christmas 2013

John roasted some coffee for presents again this year and I forgot to order coffee bags online.  He says they need to be airtight or the coffee goes bad quickly.  So I whipped up these little stamped cotton bags to cover up the coffee we put in ziplock bags...

 The presents were wrapped (free printable gift tags from Sweet Paul), along with gifts from Santa.

5am wakeup call!  Everyone woke up sick...

We moved on to our next location...

Peekaboo!

Another Christmas morning the day after Christmas!

Such a cute face.

So true.

It turned out to be a long, sick Christmas.  We have still not recovered.  A bummer, but we still had lovely moments with family and friends.  Sniffle.  Achoo.

kids I spy books

Personalized books for the kids are such a no-fail gift, and the kids absolutely love them.  I've made them here, here and here.  For Christmas I decided to make some more I Spy books.  The kids both love to check Where's Waldo and other books like that out of the library.  Lola loves monkeys, so her's is an I Spy My Monkey, and take a big guess what Max's is... yep.  Spiderman.

Some are pretty obvious, just for fun.  The kids like to see themselves in the books.  Where Max is, Spiderman is never far away.  So I was able to use a lot of pictures for his book from our every day pictures.

After I spent so much time making these, and I'm so excited to see them surprised, Max said to me, "Mama, will you make me an I Spy book with my Spiderman?" How does he know??

advent calendar activities

Some days I'm too tired to put anything else in the advent calendar than a piece of candy.  Other days if I know we have a block of time open I put activities.  One was to make gingerbread men.  Oh, did I say make?  I mean decorate.  Like I said, it's my semi-homemade Christmas.  I got these giant gingerbread men from World Market that included frosting.  A couple raisins and m&m's and the kids were happy!

Stealing sister's candy...

His head fell off along the way...

I also had these perler beads from Ikea, I thought it looked like such a fun activity.  Max and I got it out while Lola was napping.  Seriously?  You need some serious fine motor skills for this one, my friends.  Even for me.  But Max really got the hang of it and was really patient.  We ended up making a little ornament for daddy.

Max gave it to John that night, he could not wait for Christmas.  So excited.

almond brittle

This is the first time I've ever had to make teacher gifts, Max is now in Preschool.  This looked so yummy, and of course I always have Ball Jars on hand... so that is what I made!  I forgot to get a candy thermometer, so I didn't cook the first couple batches long enough... but then got the hang of it.  I found the chalkboard gift tags in the Target dollar aisle.  I thought they were appropriate for teacher gifts!

christmas stuff

I feel kinda like Sandra Lee this Christmas... semi-homemade.  "Ain't nobody got time for that" keeps running through my head.  The first thing I knew I had to make was an advent calendar.  Last year's was beautiful, and Max loved turning each one over to see the activity of the day.  This year I found a pre-made kraft box calendar at Hobby Lobby and thought, "I can do something with that..."  So I stenciled the dates on each box and filled each with tiny toys, candy, and activities for the day.  The kids are really into it.  Even Lola smacks her lips when it's time to look in the box (meaning, I hope it's candy).

Other than that, just decorating as usual and trying to get all the shopping done.  I am making a couple things... will share later.  

Fabric Tea Bags

My very sweet niece recently turned 4 and she had a tea party birthday party.  Well, I think it was technically a princess sparkle tea party...  I love her so.  Going with the theme, I decided to make the fabric tea bags I pinned forever ago.  Just fabric, fleece in the middle, sew, turn, glue string inside, topstitch.  They turned out a little big (the size of an actual tea bag) and a little wonky because I sewed/turned/topstiched.  But cute enough for a little imaginary tea party, am I right!?

I bought a tea tin at Trader Joes and mod-podged some cute paper on top.

Happy Birthday Sweet Etta!