Christmas Fun

Our first week of Christmas holidays has been so much fun!

I have done things that I have been wanting to do for years.

Right before school began the holiday break, Jaymi's school did a Christmas performance.

She was an angel, and her class sang two songs.

She happened to have this perfect white dress, and all I had to get for her, was a pair of wings and a halo.

She chose the shoes that she wanted to wear with her angel outfit, and I just love the pair she chose - her sparkly silver runners.

:)

We made a few handmade presents for people this year.

I can't tell you about a few of them, because they are surprises that I don't want the recipients to find out about yet.

One of the things we tried out, that we might do as a gift for someone one day, was to make candles for the first time. 

We also made applesauce-cinnamon Christmas ornaments for the tree.

 

Of course, we decorated our tree.

We decided this year, to re-use last year's Christmas tree, which we had planted in a pot.

It saves us money, and is earth-friendly too!

We made angel paper chains,

and snowman paper chains.

We made a snowman family portrait :)

We also made gingerbread people as a gift for the teachers at Jaymi's tae-kwon-do sschool.

She insisted that they all look like each of the teachers, so we dressed them in the tae-kwon-do outfit, complete with each person's belt.

We made shortbread cookies and iced them.

That was so much fun!

We also made these yummy Puffy Rice Balls.

They are made out of marshmallows, butter, and puffed rice.

They're like Rice Krispie squares, except they aren't crispy - they're more chewy.

She also decided to try dress up like a Christmas tree the other day.

It was hilarious!

Mark decorated her and she stood there, as still as she could.

She refused to smile when I took these pictures, because she said that Christmas trees don't smile.

 

Jaymi always has fantastic, creative ideas, and this week she has been full of them.

We were in a craft store and she got the idea to make a stuffie Christmas tree.

So, she chose the fabric (felt), and when we went home, she got busy.

She designed and cut out a paper template, cut out the felt, and then she was ready to begin sewing.

I supervised this project, while she was on the sewing machine (very closely) but she did about 97% of this project by herself.

She sewed, controlled the machine pedal, controlled the foot, controlled the manual dial, cut the thread, decided where to sew, remembered to begin inside-out, flipped it the right way around, and stuffed it.

She did amazing - I'm so proud of her.