Christmas Giving

cookies for the neighbor

I want my son to be raised thinking of Christmas as a time for giving and not just receiving. But Christmas to a little one can certainly seem like a time for getting. The magical month of December when presents are being given to you left and right; We have a Christmas party this weekend. Little Abe will receive a few gifts there. We will be going to another Christmas party next weekend and he'll get a few more. The weekend after that he'll open a few presents at a Christmas Eve party, even more on Christmas morning, and more still when we go to my in-law's house Christmas afternoon. My dad's family's Christmas party is not happening this year but you can generally add that to the regular list of gift stops.

I honestly don't remember Christmas being like this when I was little but we also didn't live near extended family. It seems crazy to me. I love how excited he is at every gift. I love how truly amazing the whole month of December is for him. I love to see that playing with his cousins is just as much fun for him as receiving new gifts but back to where I started, I'm trying my hardest to remind him that Christmas is a time for giving too.

We've certainly been talking about giving and talking about the gift that God gave us. The reason we celebrate Christmas, the gift of Jesus's birth. This whole month we've been finding little ways to give. Last week we went through all of Little Abe's books and picked five to donate to the little free library at the elementary school near our house. The little free library is just a box, kind of like a mailbox in front of the school where people can leave books for others to read, or take books to look at themselves. We've borrowed books from the library box before. We return them when we're done with them but this is the first time we've given books of our own to it. Little Abe really enjoyed giving away books for other kids to read.

A few days ago he made an adorable card to mail to someone, a Christmas card from specifically him. He's planning on making a few more. He'll probably send a card to each of his cousins. I think he is realizing that making a card for someone and then getting to mail it to them is a pretty fun way to give something small to someone else.

We also went through his room and took out many, many toys that he no longer plays with, toys he's grown out of. He likes the idea of giving them away to other kids who will enjoy playing with them. I just have to figure out the best way to donate them or who we know that might like some of them.

We've made cookies twice and both times planned to bring them to our neighbor. The first time I wasn't happy with how they turned out. Go figure right, the time you plan on giving them away they don't turn out well. The second batch was very involved. We made cut out cookies from my Grandmother's recipe box. They are the same cookies I made each year as a kid with my mom. Abe helped the whole time, mixing, rolling, cutting, and sprinkling. We brought them over to our neighbor's house today. I think that was the first time this year either of us said Merry Christmas to anyone. 

making peanut butter balls

There are some really fun lists online of giving ideas, things I would have never thought of. We plan to put many of the ideas to use this month. One of my favorites (something I can't imagine I would ever in a million years think of on my own) is to leave a note at houses with really great Christmas lights thanking the homeowners for putting up such beautiful lights/ decorations for everyone to see. I think that's such a neat idea. Two of our neighbors across the street have lights up that little Abe really likes so hopefully we'll stop a note over at their homes this week.

Of course there will be more cookie making, more Christmas card crafting, and more brainstorming but Christmas this year will be a time for giving and something about that just makes me so much more excited for Christmas. It is better to give then to receive.

Feeling Thankful

I love this time of year; the beautiful fall colors, hot drinks, apple and pumpkin everywhere, the chill in the air, and thoughts of thankfulness. It's not so cold that we feel like hibernating yet, it's just cozy and kind of wonderful.

Our third annual Thanksgiving tree went up today (a few days late). It's now hanging on the dining room wall. We'll add one leaf to it each day this month displaying something we're thankful for.

I'm loving this tradition! I love that we walk through the neighborhood collecting beautiful and different leaves together. My husband was with us for the collecting this year. I love that each year so far our tree has looked very different. I love the way it looks on the wall. It's fun looking back at what went on our tree in years past. This year I made a potato stamp so that little Abe could stamp bark on our tree. I think it turned out great and he loved the potato stamp craft.

Granted, it looks better once it's filled with leaves but I'm extremely happy with this year's masterpiece. We are thankful!

It's that time again

I am very proud of my Irish heritage. I can't get enough of Irish history. Ireland and Guatemala are tied for my favorite places on earth. I love the story of St. Patrick so much.

Every year for at least five years I've read St. Patrick of Ireland by Philip Freeman. It's a quick read and so far it hasn't gotten old. Reading this book every March brings me such joy. It's a really fun tradition I have. I spend the entire time imagining my ancestors living on the Island at that very time. I wonder where they were, what they looked like, what were there stories? 

I admire Patrick for continually following what he knew to be a call from the Lord. And what sacrifices he made for the call. We're one week out from St. Patrick's day thus it's time for me to pull the book off the shelf and start again! This is my life.

Average daily spending for 2016: $18.81

First Time Cracking an Egg

Our cookies with some yogurt in between and left in the freezer for a bit

Married at 19, four kids at 28, and divorced at 30. In the blink of an eye my mom went from a full time housewife/ stay at home mom to a 40+ hour a week third shift factory worker who slept as much as she could manage and spent the rest of her waking hours surviving and raising four small children alone.

Before the catastrophic shift in all our lives she was teaching me how to cook. I remember I had this small set of little kid cook books. I loved those books. I think that having my very own cook books made me feel like something of an adult. Each one had a certain category of food. I seem to remember one being beverages and there was a recipe for egg nog in that one. There was one for desserts which had a recipe for a chocolate dump cake that I was always thrilled to make. I don't remember what the four categories were or what other recipes were included but the books were a pale yellow color and I loved them.

My favorite thing to do with my mom though was bake Christmas cookies. We had a set of recipes that we/ she made every single year and Christmas cookie baking time was certainly the highlight of every Christmas season. I was still young when my parents split but I enjoyed cooking with my mom before the microwave baked potatoes or noodles with cheese days.

My son is a super spunky three year old who loves to bake with mommy. I generally let him pour/ dump the ingredients in the bowl and he helps me stir. If there's kneading or rolling pin work to be done he's sure to lend a hand. He loves "sprinkling" flour on the table and sampling the dough. And he almost always asks to crack the egg. I've always, always, always said, "no, you have to wait until you're bigger." I mean, come on, there are adults who can't properly crack an egg.

Today we made chocolate chip cookies. He was thrilled when I handed him an empty measuring cup and told him he needed to scoop the sugar. I always scoop each ingredient and then hand him the cup to dump in the bowl. This time was special. He got to scoop the white sugar all by himself and then the brown. He stirred them into the butter and then I completed that task. Then I handed him the egg. He hadn't even asked if he could crack it. I wish I could describe the look to you that he had on his face. It was a look that said a million things, "am I really old enough? are you actually letting me do this? are you serious? is this a joke? have I just won the lottery?" (okay maybe not that one since he doesn't know what the lottery is)

I told him to tap it on the edge of the table and he was radiant. He tapped it, tapped it once more and then got to crack it into the small bowl I set aside specifically for the egg. Once I picked two little bits of shell out he got to place the newly cracked egg into the butter sugar mix. He was on cloud nine. I also let him measure out the flour, baking soda, salt and chips. His first batch of cookies, that if you were to ask him he made all on his own. In truth, the white sugar probably had a bit less than it called for. The brown sugar was a little bit more. The flour wasn't exactly measured (as you might imagine with a three year old at the helm) but I think this was our most successful batch of cookies to date.

My new years resolution was to experience more new things. I have a cheat because I'm living life with a small child. Today's new experience was brilliant! Experiencing my son cracking an egg for the very first time... this one goes down in the books (or on the blog). Very much like the good days of childhood when I used to bake with my mother.

My mom with my brothers
(I think my son looks just like both of them)

Forty Five Minutes of Christmas, One week done

Last week when I was starting to feel overwhelmed by all the Christmas details I wrote myself a permission slip: I will spend 45 minutes a day on Christmas. Anything that doesn't get accomplished in the 45 minutes doesn't need to be done. Whatever gets accomplished during the 45 minutes of Christmas is perfection. Here's how this week went:
Sunday
I dug out the lights (that are surprisingly almost 20 years old and are still all working) and hung them up around the dining room for the Christmas countdown bags. This took a surprisingly long time. I luckily had saved most of the bags from last year and they were in the bag with the lights (so I didn't have to re-do the numbering) except for bags 1-5 which I seem to remember little Abe ripping apart. I must have put something really neat in those ones last year. So I made new numbers and found bags for 1-5.

Monday
I wrote out all the scriptures for the countdown bags, the "giving" ideas for each bag, and filled and hung each bag. This was a very time consuming chore but the Christmas countdown bags are something I really look forward to and this tradition is really important to me. Last year I scrambled each night to fill the bag for the next morning. Sometimes I forgot and had to sneakily fill the bag before we opened it in the morning. It was added stress last Christmas for me to accomplish this fun new tradition while scrambling each day to remember to fill the bag. I'm very happy to have this Christmas season task now behind me. This was an approximately 45 minutes well spent!

Tuesday
A collection of little things. Probably not 45 minutes. Read some Christmas books with little Abe. Watched a few short Christmas videos on you tube with little Abe. Nice simple stuff today.

Wednesday
Started another Christmas present. Today I went over the 45 minutes. I spent about 2 hours sewing. I guess that makes up for a lighter day on Tuesday.

Thursday

Sewing consumed another two hours of my week. Honestly, I like it. It's thrilling to see the end result. I pick fabrics as I go and I find myself being curious during the entire project about what I will end up with. My kiddo took a SUPER long nap so the two hours of quite alone time working on this Christmas present just flew by.

Friday
I worked on the little quilt some more and then I started another sewing project. My brother had a little rag doll when he was small that he loved. It's name was Green Jeans, had a green checkered shirt, green overalls, and a green hat. I thought I had a photo of it but, no. I've been wanting to recreate Green Jeans for my brother's son who is turning 2 tomorrow. (Jessica, Please DON'T tell James! I'd like him to be surprised.)

My brother actually hates green now (for sports team reasons) so I've started to recreate Green Jeans in colors that my brother loves (for sports team reasons). The fabric in this "Green Jeans" is from the little quilt I made for my nephew so he'll have a little doll to go with his quilt. I spent WAY longer than two hours on this. I didn't have a pattern and was trying to recreate this little guy from memory. I hope it at least reminds my brother of his little Green Jeans.  Wish me luck on the head because this could end up really cute or it could go terrible South, quickly.

Saturday
Today has just begun. I'm feeling pretty motivated to get the quilt and Green Jeans done so I'll work on both of them more today, probably. We're also going to the Jingle Bell parade downtown this evening. So today will be filled with Christmasy things.

This week's forty five minutes of Christmas was a total success. I do feel like I need to get on top of the Christmas cards but I didn't have that sinking feeling I often have of needing to get 100 things accomplished all at once all day every day. I committed to spending 45 minutes a day on Christmas things and I did. Done. Plus, I'm pretty excited about the gifts I'm giving this year. I had all the fabric, stuffing, and thread I've needed thus far. So I haven't had to spend any money on materials for the gifts I'm making. I think I'm going to buy a fabric pen for Green Jean's face. I seem to remember the original Green Jeans having a drawn on face.

On top of the 45 minutes of activities listed above little Abe and I have been reading Christmas books, opening a countdown bag each morning, and doing a really neat interactive Advent Calendar online that a VERY kind friend sent to us. This has been a really great Christmas season already!

Thanksgiving Tree, 2015

This year our tree included:

Nine leaves for family

Three leaves for friends

TV

Toys

Our garden

Stella and Sam (his favorite TV show)

Our house

Lights

Snuggles

Reading books

The bouncy place

Bay and Peppy (the horses that Abe rides)

Chocolate milk

Honey bees

Tubby time

Jesus

Cookies

My toy robin hood

Digging for worms

and

Bird songs

Once again we had fun making our Thanksgiving tree. I imagine I'll leave it up until after Christmas just like I did last year. I love having this on our wall and I love that me and little Abe made it together.

On Thanksgiving day we feasted with my husband's family. Today we enjoyed spending the afternoon with my family. The pecan pie cheesecake did not end up making itself as I had hoped but all the time spent in the kitchen yesterday and today ended up being worth it. This was probably my favorite cheesecake I've made yet! Super sweet but incredibly delicious. Thanksgiving turned out great. 

HERE is the recipe I used if anyone is interested.

New Traditions

This is the second year we've made a Thanksgiving tree. Little Abe and I took a walk around the neighborhood to collect pretty fallen leaves. Then I pressed them in a book. I had him paint several sheets of newspaper with some old white paint we had on hand. I taped the painted papers together and then traced a tree onto them. Last year I used some old poster board I had in the house to hang up the tree but this year I cut up a box to use as the back ground. It wasn't really big enough so I ended up taping a few pieces of box together. I like the way this completely FREE craft turned out despite the random scavenged materials. I love having it on our dining room wall.

Each day until Thanksgiving I ask little Abe what he's thankful for, what he wants to put on the Thanksgiving tree and then I write that on one of our leaves and stick it to the tree. This is such a fun activity and even though we do talk about what we're thankful for every night before bed (often it's the same things) it's fun watching him come up with 31 different things throughout the end of October and most of November. 

I loved our tree last year and making it together. I'm excited for our tree this year. This is a new tradition that I'm very much looking forward to partaking of for years to come.

(It's really much bigger then it looks in the photo)

We collected leaves about a week before Halloween. I quickly realized that we looked like deranged trick-or-treators.
He was wearing his dino sweatshirt and I was carrying a plastic bag as we walked through the neighborhood together on the cold evening. We got a few strange looks before I realized we totally looked like we were trying to trick-or-treat a week early. Haha!

My day five thankful: There is this book. I’ve read it cover to cover several times. It’s filled with darkness and light, beauty and filth. Some of the strangest things you’ll ever read are within it. No matter what I’m going through or where I am, no matter how hurt or scared or confused I might be, no matter what spot I open it to I read a new message, a new story (you can read the same story 20 times and find a new story with each read), a nugget of truth and revelation that picks me up, sets me back on my feet and tells me exactly what I need to hear. I find myself within its pages, whether that be a good thing or bad. Call me crazy but I am thankful for the Holy Bible in ways I could never express. It is my guide book for life and it is alive. I believe the Bible is God’s Word because I hear Him speak to me every single time I open it and I’m eternally thankful for that!

Our Tree

No we didn't put up the Christmas tree yet. But our Thanksgiving tree craft is finished. It saddens me to think of taking it down now. It was really a lot of fun and I love the way it looks too.

This year we (and that mostly means little Abe) decided that we are thankful for the following:

Along with nine leaves with names of family members,
two leaves with names of friends,
one bunch of leaves with our pet's names,
we're thankful for God,
pickles,
popsicles,
toy cars,
giants (I told him this was not relevant but he insisted),
Peppie and Bay (the real ponies that he rides),
our home,
our jobs (this was added by me),
Mike, his horse, and castle (his favorite toys right now),

pizza,
Caillou (his all time favorite television show),
our country (also added by me),
shoveling snow (he loves shoveling snow),
garbage trucks (he also loves watching the garbage trucks on garbage day),

candy,

and

drums and guitars.

This is really going to be a fun tradition and we are very thankful.

Thank-you

November is here!

One of the wonderful effects of a sense of gratitude is the desire to spread the joy around.
-M.J. Ryan

For years I have considered this a month of thanks.  Thanksgiving has become my very favorite holiday because of it. I've a tradition of writing thanksgiving letters, notes, little messages on facebook to as many people as I'm able throughout the month of November. It may be selfish but I think it's just a natural by product of giving thanks, I receive more joy throughout this month in letting people know how much I'm thankful for them then I ever do at Christmas opening up gifts from under the tree.

One of my favorite parts of the tradition is myself finding out as the month progresses who I desire to thank this year. I will sometimes find the most random of people, not necessarily a best friend or my sister but a co-worker that I see once a week and speak to for maybe 5 minutes as our paths cross, some one at church who I maybe talk to once a month, or an in law that might not be at the very top of my "favorite persons" list. Truth is, there are hundreds of people in our lives and I bet if you stopped to think about each one of them there is something about them that you are thankful for.

I'd like to encourage everyone, each individual who reads this post, whether you're of the part of the planet that actually celebrates the Thanksgiving holiday or not to send at least one note of thanks to someone this month of November. Sending more than one would be fabulous!

I guarantee you that you'll receive as much from this act of kindness as the recipient of your note (although that certainly isn't the point). Joy is in the crisp autumn air. The holidays are upon us. Let us give thanks!

It is better to give than to receive.
Acts 20:35

Thanksgiving Tree Craft (Part 2)

The leaves are dried and pressed.
Today I taped a few pages of newspaper together and let my son paint them white.
After the paint dried I outlined a tree on the paper and cut it out.
Now the tree is hanging on the dining room wall.
We'll add one leaf every day until Thanksgiving with something written on it that we're thankful for.

This will probably be a Thanksgiving tradition for us for many years to come. Today we added two leaves. I asked little Abe what he was thankful for and he said, "mommy." Awe, melt my heart. I wrote his name on the second leaf because I didn't want to be up there without him.

Sparked by a fellow blogger's comment: Do you have any Thanksgiving holiday traditions?

Please comment if you do. It's a rather intriguing question since the Thanksgiving holiday can just be considered a big meal to those outside the US.

Pinata Day

We busted open the Pinata today and I spent what feels like a ton of money on nothing.

I had to pick up some candy to put inside the pinata because I forgot to get it yesterday. Little Abe and I went to his cousin's house for the festivities. I stopped at a "convenience" store because the parking lot at the grocery store was filled to the brim and there was no way I was going in there today (on a holiday weekend) with that many people shopping. Sometimes time does cost money and they call it a convenience store for a reason... convenience comes with a charge. Haha, I bought mostly clearance candy though. Total: $5.95 and the kiddos had a blast!

On the way home from pinata time my child freaked out and I flew through the drive thru at McDonalds to get him apple juice. It was naptime after a very fun morning and someone forgot to bring his fire (pacifier). The juice helped a lot but it cost me $5.38 for a kids meal, and a coke for me, and I hadn't planned on spending any money today. That brings today's cost to $11.33. Every minute of today was worth the $11.33 but it's weird how you can plan so diligently to spend NOTHING and then end up spending so much.

Que sera sera! Today was so much fun!!!

We actually started a pinata with the girls of their very own before we revealed that we'd brought ours along full of candy. It was a very fun, VERY messy activity for all the kids. And then so much excitement upon finding out they didn't have to wait for all 4 or 5 steps (takes a few days) for theirs to be finished before they could break one open. Now on to yard work. Oooh, there's a strawberry in my itty bitty garden that's recently developed a little pink hue. I believe I'm way too excited about it but still, seemed news worthy to me.

Average daily spending for May: $19.53

We've a week left of May. I'd like to finish with the daily spending average under $19 a day. Should be do-able. I just need to focus and plan.