Merry Christmas!

Just popping in to Wish you all a Merry Christmas!!

Busy Weekend...and a Question For You

I'll start with the question...so you;ll have time to think of a brilliant answer before the end of this post..hehehehe! Ok...I can not seem to come up with a good, kid friendly craft for my babysitting kids to make for their parents for Christmas! I have searched, and thought...I am coming up BLANK! HELP! Any good ideas....cheap and easy would be best!? Thank You!!

This is the busiest weekend of the whole year for us...Today we have a Christmas party at Rob's mother's house with all of his step sisters and their kids...then we have a Christmas party at Rob's dad's house with all of the step siblings and their kids in the afternoon/evening. In the middle of that is dress rehearsal for the church Christmas play! This morning before we go I have baking to do for tomorrow. Tomorrow we have church and Sunday school, the kids will be handing out cute dishes of the baked goods that I am making this morning. Then when we come home, we will build a ginger bread house, and bake some more...then we will go back to church for the Christmas play (this is my Christmas gift from my daughter, I don't watch any rehearsals or even let her talk to me about the play! ) After the play will be fellowship time with finger foods in the gym. After that when we get home I need to put together trays of goodies as a gift for the families we babysit for. BUSY, BUSY, BUSY! Hopefully all can be done with a good attitude and a joyful spirit...after all it is all done in the name of the Lord! Hope you have a great weekend!!

Let Them Help

I feel it is so important to let the children help decorate for the holidays...it helps them feel as if they are part of making it special! I have been in some homes that looked as if they fell out of a magazine, and for a moment, I was (and still am) jealous! It lasts only a moment...because as you look around, you feel like you couldn't touch a thing or it might break, you feel uneasy with your children even being there, they might mess it up...etc. This does not set the tone of an inviting home, to me. What I prefer is to look around my house, as it is now, and see the little messes made in the spirit of Christmas, like the "train track" one of the boys built around the base of the tree, the nativity my son set up on his desk, it's set up backwards! I see homemade ornaments on my tree....I think there is only ONE bulb on the tree! I see lots of art work made by the kiddos, I see the HUGE candy advent calender, I see LOTS of books about the birth of Jesus, I see my windows painted by small hands...with drippy and smeary paint, I see a garland of paper gingerbread men strung across my dining room doorway for all to see! I pray the people who enter my home this Christmas season will feel comfortable, and feel the love of Jesus, not feel like they need to concentrate on not breathing as they might mess something up! Merry Christmas....Merry Memories! :)

Christmas Decorations

I thought I would share pictures of some of our Christmas decorations. We didn't put up as much as some years. I think I like to keep things simple. We don't have much extra space, so this works for us. I do have more decorations out than what is seen in these pictures though. Things are coming along as far as Christmas goes. I just have 2 more small things to buy the next time I'm at the store. They are not for my own children so it won't matter if they are with me when I buy them :0) I have a few more days of wrapping and then that should be done! I am looking forward to having a bit of free time in the afternoon to do some cleaning and organizing to get things ready for all the new things the kids will get for Christmas. It's a good chance to keep things cleared out! We have most of our get togethers scheduled and on the calender, so that makes it nice! I am having a hard time coordinating some of Ashley's activities and the parties. I think she will miss the get together with her grandparents this weekend as she will be with the church putting on a play for a nursing home. I am going to have her do this instead as I think she needs to learn to serve others...and this is a great opportunity to do so. I am trying to make this as stress free as possible!!

Candy Calender

Each year my husband makes a candy calender for the kids to count down to Christmas! This goes along with our December surprises! The kids LOVE it...we have done it since the oldest was little...so they look forward to it all year long! The usually start talking about it in the summer! We glues on over 200 pieces of candy this year!

Homemade Christmas!

The budget is really tight for Christmas this year, so I am making a whole bunch of gifts for the little kids and a few for the older kids. It's seems like my little kids are easily pleased with homemade things....my older kids would be too if I could figure out what to make them! LOL
As for the littles...here's a list of some of what I am making.
Bean Bag Toss...made out of a diaper box and other materials I already have... FREE
Clothes Pin Drop....made out of a coffee can and clothes pins...FREE
Polly Pocket Houses...made out of boxes and other recycled materials...ALMOST FREE
Embroidered pillow cases for all 7...$1 each
Mod Podge'd note books for all 7...$1 each
Princess Wands....for 3 little girls...Almost Free
American Girl Sled....from an old wooden decoration, painted to look new....FREE
Dog House and New Dog...made from box and used stuffed animal...Almost Free
Barn and animals....made from box...will buy animal...so CHEAP
Stitcheries....FREE
That's all I can think of right now. Soon I will take pictures and share! I spend about an hour in the morning working on the gifts while the kids are still asleep! Then I wrap as I go...the bigs play a game with the littles and I go wrap! I am getting excited about Christmas!!