen is this year. I normally decorated my cottage in pastels and lots of pink for Christmas but my mom inspired me to go red and silver with lots of candy and gingerbread this year. I am so glad she did because it turned out so lovely! You can visit her blog at www.glitterandroses.blogspot.com

Candy canes are so fun, inexpensive, and easy to decorate with. And they fit my color pallette of red and white just perfectly this year!

It's really amazing that these lovely glass jars can be transormed just by what they are filled with and the ribbon tied around them. They look very festive right now, just like an old-fashioned candy store at Christmas time!

The tops of the cabinets got completely redecorated for the Holiday season. I just love the red and white decorations on the greenery!

Here is the dining area dressed up for the holidays. Isn't it lovely?

I used silver, red, and white to dress up the table too. The transferware china was made in England and I think the name is Brookestone, but I may be wrong. To be honest I can't remember!

And the centerpiece is just lovely too. I made that tree last year by bleaching a green tree and glueing decorations on it. I will use it again in the white season next month.

The top of the smaller china hutch is so pretty! And I love my silver deer I found at a discount store. They were full of hard candy. I emptied out the candy and tied a ribbon around their neck.

Here is the big china hutch decorated for Christmas. She looks so lovely. Just wait til you see inside!

I am always so pleased and yet still amazed at how beautifully my china hutch looks each time I decorate it for a holiday. I just love how pretty it all turned out this year! It is such an honor and a blessing to live in such beautiful surroundings every day!

Some more beautiful china from the hutch!

This is one of the many houses in my collection I bring out for Christmas. I got this one in Guthrie last year and you can put a Christmas light in her to make it glow!

Here is a picture of the kitchen from the dining area. It is so lovely!

Here is another picture of the dining table all decked out for Christmas. I wish my house could be in a magazine before I sell it! It's just so pretty! If anyone out there has any connections I could use the help!

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my sweet Christmas cottage kitchen and dining area. They were so much fun to decorate! I hope your rooms are just as lovely for Christmas!

Blessings to You!

Love Tammy

Miss Maggie's 10th Birthday Party

Hello Blogger Friends!

Sweet Miss Maggie had her 10th Birthday Party with me and her dad at a local skating rink in my community, where I had many a birthday myself. Here is the sweet birthday girl with her birthday cookie cake. She is quite the ballerina so ballet shoes seemed fitting for her cake.

She made a wish and . . . blew out all of the candles, almost! I hope all of her wishes and dreams come true.

Maggie's sweet sister Miss Lucie and some of her girlfriends got to go skating too. Every one of the girls had such a fun time that day.

James loves Maggie so much and he just wants to give her what she needs to grow up to be a successful, healthy, smart, kind young lady. He is the best dad to his children that I have ever known and I look forward to the day when he is the dad of my kids. And even though Maggie is not mine biologically, I still love her in my heart like she is.

Miss Maggie is a very intelligent, responsible girl and she reminds me of myself when I was her age. I know if I was 10-years-old and I knew her that we would be best friends. I am looking forward to when she is a young adult because I know we will be good friends. She is such a sweet, kind, loving, helpful little girl.

Maggie got a lot of nice gifts from her girlfriends and her dad. I know she appreciated each one.

Most of the pictures of us skating were really blurry because we were moving so fast. It didn't take me long to get a pair of skates on my feet at get out there with the girls. At first it felt funny and scary, but after a few minutes it all came back to me from the days when I was little and skated like a pro. This time it was even better though because my brain has matured enough that I actually knew what I was doing and I got to going pretty fast around the rink. Sometimes it felt just like I was flying I was going so fast and this spring of happiness was welling up inside of me. I felt so giddy and happy that day, like I was a little girl again. It was such a fun day . . . until the next morning when I couldn't walk without groaning in pain!

"Look Dad! No hands!" Miss Maggie has a great 10th birthday party at the skating rink and I was so glad I got to be a part of it. I hope both of the girls grow up knowing how much their daddy and I love them and how proud we are of the sweet, kind, lovely, intelligent young ladies they are growing up to be. If you have little girls in your life, please give them a special hug today and remind them how much you love them and how special and important they are!

Blessings to You!

Love Tammy

My Christmas Cottage Craft Room

Hello Blogger Friends!

I wanted to show you my Christmas decorations in my beautiful craft room. I am so blessed to have this room all to myself to decorate and create lovely things for myself and others.

I love how clean and organized this room is right now. I have a huge closet in this room and I took the doors off of it and made a curtain out of a sheet that hangs over it. When I start crafting I just take the curtain down and I have access to all of my supplies that are organized in there! I also use this beautiful china hutch that I painted white to store supplies in. I love the sweet angels and the poinsettia garland on it for Christmas!

I redecorated the top of my secretary desk just for Christmas. I think I will do that for every holiday from now on. It was a lot of fun!


This beautiful angel sits on top of my pretty pink file cabinet. I love this picture because of how the sun illuminates her and this pretty vignette.

Here is my sweet pink "Easter tree" all decorated for Christmas. I love the pink and silver ornaments together. I wish you could see the pearl garland better in this picture because it makes the tree look so whimsical and festive.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my sweet Christmas cottage craft room! I hope your special crafting room is just as pretty!

Blessings to You!

Love Tammy

My Christmas Cottage Bedroom

Hello Blogger Friends!

Here is my sweet cottage bedroom all decorated up for the holidays! I used red, silver, and white in my living room and kitchen but I had so much beautiful pink and ivory decor that I wanted to use too so I purchased an inexpensive white tree, set it up in my bedroom, and got busy decorating!

The tree is so pretty and romantic, just like I like it! And look, the perfect gift already under the tree! What a sweet gift he is!

I treasure each one of the ornaments on this tree. Last year I started buying myself a special ornament to commemorate the year that had past and they are all on this tree. I wish I would have started this tradition for myself when I was 20!

There are so many beautiful ornaments I have purchased, made, or have been given to me that bring back memories when I see them. I made the little tussie mussie ornament with the beads dangling down. Isn't that Santa postcard great! And I didn't have to add any glitter because it was already on there!

This is my favorite vignette in the bedroom. I made these sweet cottages last year to put in my "sweets shop" china hutch, but since I did red and silver in there this year I used them in the bedroom. I love the "Cottage Welcome" sign above them. It fits the theme perfectly! Looks like that shelf could use some snow now that I look at it!

Isn't my bedroom so pretty this year! I think the decorating turned out so sweet!

Here are some more houses I made last year. I put them on my dresser and made it a Christmas village. I just love the pinks and other soft pastel colors.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my beautiful Christmas cottage bedroom. Please let me know what you think! I hope your lovely bedrooms are decorated just a pretty!

Blessings to You!

Love Tammy