Christmas Presents for the kids...

I love to shop for my kids! But months after Christmas I get so sick to my stomach when I see all the money we spent & they never play with anything! Last year I found "Victorian Christmas" online. It is when you buy only 4 gifts for your children: something they WANT, NEED, WEAR, & READ. I never thought I'd be able to just stick to that! So last year I didn't do it... I didn't even try!

Well... if you want motivation to stick to a strict budget like that, let me tell you, just clean out the toy room before you go shopping! All the toys we threw away and gave away... and even still - they don't hardly play with what is left, sheesh!

I expanded the version for us a little bit! I also added in "one present from Santa" (even though my children don't believe, we still pretend), as well as having fun filling the stockings (and NO! I did not fill the stockings with $50 WII games, lol...), or candy! They did get 1 chocolate marshmellow santa each, and will get a few peanut butter cups, they got a few small toys (amy a thomas pull back train, and alex some star wars guys), new toothbrushes, a new ornament, combs, things like that!

I stamped cute tags for them that Alex will have fun reading and passing out on Christmas day. Here is what they are getting:

Alex:
want - webkins
need - alarm clock
wear - nike sweatshirt
read - magic tree house books
from santa - a magic set!

Amy:
want - marble run
need - baby bumblebee dvd (helps w/ talking as she's in speech therapy now)
wear - outfit
read - a collection of biscuit books
from santa - candy land castle game!

I'm very excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait for Christmas morning :) And our biggest goal of the day, to make it to church! We never do for the "convenience" factor - but that really IS the most important reason, to celebrate the birth of Jesus & remember why He was born in the first place. To save us ALL from our sins. Thank you Lord, for sending us Your Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not die, but have everlasting life!

Christmas Card Holder

I made a few Christmas Card Holders after seeing this super cute memo board on one of my favorite blogs written by The Nester. (trying to learn to enter a link here to her blog...)

((Hmmm, I cannot figure out HOW to enter a link so you can just click on it! Her blog is www.nestingplacenc.blogspot.com ))

I'll try to show you what I did to make it...

First I had my woodworking hubby cut me squares! I said "I don't care how big, I don't care what kind of wood" - 15 minutes later he brought me these 14" square pieces of plywood! He asked me how many, I said I didn't care, lol~! These are for gifts, for no one in particular (yet)!

First thing you do is scatter your supplies all over your living room:


Next... you get your measuring stick (or in my case Amy's DVD & a box of screws... I'm not so precise! The Nester ALWAYS says "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful"!! And you decide where you want to have the screws go. I marked my spots with a sharpi... everyone needs a sharpi (or 10)! I then put wire around the screws to make this easy to hang (but you could also just rest it up against the wall)




Ok, then I used 1 layer of quilt batting, stapled it all the way around the wood. Then I stapled a layer of burlap (I think that's what it's called)


Add ribbon...


And then you are done! I totally need to take a pic of this before I put the cards on it... it's super cute! And you can't really tell when it's all hidden w/ cards, lol! Still cute though! This was SUPER easy and quick to make! You can make them any size, any color!!!!

Our Christmas Tree

Every year we go hunting for the perfect tree on our property. We either get it by our future house site or by the power lines - those are trees that would have to come down eventually anyway! This year, Kraig cut down a huge one that was missing it's middle, right by the power lines. The kids enjoyed watching it fall down. They had a lot of fun putting the ornaments all over too... enjoy the pics :)