Christmas Craft Ideas

Over the past two years we have made a handful of Christmas crafts together.  I hope to do more this year, too.  

Salt dough keepsake ornament

paper or felt Christmas tree

homemade paper ornament

button snowflake

baby Jesus

manger 

Homemade Jesse Tree

Gingerbread Children
(Yes, the 2010 gingerbread kids are still hanging!)

What Christmas crafts do you think we should do this year??

Pantry Organization

When we built our home three years ago, we tweaked the original floor plans for a few things, including two things that I knew I wanted: laundry on the second floor and a pantry.  (Oh, I really wanted a mud room.  REALLY.  And I still do. However, the price tag was one that was not logical to me.  Some things can't be a priority...even if highly desired and practical.)

My pantry is tiny, but I am thankful for it.  Up until recently, it was also a wreck, though I cleaned it out about once a month.  A couple weeks before the baby was due, I realized that a baby sitter would never find anything in that pantry because my dear husband always has to ask where something is or have me find it.

The solution...labels.  (Maybe not what you think.)  I did not go out and purchase lovely plastic bins to keep all my dry goods looking neat and organized, though that would be nice.
Instead, I just figured out exactly what should be on each shelf, and created labels to make sure that I knew where things should go, and hoped that my husband would use them, too.  Here's how.

• I emptied all of the pantry shelves.  Maybe I should say that first I cleaned off my island and table so that I could empty the pantry.
• Then I made a pile of items that were duplicates or so rarely used that they could be stored in the basement.   I also decided that the few baking items that were in the pantry should be moved to my baking cupbard.  Only sensible, huh?
• I also checked the expiration date on some items that I knew I had not used in ages.  It was a good idea since something was a couple years past expiration.  Please take note that they expired after our move.  I did not relocate expired foods.
• As I put items on the shelves, I grouped them together by what made sense to me, I used masking tape and Sharpies to make temporary labels.
• I used the temporary labels for a couple of days in case I wanted to make adjustments.

Then I made my labels and attached them to the wire shelving.

The picture below may not look like an "after" picture, but it is.  Trust me.  It is organized!

Simple, right?
(Well, except that shameful pile of snacks!)

Wondering if it's been successful?  How about this?  On just day two or three, he asked where an item should go.  (It was a packet...not so obvious.)  I love it, and it has continued to work for over a month now!

It may not look all neat and tidy, but it is organized.

Did you notice that there was no "before" picture?  Well, I didn't touch the floor of the pantry.  It looks awful, because it is.  Proof?

Let's see.  Cereal.  Empty egg carton (to take to the farm to purchase more).  Brown plastic lids for kid painting.  Bread maker.  Two tubes-one for parchment paper and the other is a mat for kid crafts.  Random reusable bags.  Plastic shopping bag.  Cut cereal box for kid crafts.  And other unknown items.  Shameful.

Did you like the look of the labels?

They came from Just Something I Made, and she has other colors, too!  

I printed them on tan cardstock for a neutral look in my kitchen, but they could be used for countless things.  Love them.  And I didn't even laminate them!

I finally figured out that keeping some of our frequently used workbooks and coloring books lying horizontally on the bottom shelf was taking up precious space, but I didn't want them to be moved to the bookcase.  In the pantry, M and E know they can pull out a book and their crayon/marker box.  My solution was a magazine holder.  (This was also about the same time that I decided to recycle ALL of my old magazines.)

Now, can someone please help me figure out how to keep baby bottles organized?  They just can't be tidy!

Providing Meals for a Others

With the recent arrival of Baby E, we have been extremely blessed to have been given several premade meals!

One of my friends brought a premade (but not precooked) meal to us in early October when I was still pregnant.  When I went to make it, I was impressed with how she wrote the baking instructions for us.  Instead of including a little piece of paper, she wrote directly on the plastic wrap!  I thought it was brilliant!

The basic meal was in a 9x13 Pyrex dish.  The dish was wrapped with plastic wrap where the directions were written.  On top of the plastic wrap she had placed peppers and croutons in baggies (separately).  Then the entire dish and baggies were wrapped with aluminum foil.  All nice and neat, you know?

(With a baby who needs to be held all day long, making meals seems a near impossible task right now.  May I say how incredibly thankful I am for these meals!?  The bonus is that one meal usually lasts us for two or three dinners!  So thankful!  I look forward to passing on the blessing of meals for those in need.  We've been helped with all three births of our children and two of their long hospitalizations...and truly grateful and remember it when I know of others in need.  May I also say that I was very thankful after the kids' hospitalizations for the meals.  I had actually said "no thank you" at first...because I was healthy and didn't want to put others out when I was capable.  But I had also been in the hospital with each child...and much had been neglected, including ourselves, and the meals really helped us, as a family, to return to the new norm.)

Writing directly on the plastic wrap or tin foil would also work on your own freezer meals!


What works for you when preparing a meal for a friend?  Have you been on the receiving end?

Happy Thanksgiving!

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I have much to be grateful for, including the unhappy baby on my lap as I type with one hand.  Our family had a quiet Thanksgiving, including a simple turkey dinner, complete with my first truly successful apple pie.  My husband took the Big Kids to see The Muppets.  It was their first theater experience!  We love the Muppets.  (It is rated PG, but after reading Plugged In's review, I was pretty sure it was appropriate.  Derek says it was.)


In addition to my family and friends and Savior...I am very thankful for this blog (as a writing outlet) and the bloggers I learn from and enjoy.  I especially appreciate those of you who have encouraged me by leaving comments or emailing.  It is wonderful to get to know readers.  I love my blogging friends!!

I hope your Thanksgiving was full of thanks!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas Gift Ideas

Sometimes it takes talking to friends and reading friends' blogs to come up with good Christmas gift ideas.  I thought I'd share a few ideas of items we are purchasing this year (and a few items that we already love).

Need a gift for a...

Reading enthusiast~Light Wedge
Last year I didn't get the Light Wedge for Christmas...so I bought it for myself.  (By purchasing a color other than black, I bought it for about $15.)  Later I also purchased the case because it does scratch very easily.  I LOVE this book light!








Little boy who has plenty of trucks and cars and loves diggers~Excavator
We recently ordered this excavator for our three year old son.  We fully anticipate him loving it.  He recently was given a Hot Wheels jump track that he loves, too.

Little girl who loves to create and wants to do more independently~ Stamp Set
We picked up a Melissa and Doug set filled with butterflies and flowers a while back.  Our five year old loves to make little projects, but my time is limited these days with what I can do with her.  She'll love the little box and having all the little stamps (and finally her own pad) in one place.



Star Wars enthusiast~books
Actually, I bought two books for my husband...one for the content and the other because he can share the pop-up book with the kids until they are old enough to watch the movies.  I picked The Jedi Path based on this review.  Then a friend...a librarian friend told me about the pop-up books!  She had ten copies in her library because the kids loved them so much!  After looking around Amazon a bit and watching the video in the link, I chose Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy.  I think he'll really enjoy it.  (One book will be for Christmas and the other for his birthday.)


Person who is always cold~ electric blanket
  Last year I bought us a king sized electric blanket for $35!  (It was a black Friday deal, from Boscov's and made by Sunbeam.)  It has dual controls which lets my husband who is always warm and me (never warm) be much more comfortable!  I wish we had it YEARS ago!  I love it!








Maud Hart Lovelace fan~ more books!
The Betsy-Tacy Treasury was just released.  It has the first four books in it...just waiting to be read!  In addition to that, Discover Deep Valley: A Guide to Maud Hart Lovelace's Mankato was just released last month!  It's available through Minnesota Heritage Publishing. 


 If you end up clicking through an Amazon link here at LLL, a tiny percent does come back to me at no additional cost to you if you purchase ANY item.

One Day at a Time...

Our little baby is a month old now.  We are doing okay.

Baby E sleeps little outside of our arms.  That means I sit on my bum most of the day holding her.  I have been watching an incredible amount of television.  (And typically I don't turn on the TV at all during the daytime for myself.)  Baby E has painful gas and reflux that makes her scream, especially during the evenings.  When she's not in pain, she still tends to be fussy, even in our arms.

We have tried four formulas.  (Yes, our daughter is bottle-fed.)  Regular.  Soy.  Gentlease.  And now a really expensive formula for colic.  She is also taking Zantac.  At the time of this writing we haven't been using the colic formula long enough to know if it will make a difference or not.  If not, we might discuss seeing a GI doctor for her.

We're thankful that she has at least one 2 hour stretch each night now.  For a long time I was sleeping for 20-45 minutes at a time...when I could actually sleep.

Big brother E and big sister M adore her.  M did ask a while back if we could have a yard sale.  When we inquired why, she wanted to sell Baby E.  When I said that wasn't possible she suggested selling her brother instead.

But really, they adore our baby.  So do I.

And yes, we have much to be grateful for, despite the lack of sleep and headaches.  Just think, by this age, both of our older children had been hospitalized!  (M for her heart problem and E because he was dehydrated.)

At some point, I'd love to create blogging names for my kids, especially since two of them are E.

Counting Down to Christmas Part 3: Advent Book Calendar

This is our third (and final, I think) part of Counting Down to Christmas!  Be sure to check out our homemade Jesse Tree and how we enjoy Christmas books throughout the month!

We LOVE the tiny little books that comes with The Story of Christmas Book Set &Advent Calendar.  The books tell the story of how the birth of Jesus using scripture.  Each of the twenty-four board books is just four pages long (with small print) and attached is a silver loop, making these books easy to hang!  The Story of Christmas Advent Calender is perfect for families with younger or older children who want a daily reminder of what Christmas is all about.  Each book is numbered, too, so they are easy to keep track of the books.  Some families may choose to hang a book daily on a tree, but we use them in a different way.

I use The Story of Christmas Advent Calendar with a homemade mini-craft stick manger.  I place a piece of brown yarn and the appropriate day's book in a small, decorative box with a lid.  The children check the box throughout the day to see if the "hay" and book are there.  The "hay" is preparing the manger for Jesus.  As you might suspect, Jesus arrives Christmas morning.  You could use a Little People (or even just a drawing) Jesus, but I made a special little felt "doll" to represent Jesus, swaddled in his manger.

Jesus was made with two gray felt ovals and a medium brown oval.  I stitched eyes, nose, and a mouth onto the brown oval and then stitched it to a gray oval.  To make it appear that Jesus was swaddled, I also stitched some simple lines, as you can see (I hope) in the photo above.  I used cotton balls to stuff this little Jesus doll, if I remember correctly.  Below you can see another view of the manger.

My five year old recently brought up the ways that we celebrate Christmas!  They certainly left an impression on her last year and she is eager for the little ways (not just the gifts!) we celebrate throughout the month.

How do you celebrate Christmas during the month of December?