Christmas 2013

The Christmas season this year for me was a very stressful one.  Normally Tony's out of school this time of year, but this year he took a couple classes which made things a little more difficult.  I'd be lying if I said that part of me is a bit glad that all the Christmas celebrating is done, and we can get back to our normal routine.  But meanwhile the kids loved all the activities, goodies, and of course presents.  So I guess all the stress paid off.  Christmas eve was spent with Nathan, Maegen, and their boys.  We had yummy breakfast for dinner, new p.j.s, the nativity, and singing Christmas carols.  After the kids went to bed and Tony went to go watch the BSU game, I watched White Christmas to help me get into the mood a little better.  Carson was up by 5 begging to wake everyone else up.  I held him off until 6 when he fell back asleep until 7.  By then I finally let Carson go wake everyone else up.  The morning was full of excitement!  

Everyone showing off their loot

 Alaina: Dress, Doll, Horse, Doll Cloths, movies, string art, books,watch, barbies, games, girly nerf gun.

 Charlie: Tie, Transformers, Planes toy, trucks, cars, movie.

 Carson: legos, nerf gun, watch, hobby car kit, tie, games, movies, books, watch.

 Dad: Tie, flashlight, movie, led sled, collective coins, BSU car magnets, BSU blanket.

 Mom: Silhouette, vinyl, towels, movie, calendar, long underwear.

Family: Fish tank and everything to go with it.  Even certificates for the kids to go pick out their own fish.

The rest of the day for Tony and the kids was playing with toys, playing games, and watching movies.  I spent the day preparing our Turkey dinner.  Which was delicious!  After dinner we went sledding and then came home for pie and treats.  Also delicious!  All in all the holiday turned out pretty good and we all got some pretty cool stuff.  Merry Christmas everyone.

Getting our Christmas on

I don't know why but it seems this year I'm feeling super overwhelmed with Christmas and I have so much to do and not enough time to do it all!  So although we got a tree and decorated it over a week ago I'm finally getting around to posting about it.  Tony and I have yet to figure out why tree lots don't exist in our part of the country but they don't so we got our tree at Lowe's while we were in Idaho Falls.  I won't go into the details of the fiasco of getting the tree, but all you need to know is that some employees at Lowe's got an ear full from their manager.  We put up the tree on the 8th after church.  Tony wasn't feeling well so I got to enjoy the experience of hauling in the tree, sawing off the bottom, and making sure it stood straight.  It was a lot of work.  After stringing the lights I let the kids go at it decorating the tree.  Usually I'll supervise the decorating and even re-decorate the tree after kids go to bed so that the tree is evenly decorated with ornaments.  Not so this year.  I guess I decided it really wasn't that important and just let the kids have fun decorating the tree. 

 Charlie making sure the bottom of the tree is well covered.

 Alaina hard at work.

 I never thought of hanging ornaments from ornaments.

 Carson's getting so grown up!

The finished product!

Elton Family Pictures

When we were in Boise for Thanksgiving I took family pictures for my brothers family.  Here's a collage I put together of the best shots.

Baby Gifts

So I have 3 nieces and 1 nephew coming in December and another nephew coming in March.  So I've been busy sewing away gifts for all these sweet babies that will be coming soon.  Now that said gifts have been presented I can share with all of you.

First baby that is due is Jana's baby girl.  This is her first baby.  Originally I had crocheted a blanket for her to find out that Jana really didn't care for pink all that much so I whipped this blanket and burp rags for her.  The blanket has the baby's name stitched into it.  And each of the burp rags is slightly different.

The next baby that is due is Maegen's baby boy.  This is her second baby.  To say that Maegen is pretty well set for this baby is an understatement.  She had enough boy cloths to cloth both Mack (her oldest boy) and Charlie!  So I was at a bit of a loss of what to do for her.  Then I hit a stroke of genius (that I found on Pinterest) to make Batman and Robin capes for Mack and the baby.  Turned out super cute and I'm told that Mack already loves his cape.

The next babies that are due are Melissa's twin girls.  These are babies 5 and 6 for them and girls number 4 and 5...yes they'll have 5 girls!  I figured that by this point some of Melissa girl cloths may be a bit worn out and she could use something new.  Also who can resist matching dresses for twins?  I had this skirt given to me awhile ago that I used to make these two dresses and bloomers with flowers for the headbands.  I used white accents one one outfit and blue accents on the other.  I loved how these turned out and can't wait to see the twins in these!    

The last baby due is Collette's baby boy.  This is her 4th baby and second boy.  She said she needed boy cloths and since I have yet to master the art of making boy cloths  I wimped out and bought her an outfit at Walmart.  I promise it was cute and Collette seemed to like it.

On top of making all these baby gifts I also made 3 Christmas gifts for family members.  I'll post pictures of these after they have been opened from said family members.  I'd been working pretty diligently to have all of these done before Thanksgiving so we could take all the gifts with us so I wouldn't have to pay to ship them.  I managed to finish them all in time and now I can enjoy my days being lazy...oh wait I have my own family to get gifts ready for!  Dang it!  ;)