Extra Special Homemade Paper Dolls!

 Gwen and Caroline have paper dolls that they rarely play with. I thought paper dolls just weren't their thing. But we visited with Grandma and Grandpa in Idaho in early November and they discovered a set there that they played with for hours at a time! It was kind of miraculous! In trying to determine what made Grandma's paper dolls so much better than ours at home (besides the obvious fact that they are GRANDMA's and therefore AWESOME), Gwen indicated 3 things:

1- she liked that these dolls could share each others' clothes. They were all the exact same size and pose, so everyone could wear everything. 

2- she liked the fun backgrounds included in the set. 

3- she liked the pages for designing your own dolls and clothes, letting your imagination guide you.

Armed with this information, I determined to make her a set of awesome paper dolls for Christmas! I started with these free printable dolls from Babalisme that I'd been saving on Pinterest for years until just the right occasion. So cute and did I mention absolutely free?

I knew they would be perfect because she's designed all her dolls (boys included!) with the same size and pose, so all clothing would be mutually interchangeable! Plus, her designs are just adorable, the perfect small size that my girls obsess over!

I printed out each set from Babalisme, but wanted to expand her Elsa and Anna dolls to include Frozen Fever outfits. And I wanted a mermaid. And Sophia the First. and more princess clothes. and, HONEY, I wanted cool hair styles! Time to design my own!

I used tracing paper of Babalisme's dolls to make sure I got the shape just right, then used images I found on Google to get ideas for dress designs. I transferred my tracing paper designs to card stock using carbon paper. Time to add color!

I love how they turned out! I think the girls are going to love them too! I think my 3 favorites are Elsa's Frozen Fever dress, the blue princess inspired by a Ruth Sanderson illustration, and the blue butterfly gown! Do you have a favorite?

Next was cutting out, laminating, then cutting out again. We're going to try using sticky gluey-strips (the ones that attach credit cards to paper when they come in the mail?) to hold on clothes and accessories. 

and just to make sure I covered all the bases, I prepared backgrounds for them, a little box for storing everybody and their clothes, and 2 sheets of uncolored dresses and hair styles for the girls to color to their exact desires! We are going to have fun coloring together! (I think I'll be nice and let them use my set of colored pencils. :)

So excited for the grand unveiling tomorrow for Christmas! You'd think I was getting them myself, I'm that stoked!

Here's to Gettin Things DONE!!! (sewing projects and such)

And yes, I'm aware that is poor grammar. Mrs. Flint would remind me that turkeys are done and people are finished. True true. But whatever. Sometimes I holler "I am DONE" with a hearty red neck inflection and it feels really good! But I digress. :)

I've managed to finish up a number of projects around here. Most of which I can't show you because they are Christmas presents to various peoples and I would hate for anyone to catch a glimpse early! But here's what I CAN share:

I got this gorgeous dress for my birthday! Wouldn't you know it was 6 inches too long (sheesh, am I THAT short?) but I couldn't just do a regular hem because the print design on the bottom would all be lost. I needed to take it up at the waist. Which got a little bit tricky because of the surplice cut of the bodice and the A-line cut for the skirt portion of the dress. Blah blah blah you don't want the gritty details, but suffice it to say after 2 rocky attempts I got it taken care of and now have a truly fabulous dress (and I used the fabric I removed to make the headband)! Very flattering too!

I also finished our family Christmas stockings! 

You'll recall (perhaps?) that I began this project last January after being inspired by these stockings, but wanting to eliminate Santa and snowman and just have animals. I needed more critters for my whole family to match. I decided that would be easiest to accomplish if I designed them myself, so that is what I did.

It was fun!... and lengthy... I worked on them all. year. long. Just ask my book club friends (shout out ladies! I know you read my blog, L.R!). I was embroidering stockings all summer!

There are definitely tons of flaws (don't look too closely!), but a sewing friend once told me if a guy in a semi driving past at 80 mph wouldn't notice the flaws, they aren't important. Do I believe that?...not really... but it is a nice sentiment I try to convince myself of for the less-glaring imperfections. That lopsided Quasimodo beak on the penguin is what gives her character, right? That's the charm of home made! 

Anyway, I'm pleased with how everything came together and I think the designs turned out really cute. I'm also happy to be FINISHED so that I can move on to other projects without feeling guilty. 

I've got a bunny all cut out for our next family member (we're not expecting, just to dispel that rumor before it gets started) and enough stocking material to do 4 more (I'm not making any promises about family size or offspring quotas, I just bought more red fabric than I need!) 

Which little guy/gal is your favorite? Personally, I'm rather fond of the elk with the ornament hanging off his tines. That's Eric. 

Oh, and I completed 2 years of family photo books, with another year almost finished. Hopefully by February. 

The best part about this project is walking down memory lane!

Remember the nearly-naked fairy wing day?

And who could forget the horny toad in Grandma's baby grand piano incident?

and this Duck Dynasty Christmas picture (for a collection of our favorite Duck recipes) still cracks me up!

Eric has had some projects too: our lemon tree is perking back up thanks to Eric's light set up. It gets dismally gray around here in winter and we have no south-facing window, so our tree just wasn't getting enough sun shine. Thank you, Eric, for saving our tree! Our lemon is turning yellow!

 Tah-dah!

Doesn't if feel wonderful to be able to say, "I am Duuuuuu-uuuuuuhn!" lol

Christmas goodies... and the guilty dilemma

Since Christmas gift goodies tend to be sweet, we opted for something different this year. Wanted to "spice it up"... LOL, literally! I got this idea for potpourri satchels that you can simmer on the stove during the entire holiday season from my MIL last year. Thought it was so fabulous, that we started saving and dehydrating our orange peels as soon as 2011 began. They definitely piled up on us, but it was worth it. Because the cost and work for these was greatly diminished. :) and they still look and smell amazing!

After I made a treat for the gals I visit, the gals the visit me, my companion, the families Eric visits, his companion, the families that visit us, the members of Eric's presidency (Eric's calling), the members of the choir (my calling), and the people I see on a regular basis for play dates with Gwen... seriously like 75% of our ward congregation is getting a Christmas gift! Um, that only leaves me a lil worried about the remaining 25%... I mean, it isn't like they aren't my friends too, I just had to draw the line some where, right? Should I even be worried about this? (and when I say worried, please understand that I'm not losing sleep or overwhelmed with stress, I just keep thinking about it. I'm still happy, just concerned at the same time). I just don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or miss out on an opportunity to make someone feel included who might not otherwise... that would REALLY make me feel bad. If you are reading this and you DIDN'T get a treat, PLEASE KNOW THAT I STILL LOVE YOU AND VALUE OUR FRIENDSHIP! Whew. There. Hopefully all friendships remain intact. :) Anybody else relate to this dilemma?

The Nativity Line Up

Gwen lined up the Nativity participants for a little procession on the desk. With an unusual guest...

Anybody else find this unexpected guest at the birth of our Savior a little... amusing? :)

All living things worship him, so why not extinct things too, eh? LOL.

Christmas Decorating

We decorated a couple of days ago, taking advantage of Eric being home (he had the graveyard shift that night).

Gwen found this nativity immediately... maybe she remembered from last year?
Baby Jesus is her favorite.
But everyone got to play in the small Aurora house.
Gwen has decided that this Santa hat is "Daddy's hat". If anyone else wears it, she gets upset. And if he isn't wearing it, she brings it to him and insists that he put it on. He's a good sport about it. Guess little cute daughters can get dads to do crazy things. But when she isn't looking, he "loses" it. :)
Gwen posing by our countdown to Christmas blocks (made last year with Relief Society friends).
You wouldn't believe how many pictures we took to get this 'okay' one of the girls together.
I love that she is cradling the lil blue one so gently in her hands. It belonged to my Grandma Quella, a testament to her eternal frugality (notice the wire twisted around to be the loop, held on with duct tape. Yeah, I LOVE that). Gwen loves it because she can see her reflection in it. She takes it off the tree and I find it later amongst her tiny dolls 'sleeping'.
Gwen was so tired that she took a late nap...right by her favorite new friend: the Christmas tree.

Old post: Christmas Trains

I know, I know. Christmas was last month. This is 2011. But I wanted to share these pics of Gwen and her best pal, Shane, at the library train exhibit.

She LOVED it! Notice how she is clutching her lil blue train (I think it is a cheapo happy meal toy that some friends gave us) which she calls "Thomas". Since we are unprepared to purchase a real Thomas, we don't correct her. :)

The exhibit had a Thomas and a Percy, as well as regular ole trains, bridges, village, and even a castle. Very cool. She was thrilled! :)

Tree is up

Not the greatest photo, but Gwen is just too cute to not share:

Making Room for Christ

Gwen reminded me today:

MAKE room for Christ this Christmas.

I chose one 'sturdy' Nativity to put at Gwen's eye and hand level this Christmas so that she could really get into it. When I showed her all the people and animals, she was really excited. She unhesitatingly emptied her purse-- carrying all her favorite 'treasures' like her 2 turtles, ducky, monkeys, Minnie Mouse, and even Aurora-- so that she could fit all of the figurines from the Nativity in there. She was insistent upon carrying it around and taking Jesus with her into the car.

Then later while playing upstairs with her fairy treehouse-- her favorite new distraction and 'home' for all her lil critters-- she unhesitatingly replaced the fairy in the swing with a wise man, the fairy at the table with an angel, the fairy in the tree with 3 sheep, the ducky in the flower shower with a shepherd and cow, and the unicorn in the house with Mary, Joseph, a couple of wisemen, and the baby Jesus. And baby Jesus got to eat the apples.

Moral of the story: there are plenty of GOOD things to fill our lives with this Christmas season. Lots of things that are our favorites. But we have to MAKE room for the Savior, even if that means removing something that we really like. I hope there will be room in my inn, because I'll make it. Gwen's got the idea.

Do you Feel there are Expectations for Christmas blog posts?

I feel like this is the time of year when I ought to be making incredibly meaningful posts about faith, service, family, memories and especially a Babe born in Bethlehem. Pressure is on, ya know?
But while I FEEL grateful for my Savior and enjoy focusing upon His birth... I don't have any inspiring thoughts to share that we all haven't already felt. My older sister had a wonderful post about finding Christ in Christmas. My younger sister had a wonderful post about acts of kindness and giving. I've got... well, I feel like the only things I have to say right now are pretty boring or mundane.

Who wants to read about the hours I've spent trying to send out Christmas cards, the corners we cut to try to make it affordable, the anxiety when we realized it was still about 100 dollars if you included stamps?

Along those lines, who wants to read about our determination to go cheap next year in all the gift, card, and package sending departments next year after the stress of realizing how much things cost this year?

Who wants to hear about the planning way back in August and September to make this year's Christmas goodies for our local friends, the time it took to label and tie ribbon on each, the joy of delivering them?

Who wants to hear about our role this year as rides to the airport since we are one of the only families here til Christmas, the stress of forgetting to pick someone up, the joy of chatting with them in the car as they prepare to reunite with loved ones for the holidays, the satisfaction and peace from serving where we can?

Who wants to read about the challenges of working out about a million different problems with paying tuition and registering for classes that begin in January, the anxiety it causes me, the insomnia, or the annoyance of being on-hold for 45 minutes only to be transferred to an answering machine of someone who doesn't call you back ever?

Who wants to know the details of my lack of computer skills, the fights I've had with technology as I'm making Christmas gifts, the frustration as hours of preparation goes down the drain when there is an error during the burning process, and another DVD joins his buddies in the trash?

Who wants to hear how grateful I am for Baby Einstein, for small distractions for the lil gal, for friends to play with, and friends to take toys from, and especially for days when she takes both her naps blissfully?

See, I haven't even made Christmas cookies. I probably won't. I haven't served in the community this year unless you count the rides to the airport. Other than that, I probably won't. I haven't bought new or donated old items to needy families. Unless you count the quilts at the beginning of the month, I probably won't. I haven't caroled. We probably won't. I just don't have anything inspiring this Christmas.

I hesitate to ask this, because I'm not sure I want to know the answer... But,
Do you think that means I'm not focusing enough on Christ?

Does anyone else feel like there is a strange pressure this time of year to be extremely inspirational in their posts?

Does it Seem Weird to Anyone Else that Christmas is Only a Week Away?

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Okay, Gwen was jealous of my typing and had to put in her 2 cents.
While this just might be a better post if I leave it at that, I originally wanted to say that I truly cannot believe Christmas is only a week away! Cold, yes, but no snow, hardly any Christmas lights, and only heavier traffic to indicate people are shopping. Even here at home-- it has really snuck up on me.
I keep day dreaming about large white flurries, hot cocoa, light Christmas music in the background, curling up with a book... but I probably ought to be grateful for no snow since we are driving to my parents'. Oh, Gwen wants to type again. I better go.

Gwen Meets Scary Santa

Ward Christmas Party...
Gwen's first meeting with Santa...
the obligatory terror that resulted...
This collage says it all: she bawled.
until I saved her from the scary Santa, held her the whole time, and she realized he was going to reach in that big sack and give her something. She got a Belle flute recorder and was happy to chew on it. If you want to see her crying reaction in more detail, click on the picture and it gets bigger.

Family Photos

I suppose I should probably wait until after I've mailed Christmas cards this year before posting all these pictures... I'm giving away the element of surprise! Oh well. I can't wait to share them, so I guess you all can count your blessings for a sneak preview. (Plus, let's be honest, many of you who actually check my blog won't be the same ones who want a family photo).

Our good friend, Heather Christensen (this is an unabashed plug for Heather's amazing photography skills! If you want some great photos, she's got the power!), graciously took time out of her Saturday to take our family pics at Antrim Lake. They are amazing! See for yourself...We brought bread to feed the ducks... and Gwen thought it was for her. :)

Which one(s) were your favorites? I had the hardest time choosing for our Christmas cards...