Anyway, sorry for a million more pictures! And I'm especially sorry for how materialistic they are - I promise I don't think gifts are the reason for the season! But this year we spent Christmas with the Payne side of the family here in Mesa and it was great! We drew names for the gift-giving and decided to do everything homemade. Oh. My. Busy. I had NO idea how much more work it is to make something as opposed to going out and buying it! But I enjoyed it so much, and I learned a lot - even if I lost a lot of sleep. We had my brother and his wife and his two daughters who are 8 months and 2.5 years old, so I really wanted to do something "thoughtful" for each of them.
So for Paisley, I decided on a stuffed animal. I was so in love with this little guy when I saw him (I almost bought it for Finn, but come on, $18?) So I tried to copy it for her. Yes, I am proud of how he turned out. :) I'm definitely making another for Finn.
For Jason and my Dad, we had a harder time deciding, but since they both like reading, we bought some old books at Goodwill, glued the pages down, and Chase hollowed them out to make "secret" cut-outs to hide goodies in. We added some custom bookmarks I found for pretty cheap on Etsy (kind of cheating, but oh well).
For Hadley, who LOVES to color, I made a coloring book/crayon carrier! It was really easy - just buy a few quilting squares.
For Krystal I made a magnet board/mail holder thing. It turned out cute, but definitely not as well as I wanted. I hope she can find something to use it for! Haha.
And then for both of our parents, we made a picture of our family in 4 different illustrations. Chase came up with the cool idea. He is such an artist at heart! So making these gifts was by far my favorite part of the "presents" part of Christmas because I really wanted them to be special. Anyway, wow I sound really braggy. Sorry. :(
Our little home-dog in her Christmas hoodie :)
I think she likes the owl. :)
Nate's penguin footie jammies are so rad. Poor baby Kenz was sick though. :(
Mom and Dad finally got matching snuggies! All I can say is it's about time. Good job Nate and Steph.
I wish I had more pictures of everyone. But it was such a fun Christmas... Chase and I were also able to do some special things with and for some of our neighbors... it really reminded us of the true meaning of Christmas. The Savior's birth changed everything for all of us, and His sacrifice for us was the purest form of love. We kind of had a rough patch the week before Christmas (especially me with all of my pregnancy-induced emotions) but it was such a blessing to be in a position where I didn't know what was going to happen and how things would turn out - those feelings of self-pity, fear, worry etc. completely went away when I stopped thinking about myself and instead thought about others. I honestly think that a lot of the things that were making me so stressed happened just to teach us this lesson. And it is one I'll never forget. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well! :)
1 comment:
I love all the gifts you made!! So crafty and creative! Can't wait to see your little Finn!
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