As promised, here are a few of my homemade Christmas items.  I found a lot of them on pinterest (if you haven’t discovered this website yet and would like to be sucked into hours of fun go ahead and give it a try or email me so I can send you an invitation to join).

The first things I tried were some kid friendly crafts.  Eldest loved helping me make these and did a great job as my helper.

Who knew play-doh was so easy to make!!!  I will not be buying any packaged play-doh ever again…this was just too easy and I added scents to the dough, so it smells great (vanilla, berry, peppermint, lemon, and lavender).

I also made bath crayons, but gave them all away before taking a photo.  We’ll be making those again sometime soon so the girlies can have some bath fun of their own.  These, too, were easy to make.  Simple and smelly and fun!

The hardest thing that I made took patience even though it was a pretty simple thing.  I loved how it looked and if I were to do it again I’d add more yarn/balls, but it was too costly to do that this year.  I like that this can stay up all winter long, too!  Here’s my winter wreath.

I also made a few gifts for some friends and family members.  Lavender bath salts (epsom salts, baking soda, coloring, scent) and warm vanilla bath scrub (sugar in the raw or brown sugar, coconut oil, vanilla scent, and sea salt).  Here’s a photo of my bath salts (they’re great, I finally tried them out last night!)

Girlie was very excited as just before Christmas she was finally selected as the Gem at preschool.  During her week as the gem she shared a bit about her favorite things and family, brought snacks for her friends, and got to be the helper for many class activities.  For her snack days we brought a butterfly snack and a snowman snack.  I don’t have a picture of the butterflies, but they turned out cute, too.

At Christmastime we go a bit crazy on the cookies.  We’ve got our old standbys, but this year added a fun one that the girls helped with (and by helping I mean they mostly ate the ingredients!)  Here’s a shot of my main helper mixing up some cookies.  I’m, also including one of the new yummy treats we made.


We had a great Christmas and it’s hard to believe it’s 2012.  I don’t usually make too many resolutions that I tend to keep, but I’m really hoping that for Christmas 2012 I’ll be even more prepared and will be able to keep my new resolution.  My goal/resolution would be to have everything done on my list for Christmas by the start of Advent.  I’d love to enjoy December instead of run around like a crazy lady getting everything ready.  So…next year my goal is to have everything except baking and our Christmas letters ready by advent.  We’ll see if I can make it happen next year!!

I leave you with our family enjoying advent with our devotional written by Erik’s parents (pic taken by eldest!!) and our official family picture.  Lastly, a picture of my cuties :)

 

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