Gift Giving, one thing I LOVE.

So, yes I love to give gifts and if I find something that I know someone would love and appreciate, it's hard to resist either buying it or making it. These are a few of my latest projects for others in the form of a gift.

Claire and Eleanore are giving their cousin G a ice cream play set for her birthday and I decided she needed an apron too. It might be a little long but I think she is going to like it.

It was so fun to just make it and not need a pattern.

Coasters I made for my SIL for Christmas. This was on her list and I thought I'd make her some since she didn't specify style or medium. So when she's done with them she won't feel bad about pitching them out. :-)

Cousin J got a doctor kit from CMW for Christmas and I thought he needed a bow tie and some glasses. So, I found the 'how to' at this site. It was so simple and fun to make, even if it does get lost at the bottom of the play bin.

What I don't have pictures of are the capes I made 3 special boys and the 7 pairs of mittens.

Friend Sarah gave me a pattern for mittens with a flip top to allow the fingers to be exposed without the whole hand. Similar to these. And I made 20 recycled feed bags for other people to give as gifts. These are not my favorite to make anymore but I am done for a few months. :-) Jim is actually going to help me make a new style with different handles and I am excite about this. He says "I need a something new for people to continue to want them.' . He is such an entrepreneur... I also made these diaper bags and covers for friends who are expecting babies. So fun! And this bag too. The fabric was hand picked by the one who is using it and it turned out great.

Now I am done, on to a new year and new projects. Now that is exciting!

Christmas

Since New Years is today, Yea for 2010 !! I better share about our Christmas, what a wintery one it was.

Jim gave us the idea to start out our Christmas trip visiting a water park in Brained. It was quite nice and CMW did not want to leave. But now we know she really likes the water, even when she is turning blue. It was a nice and relaxing way as a family to start out our long weekend together since there happened to be some glitches in 'plan of events'.

Pequot was where our festivities started, along with the snow. It was so nice and peaceful. The snow was coming down in big flakes and the first snow fall was white and fluffy, the second snowfall was very went and heavy. My friend Lyz asked 'what's one thing you hold onto a little longer?' (referring to Christmas) and I think it's the peacefulness of snow in Minnesota. Since i'm a true Minnesotan, the snow in ND is just not the same. It always blows away and is mostly hard and compact, nothing soft and fluffy. I think that is one thing i miss, plus the nice 30 degree temps.

Anyway, back to Christmas! The celebration of our Savior, Christ Jesus. Since the storm was coming, we had fewer relatives to celebrate with but we still went to Christmas eve services, dinner was still wonderful, and the gift giving was just right. I think my family needs to start a tradition of remembering Jesus besides attending the eve service. I think it would be wonderful for everyone to remembers the true meaning, I guess next year i'll have to try a little harder and come up with an idea or two. My family did get to enjoy our time with both sets of grandparents, my sisters family and my parents along with nice weather a lots of new snow!

After the family celebration, on Friday Jim, C and I packed up our car and headed to the Olson's Farm for a small visit and then on-ward home bound. The visit was wonderful and we got exposed to the new game 'Banana-grams' it's similar to scrabble and it's fun game. But our continued trip home did not happen until Saturday morning (to much snow in ND). And when we did get home Sat. we were snowed out. Yes, that's correct, not 'snowed in' but 'snowed out'. A very nice snow drift always covers Footer St. when there's a storm and the other 2 roads were also cover with snow. So, we walked in until the 'man with a plow' came by to break a path. And our house was at 52 degrees since our furnace exhaust was covered. The good news, God watched over us on our drive from MN to ND and I just can't leave out our trusty chickens. Even through digging them out of a snow drift, they survived the storm. Now that we were safely home from travels, in our house, started warming it up and the chickens were safe. We bundled up to ventured over to the Waa's for a time of visiting & dinner. It didn't really seam like a time of gift giving with so much going on, games, computers, movies, dinner preparation and what not. But oh well, visiting was nice and CMW got some pretty nice gifts. And our Sunday was another day of digging out to get to town for groceries.

Celebrations of many...

It just so happened the Sister's Family Christmas in Mankato MN which is a wonderful gathering of Jim's moms sisters & families was the same weekend of CMW's 2nd birthday. I would not and could not leave out her big day. I wasn't really thinking of making her celebration into anything real big, I just brought this cake to add to the sweets of the day and to help others to remember her. We did sing happy birthday and she tried to blow out the candles but her dad helped after the 3rd try. I made a delicious chocolate cake with a sour cream/chocolate filling and frosted with cream cheese. I still taste it, mm,mm. So, between celebrating birthdays (there was 2), we ate, had a great time of fellowship and enjoyed a round of white elephant gift exchange.

My girlfriend Sam decorates cakes and she helped me out a lot! Thank you, Thank you!

CMW is trying to blow out the candles but she doesn't quite have enough lung power or spit control to blow them out yet.

(Jim, CMW & Cousin J.)

It's crazy to think our little lady is now 2 yrs old. How exciting! Her check up was just last week and she weights 23.4 lbs. and is 30" tall. Just a petite girl and she's doing well, according to Dr. Hordvik!

(CMW stealing a cookie off the sweets table at the Sister's Family Christmas gathering.)

The Family!

Since we did not remember to bring our own camera, Aunt Ginny took these pictures for us. Sunday the 6th is the actual date for CMW's birthday and before heading up to the Twin Cities we visited the mall for some Christmas shopping & some play time for C. She did not want to get in that car seat, it was not a good ride down and she remembered. Her dad took her to the play court for kids and she ran and climbed all over those germ infested toys and then we sanitized her. She also got to ride the Carousel at the mall and she really did enjoy it.

We had a wonderful weekend of seeing family and friends and a wonderful time Celebrating C's 2 years of Life! What a gift we are given by our good Lord.