Christmas Traditions

One of the things we're really looking forward to with Baby B is starting a few Christmas traditions. We especially want some things that are fun, but that keep the focus where we want it to be - emphasizing giving, family, and of course the story of Christ. We have quite a few ideas, and we'd love to hear some input from you! Here are a few things we have in mind:

Santa
Santa can be really fun, but there are two things I worry about a little (and I may worry to much, ha!). #1 that it takes the focus off of Christ. Who want to think about that when a big jolly guy is about to bring us presents?!? #2 that it focuses on getting. "What will Santa bring for me?" But I found a really cool idea on Pinterest to still keep some Santa fun, but avoid those two things. Here's the deal: On Christmas Eve each child picks out a certain number of toys (5-10ish) to put in a special bag. Santa will pick up the bags and take them to boys and girls who don't have toys (a.k.a. you donate them to a shelter or needy family). This way your kids are giving first and there's still some Santa mystery (you could still put out cookies and milk with the bags too!). Not to mention it helps cut down clutter and keep the number of toys manageable. :) You can read more about it here.

Via Pinterest. Please click through pin so she gets credit for the idea! Thanks!

Jammies
As you may have seen, I tried making us special Christmas pajamas this year and pretty much fell flat on my face. Sigh. But I at least have a decent pair for N & me to use again, so I could get by just making new pants for the kiddos. Or maybe I'll buy them jammies. We'll see. I just like the idea of getting special new pj's to wear on Christmas. And especially this idea of a big box on Christmas Eve full of new jammies, a Christmas movie, popcorn, and hot chocolate.

Pillow Cases
This one is kind of similar to the jammies I guess. Also from Pinterest, I think it would be really fun to make a special Christmas pillow case for each kid that they can use all through the Christmas season. And, you know, maybe for me too. I like a good, Christmassy time as much as the next kid.

Via Pinterest. Please click through pin so she gets credit for the idea! Thanks!

Countdown Books
Yes. All my ideas are from Pinterest. :) This one is just a fun Christmas countdown - you wrap a Christmas book for each day in December (until Christmas Eve) and open one to read each night before bed. I need to start collecting Christmas books!

Via Pinterest. Please click through pin so she gets credit for the idea! Thanks!

Ornaments
We've found that we really love making ornaments to mark ages and special times for Baby B. It's something we plan to continue every year. Here are a few favorites:

My dad and sister made this last year at Baby B's first Christmas. It's just a clear glass ball with his hand printed in acrylic paint. Easy, pretty, and ohmygosh look how tiny that hand is.

A snowman hand print ornament made by my MIL this year.

Baby B's "Christmas pickle" from last year - also known as his favorite toy turned ornament.

Advent
We really want to start an Advent calendar. There are some super cute design ideas on.... Pinterest! Surprise! But I haven't found what I want to fill the calendar with yet. This is one thing I really want to have based in Scripture. I definitely want each package to have Scripture verses to read together, and hopefully some kind of activity to go along with that. But I don't know the details yet. Ideas? Anyone?

 Via Pinterest. Please click through pin so she gets credit for the idea! Thanks!

Christmas Story
Spend time on Christmas Eve reading the Christmas story together. That's all. And maybe playing with the Nativity set too. :)

We kind of got off easy this year because Baby B didn't know what was going on. :) But next year I think we need to have more of a plan. Hopefully we'll have at least a few of these ideas ready to go. What do you think? Which idea do you like the best/least? Do you have a favorite Christmas tradition with your kids? Fill us in!

Gettin' Our Christmas On

Yes. Our house is already undecorated. But here it is in its Christmassy glory! Hold on to your hats. It's... different than last year. ;)

Numero uno - our tree! Notice anything different?

Remember last year's tree? It was huge-normous. And beautiful. And I miss it already. But we had to make a tough call and admit that we just didn't have room for it. It wasn't worth ditching our dining table for a month while it was up. Sigh. It was so beautiful. But we bit the bullet, and sold it in November which left a nice little chunk of change in our pockets, and a HUGE empty space in our basement. That thing was a beast to store.

Instead we opted for this much smaller tree that lived upstairs last year. (we already owned it! win!) It's not the same, but it was good. And Baby B loved it with all his little heart.

We put the tree by the kitchen doorway, which bumped our little dresser to an open space over by the front door. Um, hello little dresser, were you made special for this spot? We slid it over and I was like "why did we ever have this anywhere else?!" It makes so much sense here. We drop our keys in the bowl, mail in the basket, and tuck lots of hats and gloves into the drawers. Perfect. It's staying.

The other big change to our decorating was that we cut WAY back on how much we put up. We didn't want to use up all our space, and didn't want an outrageous electric bill. So moderation was the goal. Again it was different, but it worked out just fine! Apart from the tree, we did a few small things on the dresser, a nativity on the entertainment center, and a string of lights in the kitchen, master bedroom, and Baby B's room. Super simple. And let me tell  you, when it came time to un-decorate? We were done in 45 minutes flat. Yay! Because we can all agree - undecorating is the WORST.

One of my favorite new decorations was this free Christmas printable (they have a bunch of them for different seasons and holidays. I'm planning to leave the frame out and switch the printable with the seasons!). The nativity was from Target on clearance a few years ago.

Oh, and what's this? No, I can't be! A real live trilobite fossil?!? Why yes, yes it is. My sister got it for me for Christmas. Be still my little geologist heart.

What was your favorite decoration this year? Anybody else try to cut back a little?

Snow Man Handprint Ornament

My MIL & Baby B made us a super cute gift this year! A snowman hand print ornament!

I LOVE how it turned out, and it was pretty easy to make. The only tricky part was getting a legible - er, distinguishable? - hand print from Baby B. :)

She used a dark blue ball ornament as the base & used white acrylic paint to make Baby B's hand print on it (kind of wrapping around the bottom, so the fingers reach up the sides towards top). Which was about a 3 person job, I believe! She said a black sharpie was perfect for making the eyes, mouth, and buttons on each snowman, and she used colored puff paint to add hats and scarves to each little finger. She also wrote his name and the date on the bottom so we can remember when we're old. :)

Super cute, right? Do you have a favorite hand print ornament?

Christmas Jammie Jams

Sometimes Pinterest lies. Can I get a "Boy Howdy"? This is one of those times. After seeing all those posts about how easy it is to make pajama pants, I was all like "Hey, I'll just whip up some special Christmas jammies for the whole family!" Oh. My. Word.

I started with a trip to Joann Fabric for some fuzzy flannel. The Christmas prints were 50% off so it was about $2.50/yard (I think). Cute, right?

Then I "just turned a pair of pj pants inside out and traced them onto the fabric." You know.  Like easy and magic and stuff. Then just pin the pieces together, sew it up, and wa-lah! A wonky pair of pants-ish. Just like that. Sigh. I ended up declaring N's red pants and B's moose pants "the learning pants" and buying new fabric to start over.

The good news is the new fabric gave me a chance to make super cute matchy pants! (notice how I picked plaids lots of and stripey fabrics? Fail.) Plus I got the fabric on black Friday for 75% off. That part was a win. Except that I had already bought fabric once so really it's still a fail. But who's keeping score? Anyway, I finally ended up with a decent pair of pants for each of them.

And then I spent a while trying to get a picture that good. ^ And ended up with a lot of this:

And these:

I also pulled off a pair for myself. I'm still not sure what I was doing wrong most of the time. The legs came out all twisty on the first two pairs, so I lined them up a little different the second time around and it turned out okay. I still wouldn't say great. But if anyone wants to take a swing at the tutorial I tried (and please. please tell me how to do it) it's at Dana Made It. And for the record she has very successfully made pants. So..... let's not draw any conclusions from that, k?

In the end, we did enjoy the pants very much and wore them ALL DAY on Christmas. To the family parties and everything. It was both fun and comfy.

I'd love to hear your successful pants tips, or your biggest Pinterest fail!

Footprint Ornament

More late Christmas projects - woot! ;) This one was an idea from a friend for making a footprint ornament for Baby B. It's nice and easy, just the way I like it.

We started out with some polymer clay (originally $1.99 but after a 40% off coupon only $1.20). I picked a plain white because I thought it would look good with my decorations. My friend said she did two feet with green clay and used some red clay to add little berries so it looked like a holly sprig. Super cute!

I used my rolling pin to roll it out. Baby B's feet are bigger than I thought, so I had to roll it kind of thin. Next time I'll buy two packs!

Then I got Baby B to step on it. He was a very willing participant, but we had a hard time making a good imprint because the clay is pretty stiff. I had to push his foot down to leave a mark.

Once we got a print, I used a paring knife to trim the edges down and make a nice shape.

I used my fingertip to round off the cut edges so it would be smoother. And I used a straw to poke a hole in the heel for hanging.

Next was baking. There actually weren't any directions on the package (weird?) so I asked my good friend Google and came up with 10 - 20 minutes at 275 degrees. I started with 10 minutes and that was perfect for my footprint, but a few smaller things I'd cut out of my left-over clay came out brown around the edges so cut the time down if you're doing smaller pieces.

After it cooled I wrote Baby B's name & the date on the back with a sharpie, strung it on a piece of raffia, and hung that baby on the tree.

I'm a little undecided about the polymer. It was hard to get more than a faint print (I know with salt dough I could get a much more defined imprint) but the print I got is SO detailed, you can see every little wrinkle in his toes (which wouldn't show up with salt dough). So maybe I'll do it again, maybe I won't. :) All I know is I'm really happy to have another reminder of how little Baby B's feet are. I know I'll love it when he's all grown up.

Let's talk! Any favorite polymer projects? Or a fun way to make memories with your kids? Or a favorite keepsake you have from a child who's all grow-ed up?

Nifty Gifties

Last year I wrapped my presents in a combo of brown craft paper and old newspaper with red & green ribbons. It turned out pretty much fantastic.

This year I decided to try something a little different. I guess having Baby B around made me want to try something more fun & colorful. Wanna see?

I picked up some wrapping paper on clearance last year that was still brown, but had lots of color mixed in, too. It seemed like a good balance.

Then I just tied them up with fun ribbons (also from clearance last year) and the salt dough gift tags I made a few weeks ago.

The verdict? I like last year's SOOO much better. Oh well, this is how we learn! :)

And there's good news! N's wrapping skillz seem to have greatly improved. This was my birthday gift:

He told me "We have a new nightstand. You're not allowed to touch it." I touched it. :) And while we're on gifts, I made just one homemade gift this year and, seriously, I barely pulled it off. I think I need to start tomorrow if I'm making any gifts for 2013. But in they end it turned out great! It was a set of shopping bags for a friend. The pattern is here. I almost couldn't give them away, they turned out so pretty! I need to get some of that fabric for myself. :)

What was your favorite gift this year? How did you wrap your presents? Did you make any homemade presents?

The Christams Boy

Well guys, I think it's safe to say my blog has been a little... lazy lately. Oops. I had all this great Christmas stuff planned and even took lots of pictures. Then I spent so much time on the projects and Christmas fun and, you know, napping, that I never even got them on the computer. Double oops. But they're here now! So I hope your ready for some Christmas goodies in January... and I apologize for the super-lateness. :) While I'm sorting through the pictures and projects, here are a TON of pictures of Baby B's 2nd Christmas. Enjoy, Grandma! ;)

Putting up the tree!

We put all the "unbreakable" ornaments on the bottom of the tree. Ha.

This Elvis sings, which was his downfall. After his 3rd emergency surgery, he decided to live on the counter instead.

And a talking "I Love Lucy" that also lives on the counter now. We greatly underestimated his ornament breaking skillz.

Making salt dough gift tags.

He's such a careful helper!

Learning it's yucky... but still smiling!

Walking down the block with Dada to check out the big inflatables. I unfortunately did not get a picture of Baby B charging the inflatables and the Dada dragging him away. ;)

Fort building!

And the walls came a tumblin' down....

Angel hair pasta. Best lunch ever.

Baby B was up to the challenge.

His less successful attempt.

Lip extension is directly proportional to pasta eating success. Win.

Christmas! Well, we did our Christmas a few days early before we went to visit family. I realized way too late my camera settings were all wonky. So let's just be thankful I have any pictures!

Baby B's first Bible. :)

Wooden tool set... we almost didn't give him the other present. He was having so much fun! That hammer is his new favorite thing. He likes to bang on my bedroom door and yell "mama! MAMA!"

And a train set - another big winner!

Sledding with the aunties. First time in snow and first time on a sled! His auntie B is going to pull him to the hill.

"AAAHH! What's this stuff on my glove?!?"

He was not crazy about the sled.

First trip down!

Telling Auntie B in no uncertain terms to get up and go back up the hill. He has a bossy streak. But he makes up for it with cuteness and big blue eyes. :)

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things... isn't sure he's having fun.

*poof*

This was his face for every trip. Until he decided he didn't like it and started crying if we even took him near a sled. Poor guy. But there was a playground nearby so he still ended up having a fun time!

So there's a peek at Baby B's Christmas #2. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!