Annual Christmas Gifts {Photo Ornaments}

We have sent photo ornaments to a few special people every Christmas since Anthony has been with us. I always pick up a few photo ornaments (sometimes an ornament set like the one below) and find a nice picture of Anthony to include inside. We have been sending these ornaments to Anthony’s birthmother, birth-grandmother, and godparents each year. After a couple of years I realized that they would all have a photo ornament of Anthony from each year, and I hadn’t even been making one for us! This year I decided to make one for us to keep too.  (I’m also going to make a photo ornament for each of the years that we "missed".)

Here are a few of the ornaments for this year, although Anthony’s godparents will get a different one (they follow the blog and I’m not sure when we’ll get it to them, so I had to make sure to not reveal it online!):

I love the classic red and white of this ornament set!

One of these will go on our Christmas tree this year.  Any suggestions for which one we should keep?

Operation Hometown Gratitude

Tonight Anthony joined some other Cub Scouts to participate in Operation Hometown Gratitude.

Operation Hometown Gratitude was started by a group of students to support local troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The operation sends care packages with necessary supplies and everyday home items to troops and also provides support for families of troops. Since August of 2005, they have sent over 6000 care packages! The local VFW granted the operation some money to get started and has paid for the postage of many of the packages that have been sent.

We purchased a few things for Anthony to add to the other supplies that were donated:



Anthony was able to help put together a couple of boxes that will be sent to our local troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Here he is with one of his 1st grade Cub Scout friends (face blurred for privacy):



What a great opportunity for Anthony to learn about giving and supporting our troops!

Baby Bibs {a handmade gift}

My mom is extremely talented – just give her some fabric and a sewing machine and she can create amazing things.  I have a house full of her handiwork to prove it!

When I need a baby gift, I often call up my mom and put her to work.  When my hairdresser recently had a baby, I knew I wanted to have something special for her.  My hairdresser has been doing my hair for a LONG time.  She is so kind, caring, and giving to others that I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to bring something for her baby.  I made a quick phone call to my mom, ordered a couple of bibs, and I was all set to have a unique, handmade baby gift.

Next time I saw my mom, she arrived with these amazing bibs!

My hairdresser was on maternity leave and I had been just waiting to give her this gift (and have my hair done!), so when I was able to schedule an appointment for last week, I jumped at the opportunity. 

I hope her little girl loves them!

Linking to: House of Hepworths, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Uncommon Designs

A White Elephant

Last night I went to a Holiday Party with some of the ladies from work. Everyone brought a White Elephant gift (random items from their home, or things they have received as gifts and wanted to re-gift) and we played the Dirty Gift Game to exchange them – it was fun! If you are not familiar with the Dirty Gift Game, everyone draws a number and whoever has #1 picks and opens a gift. Number 2 can choose to steal the gift from #1, or open a new gift. Each person can choose to steal a gift or open a new one until the gifts are gone. Once the last gift is opened, #1 gets to choose to steal from anyone in the room. There are definitely perks to drawing #1 in the Dirty Gift Game!
Lucky me – I drew #1! To start us out, I selected the most beautifully wrapped gift – glittery gold paper with a shiny metallic red bow – it had to be good, right?!? WRONG!! I opened my beautiful gift to find a hot pink ceramic pig piggy bank with a red Santa hat. WOW… The funniest thing is that the person who brought it had actually BOUGHT it to bring for her White Elephant gift! Since I had #1, I was able to sit back and watch the fun of everyone opening and stealing crazy items from each other and then choose the best gift to bring home.
One of the gifts had this funky light-up water fountain thingy and then a small little treasure – a glass Christmas ornament. When the gift was opened, I tried to check out the ornament, because I had a feeling it was something special. The card with the gift noted that the ornament was from the lady’s mother in law’s estate. Lots of jokes were cracked by others about her MIL – what kind of MIL did she have if she was willing to give away her Christmas ornament collection??
This was the gift I selected, especially once I saw the star crown cap on top of the ornament. I knew this was an ornament from the Inge-Glas of Germany collection and would perfectly join all of the Inge-Glas ornaments already on my Christmas tree at home. My husband’s aunt has run the Inge-Glas of Germany company in the US for years and we have been given (and purchased!) many Inge-Glas ornaments over the years.
If you are not familiar with Inge-Glas, the ornaments are all mouth-blown glass and hand-painted in Germany. They use many antique molds for their ornaments and they have a traditional look. We sure like them at our house!
I’m not so sure the lady I stole this gift from was too thrilled to have a hot pink piggy bank to take home to her twin boys though…

Inge-Glas of Germany ornament – the best White Elephant gift I could have hoped for!
Sorry for the iPhone photo…

This is definitely not the cutest Inge-Glas ornament (which may be why she chose this one for White Elephant gift), but I still feel like I came home with a treasure!

11-11-11

This year 11-11-11 brought not one, but TWO family weddings! Since the weddings were in different states, we could only attend one of them. The wedding we attended was beautiful, the bride was gorgeous, the food was excellent, the reception was fun, but what I really want to share is the gift!
Thanks to Pinterest I decided to frame their wedding date as a gift. There are some awesome examples online, but after finding some “11’s” online, here is what I ended up with:


I wish I would have had time to go out and take pictures of my own “11’s”, and if I do this again, I will definitely find a way to make that happen. Don’t you think this would be fun on a wall with some wedding pictures?
I am hoping that both couples like their framed “11’s” and of course the $$$ that we added to the gift!
Best wishes to both couples!!

A New Bag!

My Mom retired a couple years ago and has been busy sewing non-stop ever since. She makes all kinds of things, mostly quilts, but has been having fun making some new things too. We recently visited my parents in Wisconsin, and I was fortunate enough to bring home some of her hand-made goodies. She made me a new scarf, an iPad case and this super cute bag!

The colors of this bag are crazy and bright!

Check out the flower she made to dress it up - cute, huh?

And look at all the space on the inside! The pockets add some much needed function.

I sure am lucky to have such a talented Mom!