Christmas & New Years Day Recap

Greetings!  I’m back on the blog after my holiday hiatus.  We had a wonderful Christmas! 

It was Sweet E’s first, and Santa brought him something special in his stocking.  This is the gift I’m most proud of this year - handmade of course - a sock monkey was part of my 101 in 1001. 

“Clementine” (Clem for short) is hand sewn from a pair of Rockford (now Fox River) Red Heel socks bought locally at the Army Surplus store.  His legs and body are stuffed with bits of my blankie.  Sadly my old baby blanket that I slept with until Rick and I got married (think Linus from Peanuts here) was so tattered that there wasn’t enough to stuff his arms, tail and face too. So those parts are filled with a cut-up recycled wool sweater.  On a side note here – Henry also got a monkey for his first Christmas (Cornelius) but while he was made especially for Henry, he from Build-a-Bear so not quite ‘handmade.’

As you can see, Santa also brought Emmett a ball.    Henry’s big gift (from Mr. Claus) was a guitar.  And we made him pillowcases featuring Lightening McQueen fabric and other characters from Disney’s Cars movie. 

We hosted Christmas this year for both families and it was a great time.  Rick’s brother and his girlfriend came over the afternoon of Christmas and we made dinner all together for Rick’s family.  It turned out great and we heard from several people about how good it was.  This was really enjoyable, since typically we only have done sandwich type foods for Christmas, but this year we did ham, fancy-schmancy potatoes, homemade macaroni and cheese, the works. 

My family got together for brunch on New Years day for Christmas.  We had cinnamon rolls, jalapeno corn bread, and mimosas.  It was lovely as well, and all the food everyone brought was delish.

Henry got in on the gift making this year with the cookies on Christmas eve.  They were presents for Daddy, our neighbor Mr. Mitchell, and Santa. 

Next is the beautiful blanket that Rick’s aunt Jaccie made for me this year.  She drew my name for our Christmas eve gift exchange and I was so excited to get something handmade from her!  I love it!!! 

Then you can see the note and picture Henry left for Santa next to his homemade cookies, as well as the note Santa left for the boys. 

And the tree christmas morning.

Next is Henry with his guitar (our future musician – yay!) and Emmett with his ball.

And finally Henry and Uncle Dan coloring in the Taos coloring book that Dan and Cat got for him. 

The other gifts we gave this year that were handmade (here’s the explanation of the sneak preview post – I’ll try to go clockwise from that picture) were a reversible bag with matching wallet and coffee cozy in skull material (Alexander Henry’s Regent Skulls in Antique) for my sister, hand-rolled truffles in two flavors for various people (yum, by the way!), homemade spiced-candied pecans, a wallet (Studio E’s Nature-Ology Birds in gold) for Lauren, San Diego Charger print pillowcases for Man, Henry’s Cars pillowcases, concord grape jam for my uncle in Illinois and for Jenny in Arizona (grapes from the Carlson’s garden), Pumpkin butter (Annie’s recipe) for Rick’s aunt, and jalapeno jelly for Man and Dan (peppers from the Carlson’s too)!  Also, though not pictured, I made a couple more cup cozy’s (for my aunt and for Jenny) and we gave away some other canned goodies like hot pickled peppers and peach jam!

Ok, so I sort of feel like that was a lot of gift making bragging – but please don’t read it as such!  I’m just so proud of how hard Rick and I worked to do hand-made this year.  We even gave his brothers bags of coal – Rick scavenged chunks of coal from the rail road tracks, and I sewed canvas bags with red drawstring cord to hold the “diamond seeds” (as they were creatively labeled). Hee hee!  But really – the only bought gifts were two magazine subscriptions for our moms and the gifts Rick and I gave each other (Super Mario Bros. Wii and an immersion blender).  That and Santa brought some little pookies for all our stockings.  So a big accomplishment for all of us! 

For my birthday, I got another great handmade treat – this gorgeous personalized necklace from Rick and my boys!  Rick found the artist on etsy and had it made for me.  I LOVE it!  Incase it’s hard to read, it says ‘love’ on the heart and ‘Henry’ and ‘Emmett’ on the big copper circle.

All in all, we were completely spoiled this year from our family and friends.  Rick’s parents bought us a new computer a month or so before Christmas, and his aunt & uncle got us a membership to the zoo!  My mom & Man got us a museum membership as well, so we’ll be having lots of fun outings this year – I can’t wait!