DIY Custom Photo Storybook

We tried to really stick to our four gift categories for the boys this year (you can read more about that here) and one area we had a lot of fun with was "something to read." We made a custom storybook! We spent a day at the end of summer taking pictures of the boys at a local park and had them printed in an 8x8 Shutterfly book.

We went with the story "going on a bear hunt" because the pictures would be pretty simple and there were plenty of "scenes" in the park like going over a bridge, across a stream, etc. For each area we started with a picture checking out the obstacle.

Then a picture going across.

Then a picture running away after they find the bear! This one at the cave is my favorite. Big Brother really got into it at this point.

We made sure that all the pictures of the hunt had the boys going from left to right, then all the picture of them running from the bear go from right to left. We used Photoshop to make the pages 8x8" and add text to the bottom of each page. We printed a couple sample pages on our home printer to make sure the font size would be readable.

And the bear? My sister drew a few bears for us to photoshop into the running pages. Like this one:

Once all our pages were put together we loaded them into an 8x8 book on the shutterfly website. We used the "modern white" style for our book. The page designs didn't matter for us since we used the full-page photos we made in photoshop, but this style gave us the tan binding. (You could also use a different page layout to do a picture at the top and type the words into a text box, instead of making whole pages in Photoshop.)

We used a cute "behind the scenes" photo for the cover page, complete with a bear. When Big Brother saw this page he was like "THERE'S A BEAR!!!"

The first few pages show us reaching, then crossing each of our five obstacles - tall grass, a bridge, a forest, a river, and a cave.

Then there is a page of the boys running back across each obstacle away from a fuzzy little bear.

And all the back home, up the stairs, and into bed. With the last page very appropriately saying "We are never going on a bear hunt again!" Which is how we all felt by the end. You can tell by all the tears.

We're already coming up with ideas for a book next year! What a fun way to watch how they grow over the years. Here are a few more favorite pics from our day at the park.

King of the rock. "It's the biggest rock I ever saw!"

I kind of regret not using this for the Christmas card this year....

Have you ever made a storybook with pictures of your kids? Some of the ideas we've thrown around for next year are a treasure hunt, something with dinosaurs, or something with pirates. What would you do? We need ideas!

A Very Merry Christmas

Happy Christmas Eve! And from our little house to yours, we wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas is tomorrow and this is the time, friends. As we're frantically running, trying to check the final things off our lists. This is the time to take a breath and remember what's really important, and to honestly ask ourselves what needs to be done. Honestly. Probably not a whole lot of things on that list. Certainly nothing that makes us ignore little smiles or brush off a bedtime story or get frustrated over the littlest nothings, right? So all together now (I'm still working on this lesson myself) let's log off of Pinterest, put away the glue guns, and decide we don't need 10 different foods for dinner. Instead let's use this precious time to do the things that are really important.

Let's enjoy this time with our families. This time that we can never have again. Let's laugh, snuggle, talk, and just be together.

Let's know that even if everything isn't done the way we imagined, it is still good.

Let's be thankful.

And most of all, let's remember the greatest gift that was ever given. And make sure our kids will always remember it too. Make this Christmas count.

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

"The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!"

Luke 2:11 NLT

How to fill a Christmas Eve Box

One of our favorite Christmas traditions with our boys is a Christmas Eve box (see our latest box here). It's pretty simple, just filled with new jammies, a new movie, and some yummy movie snacks. But ohmygoodness, they love it so much! We snuggle up in our new jammies and watch the movie before bed. This is what we have for our box this year.

Dinosaur jammies for Big Brother, and fox jammies for Little Brother (they are on sale!).

Monsters vs. Aliens movie (last year we went with Planes). We always try to plan ahead and get something cheap when we find a sale, black Friday is a great chance to get a cheap movie if you're up to it!

Popcorn! We like stove-popped, but microwave popcorn works just as well for the box! We got this organic popcorn from Amazon.

Hot chocolate mix is always a big hit. We make this homemade mix that's just cocoa, sugar, and a pinch of salt. So easy and so yummy!

And of course marshmallows. One of Big Brother's favorite treats ever, so we need them in the Christmas Eve box! We make these homemade as well to avoid high fructose corn syrup and other things we don't like to eat. They are actually pretty easy and made with real gelatin... so practically health food, right? :) We put in a small jar and he can just have the jar to eat or dip in his hot chocolate or whatever.

This is a peek in our box from last year:

 

 Do you do a Christmas Eve box? What's going in yours this year?

DIY Wooden Christmas Signs

We finally pulled our Christmas decorations out of the basement this week! Along with our old favorites, we added a few new Christmassy items this year. Some of my favorite pins on my Christmas board are of hand-lettered wooden signs. A few weeks ago when my sister was visiting we decided to bite the bullet and DIY a few Christmas signs of our own!

You only need a few things to make your own wooden signs, too!

• wood (whatever sizes you like, we chose scraps from my garage)
• paint (I used red and black for the backgrounds and white for the text)
• a pencil
• if you don't want to draw your signs freehand you could print text in your favorite fonts to use as a template

Step one was rummaging through my garage for leftover scraps of wood.We found a mix of plywood and boards in sizes that we could work with - mostly so we didn't have to get the saw out in this cold weather.

We brought all the boards inside and I gave them a quick coat of paint. I did one black, one red, and left one plain.