Homemade Christmas Gifts

I am sure by now you have all heard of Pinterest (or you haven't been on the computer). I discovered it a few months ago and fell instantly in love. Let me know if you are on it and you can follow me and vice-versa. I love this so much more than trying to save things in my "favorites". So one of my categories, one of many, is things to make. I came across several ideas for Christmas gifts. Of course with 6 kids and Christmas I am always looking for bargains and I wanted to do some homemade gifts this year and gifts my kids could help make. We found some great ideas!!!

Our first one came from here

Marshmallow Guns---The perfect gift for everyone!

The funny thing about this gift was as the kids were helping make them they kept wishing they could have one.....little did they know Papaw and Grandma were making them each one. ;)

These are very inexpensive to make and we already had the paint on hand, green/grey camouflage for the boys and pink/purple camo for the girls. We made them for the Rogers' family (so we would all have them for camping this summer) then we also made them for cousins and aunts and uncles. It was a lot of fun and very easy to do.

Ok the next gift came from this website:Aren't these adorable!!!

It is one cape but reversible! LOVE IT!! The silk material was tricky to sew with but other than that they were fairly simple to make. I made the emblems and cut/pinned the material and Anastasia did the sewing. We made four of these (my two boys and for two cousins). We want to make some for some birthday gifts this upcoming year as well.

Ok our next gift was the first ones we actually made and I was so excited to make these because I KNEW my girls would love them. They love to play baby dolls and they are always asking me to tie baby blankets around them so they can carry their babies in a sling. Well this doesn't work very well. So when I came across this tutorial I wanted to try making these right away. The best part.....these cost us nothing to make because I used material I already had on hand! Score!!! I was even excited because my niece (Brielle) loves Minnie Mouse and I had red and white polka dot material to make her one. Anastasia and I were able to make 7 of them on one LONG afternoon. My girls were excited on Christmas morning when they opened them (once I told them what they were lol) They got those and each got a new stroller as well. They carry their babies all around now.

Click here for the link.

Now you think we would have started all of this back in say July or August.....umm no we were crazy enough to start in December..... We also were making 3 baby blankets. So we finished one completely and still need to finish the other two. :( I didn't get a picture of the completed quilt before mailing it and I don't have a website for you to check for this one because a friend of mine taught us how to make them several years ago. It is very simple and here is a picture of the 2nd one half done:

I think what I liked about all these gifts were they were homemade and something useful and fun.

Now lets just see if this year we can work on sewing projects throughout the year and not just right before Christmas.... LOL

Ginger Bread Houses and Cookies

One of our yearly traditions is to make sugar cookies and decorate gingerbread houses. There is a funny story about our gingerbread houses this year. If you look closely at the top picture you will see a min- village. Umm Yea I was trying to save money and I saw that the Gingerbread Mini Village kit had 5 houses and was only $16.00. I thought, score...a house for each kid, perfect. Okay so I didn't realize how "mini" the mini houses were. Can you say itty-bitty? LOL So I went and bought two regular houses as well and everyone was happy.



















Now sugar cookies are at least a two day affair around here, one day to cut out and bake and then we decorate on another day. I have learned this after one year of trying to do it all on one day.....
We gave Jadon a cookie and some frosting to keep him busy in his high chair. Well he decided it was much better to just eat the frosting than to try and decorate a cookie....
























We had a fun time decorating and we were lucky enough to save some for Santa with all the little (and big) cookie monsters around here! ;)

The Polar Express

I did it! I kept a very exciting secret from the kids for over a month! (That was very hard for me. ;) ) Jay is finally done with school and we planned to take the kids on the Polar Express and stay the night in Flagstaff. They woke up Wednesday morning and they were all very sad that they couldn't find Freddy anywhere in the house.... I assured them I he was probably in a good hiding spot and we would find him.

So it was time to start school and they all went in to get their first workbox and this was what they found in them....
It didn't take them very long to figure it out and then there were screams of delight and excitement. I told them I packed everything last night so we just had to load the car and go.



As we started to go out to the car to load stuff, Savannah was the first one out and was so excited to discover that Freddy was sitting on our front dash. I guess he didn't want to be left out! ;)

We got up to Flagstaff, checked into our hotel and then headed to Williams to catch the train.
































The kids were so excited to see snow. It had just snowed in Flagstaff the last couple of days so our timing was perfect!


We had a great train ride to the North Pole and then went back to our hotel room. The kids LOVE staying at hotels! So you might wonder how a hotel room works with our crew....Well I found a Best Western Suite on Priceline.com. It worked out great! It had a king size bed, (for Jay and I) and a fold out hide a bed (for two kids). We brought two mattresses for the others and Jadon slept in the pack-n-play. The room even had two full bathrooms, SCORE! And we got free breakfast included.












Notice the temperature on the rear view mirror at one point it reached 11 degrees. BRRRRR.....


They were so excited to see long icicles.

Before we headed home the next day we stopped to play in the snow. Jadon touched it once and then wanted nothing more to do with it! It was really funny.


























What a great family trip to start our Christmas break!