Kit's box and nightie

I love surprises, don't you? I think I actually like being the one who surprises more than the one who is surprised. Alyzza has been wanting pajamas for her doll, Kit, but because I was already planning on making her one for Christmas, I down-played it any time she brought it up. And what better way to present this gift than to put it in a special box where all of the other doll clothes and accessories would go in, too.

And boy, was she sooo surprised when she opened up the box!

It's hard to see, but I hand-painted the top of the box with her initials and on the inside, lined it with felt.

Look at that look of surprise....

....and a hug for Mom!

She totally loves it, don't you think?:)

Here she is with her cousin, Annalina, who has another American Girl doll, Kaya. The girls enjoyed playing with their dolls together during Christmas break. And there's Kit with her nightie on--so cute!

This makes my heart smile.:)

Alyzza's gift for her teacher

Here's Alyzza's gift for her teacher: a washer necklace. I've seen some tutorials on the web, but when I saw one in Family Fun Magazine, I knew it could be something Alyzza could make for her teacher. She loved it a lot and knew that Mrs. G. would love it, too!

She painted the washer with finger nail polish. After the paint dried, she did another coat of clear nail polish. She selected the ribbon, and I tied it onto the washer. She gave it to Mrs. G. during her class Christmas party. She said that her teacher really liked it--and I'm so glad!

Angel towels

This year for Christmas,  I wanted the girls to make something for their teachers. When I found this idea for angel towels, I knew this would be the perfect gift for Little S' nursery workers and M.O.P.S. teachers.

We had a lot of fun making these. In fact, it was our first real craft to do together. On a clean garbage bag, I put all of the towels (six in all) on top, ready for assembly-style crafting. We stamped a hand at a time, then her foot, all the while giving her an M&M as we completed each step. Then, I finished the angels by painting on their heads, halos and the phrase, "Angels we have heard on high." You could also write, "Hark, the herald angels sing."

Take a look....and by the way, we ended up making more towels for the grandparents and a set for us. The second time, we included Alyzza in the process, so now some of us have precious memories of both girls from Christmas 2012.

Christmas traditions, old and new

I love traditions, don't you? Here, I will share things that we've enjoyed doing the last couple of years, and then I'll share two new traditions we've begun with the girls during Christmas. I know this is kind of late, but with our trip to TN, and getting back into the swing of things, I'm now getting back into writing again. So, enjoy the next several posts with Christmas goodies and gifts we made. Perhaps you can tuck away the ideas and use them for other celebrations and next Christmas.:)

Last year, we began the tradition of having the girls choose out their own ornament for the year. Their name and year are written on each one, so that they'll have a collection of their own when they are grown. This year, we bought them at a thrift store for 99 cents each! Little S chose the horse and Alyzza chose the sparkly bunch of grapes (below).

Christmas lights around town are so much fun, aren't they? We went to Boulder to see this spectacular showcase of trees:

And now for the new ones...I heard about a "Journey to Bethlehem" event at one of my M.O.P.S. meetings and knew that we should go. It was held at the church where we have our meetings. I put it in as one of our advent calendar activities, too.

If you haven't been to something like this, search for one in your community. We experienced the story of Christmas, and the girls got to enjoy some fun things, too. Alyzza loved the headdress and the clay ornament she got to make!

This stocking was a fun idea that came together between me and Alyzza. It's called "Stocking Mail." We wrote notes to each other and passed them by placing them in the stocking and hanging it on each other's doorknob. It was always a great surprise!

What traditions do you enjoy with your family? I'd love to hear about them!

Our new advent calendar

This new advent calendar was created by putting together ideas from two different sources. The looks of it, made from a mini muffin pan, came from Family Fun Magazine (of course!:). It is sooo cute; we just love it! 

For the circles, I used leftover Christmas wrap from last year. Then I glued them onto magnetic sheets. The circle magnets that cover the holes are approximately 2-1/2 inches in diameter, but you might want to measure your tin to see if this measurement works. You want to cover the holes completely, but you don't want a lot of overlap between all of the circles. I stamped numbers onto the smaller circles made from scrap booking paper. They measure about an inch in diameter. 

Here's a look at this fun project....

The directions say to fill each hole with a trinket, candy or fun thing to do. While I like those ideas, I also wanted things that were meaningful....meaning that I didn't want to fill it up mostly with candy and trinkets!

I started thinking about the Christmas traditions that we like to do and wondered if those could be put into this calendar. Then, Money Saving Mom  shared with her readers a sale on a DVD and pdf book. For only $10 including shipping, I bought the Why Do We Call it Christmas? dvd and the book, Everyday Emmanuel from this website. 

The book is mostly comprised of ideas on how to celebrate advent by focusing on the real meaning of Christmas and making precious family memories. Using some of their ideas, I listed 24 things that I wanted to do with my family this season. Some only take a few minutes during the day, while a few are fun outings and projects to do together. The girls will still get a treat here and there with the piece of paper that says what we'll do, but it isn't the focus. I like that they look forward to each day's event, but they're not getting too hyper with that upcoming party or event. It's always a "last minute" surprise and it's great!:)

Here are the things we have already begun or will do. If you know our girls and see them regularly, please don't tell them! Shhhhh......


1. Christmas party put on by our foster care agency
2. What God Wants for Christmas, part 1 (an interactive nativity by Family Life Publishing)
3. Buy the girls their Christmas ornament for the year
4. Give mailman a holiday treat
5. What God Wants for Christmas, part 2
6. See the Christmas lights in our community
7. Go to Journey to Bethlehem (an event put on by the church that hosts our M.O.P.S. group)
8. Make gifts for school teacher, nursery workers and MOPS teachers with girls
9. What God Wants for Christmas, part 3
10. Finish making presents and wrap gifts while listening to Christmas music
11. Watch new Christmas movie, Why Do We Call it Christmas?
12. What God Wants for Christmas, part 4
13. Dad and Alyzza have a coin club Christmas party/I will help Little S buy presents for family
14. Play Christmas game/Uno
15. Build paper nativity set and/or decorate church reception hall for party on Sunday
16. What God Wants for Christmas #'s 5 and 6
17. Alyzza's Christmas program at school
18. Put on a Christmas puppet show
19. Make treats for neighbors
20. Christmas caroling and give treats to neighbors and possibly shut-ins
21. Our Christmas (we are going to TN in a few days....)
22. Drink yummy peppermint hot chocolate
23. What God Wants for Christmas, #7
24. Special activity to do on the plane trip to TN (probably a busy bag or activity book)

Other ideas can include....playing together in the snow (we just haven't had any in a while, but probably will put it in and take something out of my list), make snow ice cream, read a Christmas book, etc. We have begun reading Christmas books when we do our reading time, since we have so many to choose from, and it's fun to read them all during this time of year.

So, there you have it! A fun new way to do an advent calendar while keeping it meaningful, inexpensive and full of family fun!

More to come on some of the projects and recipes we will be doing as part of this calendar's events....stay tuned....

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Our Christmas decorations have been up for a week now, so I thought it should be time for a little tour....

If you were to visit our home, this is what you would see hanging on the door. Then, moving around the two front rooms, you'll see....

...this tree and snowman garland,

our kid-friendly nativity set I made for a M.O.P.S. craft,

a snowman nativity set, a snowman countdown and some scrabble tiles that say, "O Come let us adore Him,"

Winnie-the-Pooh window clings sent to us in a fun package from Q's parents,

the nativity set my mom gave me 13 years ago that began my collection of nativities (see how many you can count from this post!),

the nativity advent calendar that we are enjoying already,

a new way to hang up our Christmas cards using some wide candy cane ribbon,

(a close up view of my first card; it came from Alyzza:)

a nativity picture made completely from fabric (I love handmade touches around our home),

a few knick-knacks,

blocks that spell out, "Merry Christmas,"

an interactive nativity set and a Precious Moments one that plays music,

Noel blocks, mini trees and a Willow tree angel,

three wise men with Mary and baby Jesus,

an angel collection on top of one of our book cases (two of the angels are handmade gifts from friends),

our Christmas book basket (we're enjoying reading from this collection already!),

a light-up snowflake (another gift from Q's parents),

snuggly snowmen that the girls can play with,

and finally, a snowman village on top of the other book case. The picture of our tree didn't come out right, but another one was shown in my last post with Alyzza decorating it.:)

Did you count how many nativities I have? I just love having that as my theme at Christmas time. After all, Jesus is the reason for the season! 

Our Thanksgiving Weekend

It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving has come and gone...and that the Christmas season is here! Here are some fun activities and crafts we did over the Thanksgiving holiday.

I found these paper place mats at Target for the girls to do before breakfast one morning. They had fun coloring the turkey, doing a maze, unscrambling words and writing down what they were thankful for.

Of course, Little S just scribbled away (we didn't know what she was writing, but I'm sure she did). She had a crayon in one hand while holding a spoon in the other!

Alyzza made this costume at school and had fun wearing it all weekend.

I don't remember what spurred this idea on, but I ended up doing a quick craft for Q and Alyzza. I made these rubber band shooters out of dowels and clothespins (a fantastic idea from Family Fun). They had a blast, and of course, some of us got caught in the middle of it all (I need to make one for myself, too!)

a close up view of this fun, handmade toy

I found this banner at Target, too. A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, we started these links of thankfulness.:) It was fun to see what the girls would say. Little S said she was thankful that Jesus gave her water and then said almost the same thing about milk the next day. It was too cute!

Little S and I went on a short walk and gathered the best pine cones we could find.  I made this trio of owls for her. She chose the craft out of a fall-themed Family Fun book that my secret sister at MOPS gave me. Alyzza chose the craft below out of the same book. If you haven't noticed already, I really like Family Fun. It is the source of so many of our creative endeavors around here.:)

Here is Alyzza's pilgrim pal. We started off working together, but then I had to finish it later because we ran out of time. He is made out of a toilet paper tube, felt, yarn, pipe cleaners, colored paper and a bit of aluminum foil.

On Thanksgiving morning, Q read the story of Squanto to the girls (and yes, that's a bow in Daddy's hair, compliments of Alyzza).

After nap time, we drove to Loveland to have Thanksgiving dinner with Q's cousin and her family. This acorn squash with beet soup was the appetizer. After that, we had so many dishes to choose from to complete our meal. And of course, we kept some room in our bellies to enjoy some pie. We all had a fun time together and hope to get together again before too long.

A family tradition we have is to set up the Christmas tree and decorations the day after Thanksgiving. The girls were so excited and helped Daddy put the ornaments on, while I put out some of the other things. Do you want to see how it all turned out?

Come back soon and find out!:)

A very happy 60th anniversary!

Not too long ago, we had a celebration for a couple in our church--they reached a milestone--60 years of married bliss. To honor them, Quentin decided to dedicate a service to them and to have a party afterward. I worked on decorations and Alyzza helped me decorate. I decided to go with a fall theme; it looks pretty at this time of year, plus we could keep it up until our Thanksgiving potluck.

Here's what we did to give the Sander's a super celebration....

These felt circle garlands came out sooo cute; it gave me a good excuse to do some sewing again! I found the basic idea here and I just love it!

Pretty garlands make me happy!:)

We used the fabric pumpkins we made last year for centerpieces. Laying these out with some Dollar Tree leaves were the perfect project for Alyzza.

This simple bulletin board was easy to pull together. I stapled cardstock up there and had a couple of pens nearby for church friends to write the Sander's a note.

The pens were placed in a paper pocket that I stapled to the board.

This beautiful cake was made by Janis, another church member who we adore (she loves doing special things for our girls, too, and we appreciate that so much).

Congratulations, Dr. and Mrs. Sanders!

Quentin wanted to give them gifts during the service, and one of his ideas was to give Mrs. Sanders a bouquet of flowers. I had just stumbled across this idea for a fall bouquet, and knew this would be the perfect gift for her. She absolutely loved it. (I hope to make one of these soon for us, but it will get greater use next fall.) Quentin also gave the Sanders a large-print New Testament and had their names engraved on it.

All in all, it was a great celebration. To God be the glory for a tremendous example of love and ministry. Thank you, Dr. and Mrs. Sanders; we appreciate you.