Seeking peace

It was a wonderfully busy but calm season and right now I'm just enjoying the lazy days, my family together and the peace.

The Presents

The Family

and the Funny

Merry Christmas

Yay we finished our Christmas cards. I know, I know... it's late, but EARLY for us!!

Here are a few more gifts.

Puppy. Tutorial by Martha. Yes, we're on a first name basis. M loves "Frankie" so much that I might have to make another one for the little one this puppy was intended.

Eye pillows. These smell so wonderful.

Play food. There were so many cute ideas out there that I wanted to make them all. I settled on cookies, eggs, bacon, pancakes with syrup and butter, and a sandwich. I also made a reversible apron to go with it.

Some pillows.

Lost

I've been swallowed up or buried in all of my projects. Here's a drive by post with a few completed projects. More to come, I just haven't taken pictures.


Here is A testing out some fleece pants I made her.



Christmas pajamas. Here's a tutorial on how to do the reverse applique on the shirts and here's a tutorial on how to make the pants.



We usually don't get snow in our side of the world so I thought these would be cute gifts for the toddlers and babies. These are hand felted balls with a golf ball size wiffle ball and a bell inside. Here's the tutorial I used.

** Sorry Wendy I should have given the blog that inpired these. ***

Advent

Day 7 - To see Santa

Day 8 - Make ornaments for the tree with friends. We made THESE (I know it's too simple, who needs a recipe, but I like to read the comments) cinnamon ornaments. Super easy and they make the whole house smell yummy for YEARS!!

Day 9 - Write letters to Santa. I helped M with his shapes and A's list says: 1. House 2. Lipstick 3. Doll

Ok ladies, get ready. I have a few projects I've been working on and I'll post them tomorrow. How is your handmade Christmas coming along?

I was going to try and take pictures of every Advent event, but um... yeah, that didn't happen. Here are the days that I had enough sanity to remember the camera.

Ok, so it's been a rough week. We did decorate the house last night though. woooohooo Oh, and our house really isn't on fire, it's just my crappy photo-taking skillz.

And A is loving the nativity scene; All of our dolls are now named "baby Jesus" including the one in my tummy AND her's.

And so it begins

Our Advent calendar is up and I've we've really enjoyed our first two activities. I really am hoping that this will help me slow down and teach my babies about the whole season of Christmas. I don't want them to pass the years thinking that if they are good for three weeks out of the year they'll be loaded down with elaborate and ridiculously expensive gifts. I love the season of Christmas and I mean everything from the jolly fat guy and snowmen to the feeling I get when I see a Christmas candle light flicker and know what that means in my heart. I want my babies to know the sharing, hope, faith and love that is Christmas. I've never done this before, you know, seeing how I only get one go 'round at the mom thing. So, my plans are to emphasize family, love, giving and the history of Christmas through our Advent calendar AND to make this a handmade Christmas. I really, really want my kids to see that the act of giving has gotten too expensive and money is tight is an act of love and that when we invest our time and creativity into our gifts we are putting our love into them for our friends and family. I hope that this lesson will carry over into the receiving part of this tradition too, so we're not bombarding them with tons of toys. When they receive a gift that has been carefully chosen just for them, I want them to cherish it and know that it was given with love. I'm thinking that this would be hard to do if they have gobs of presents thrown at them in one day, so this year we're going to try out the "less is more" idea. Now, I'm not going lie; Last year both of them had a pile of gifts that Santa would be proud to show off, but it was disheartening when they ripped off the paper, showed a glimpse of joy, said their thank you's and cast the carefully chosen toy off to the side to play with the paper or move on to the next box. NOT what I was imagining the night before; And that my friends has been my motivation to change this gift giving/receiving process in our house. So without further ado, lets get started on our challenge this month. I'll be posting what's going on over here project-wise and please let me know what you've got going on. Remember, even if you just make ONE gift, I would LOVE for you to share it with us!

Our Advent Calendar

Day one: Decorating the tree. Check out the "socks" A has on.

Day two: Setting up and acting out the nativity scene.

What's going on?

Last week I was a little shaken up. For the first time since I've been active online, I let someone or I guess something change who I am. Not a good thing. So I took a step back and immersed myself in who I am. I love to create, so that's what I've been doing.

We have a Thanksgiving tree. I loved this idea I saw on Beauty that Moves. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and I hate that it's stomped over to get to Christmas. Hubby and I have really emphasized being thankful for all of our blessings and we try to verbalize it as much as possible. To write it is different.

Here are a few of Allie's contributions.

I finished my Advent calendar. I made the envelopes with scrapbook paper and inside each envelope is an activity we'll do to celebrate the season of Christmas. Here's where I got the idea and here's our list of activities. I LOVE the idea of really celebrating and not feeling like I was drugged the whole month of December and then wondering what happened on December 26th.

1. Decorate tree.

2. Set up nativity and act it out as we set it up.

3. Make an Advent wreath.

4. Holiday in the Park (local festivities).

5. Read St. Nicholas book (still looking for a good one) and set out our shoes.

6. Celebrate St. Nicholas Day - this is one of Hubby's traditions since his family is from Belgium. I'm going to try and hunt down a few recipes from his BonMama's recipe book.

7. Museum of Fine Arts - free today and they have an exhibit on how different cultures celebrate around the world.

8. Make ornaments - This will be with our playgroup and I'm deciding between the clove oranges and cinnamon ornaments.

9. Write a letter to Santa.

10. Make wreaths and candy canes for the tree. M and A can both do this AND I made them when I was a kid!!!

11. Hang mistletoe and start kissing.

12. Heritage Society's Candlelight tour (local tour of Christmas lights).

13. Visit Santa and watch the ice skaters in the mall.

14. Pick a star off the Be an Angel tree, buy gifts and wrap.

15. Make gift tags for presents using potato stamps.

16. Make gingerbread men.

17. Watch a Christmas movie (maybe Charlie Brown?).

18. Call grandparents and sing Christmas carol (We Wish You a Merry Christmas - gotta start working on it now).

19. Drive around and see Christmas lights.

20. Read Christmas books and drink hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows.

21. Make tamales with my family.

22. Cookie baking party. Friends come over and we all bake, eat and listen to Christmas music.

23. Discovery Green (local) watch ice skaters and try hot apple cider.

24. Bake and decorate a cake for baby Jesus.

A Christmas gift for my new niece. Baby legs and baby shoes. The baby legs are super easy and I've made tons for both of my kids. I bought women's knee hi's for $2 and I think they look adorable with the shoes. The shoes were really easy too, once I learned what interfacing was.

Ok I think that's enough for today. I'm kinda cheating on next month's challenge, but if I didn't start until December, I wouldn't get it done. I'll elaborate more, but for the sake of recruiting I'll post some of my ideas on a homemade Christmas this year. Think about it. Maybe all of your gifts can't be handmade, but how about 5?2? maybe just one to start with this year.

Halloween

Just catching up. The kids had a great time trick-or-treating!

Arts and crafts

Last week went ok. Just ok. I was really grouchy all week so our arts and crafts time didn't get as much time as I want to give.

These were my favorites this week:

Making spiders.
Making a necklace for her PocaNONtas costume.

Oldie but Goodie

In honor of Mother's Day, here a little something I wrote about my momma many years ago.

Sunday smells like forgiven souls, ancient recipes, and mama's homemade
tortillas. My mama's perfectly manicured cabernet red nails sink into the
belly of the still warm masa. Forcing every element to sacrifice its
original state, to become a creation at her hands, masa.
Dough.
The stick of wood, smoothed out over years, molds the fat, raw, ball into a
paper-thin tortilla. Mama beats the dough with the stick as if it would
refuse to be rolled out, as if she had to beat some sense into it. Over
and over again she rolls one way and then the other, until the rhythm is in sync
with her favorite mariachi band. The sound of the old brass trumpet and
the forgotten stories of the guitar are pressed in with every stroke of her
stick.

After every fat little ball is molded into a perfect circle, as if cut from a pattern,
she lifts the tortilla, careful not to puncture any holes. The searing waves of heat escape from the cast iron comal. Yet with the same hands which are like an angels breath on my face, she gently places the tortilla on the comal. And while attending to the cauldron of beans, pan of steaming rice, and three children revolving around her, she manages to keep an attentive eye on her doughy white tortillas. As she sees the little bubbles pop up on their still raw surface, she instinctively flips it over to expose its now golden brown skin. Then with in a few seconds she is balancing a homemade
tortilla, on her now flour crusted nails and promptly stuffs it in-between the
folds of a kitchen towel to keep it as warm as a seven-year-olds face on a
summer day.

Today is Sunday; today we have tortillas.

I love you Mom!

Calm before the storm??

It's Christmas eve and I'm sitting here listening to Martin make breakfast with Allie at his side. I love it. She's soaking up so much right now and I feel like the pressure is on to be the best role model for her. Brushing teeth, opening doors, yes ma'am, no thank you, please sir, cleaning up toys, kisses and hugs, sharing, living in the moment, prayers, being thankful..... the list just goes on and on except there is no list!

Catching up

We are in full swing at the V residence. Thanksgiving was good, not great, but for my first time hosting I think we did ok. There was a whole blending family, how to carve a turkey and cold food dilemma, but we survived. We're all set up for Christmas and I even finished my shopping!!!

Just one picture since I have to go wrap presents.