Christmas Ornament 2015

Every year I give the kids a Christmas ornament. For the past few years, I have made it a goal to make them and not buy them. I am really proud of myself for getting them made early this year. I even had them finished before Thanksgiving!

I can thank Pinterest and Roz for the idea for this year's ornament. Roz made a goal to read 52 books in 2015 so I decided to make book ornaments for everyone. I found instructions on Pinterest to make miniature books. They weren't necessarily supposed to be ornaments, but that was an easy fix with the addition of a piece of string.

The first step was to ask everyone what their favorite books were this year. I texted Roz to ask her and didn't mention why I wanted to know. I wanted to make one for Trevor too, so I had to text him on the sly as well. I ended up making him a book on his "to read" pile instead of his favorite for the year.

I went to Amazon and printed off tiny images of each book's front cover. If it was available I printed the back cover too. For the novels I was able to find excerpts and pasted them into a document in tiny font to print. So the tiny words in the book are really from each book. 

They all start with the real first sentence, but the following pages ended up in no particular order due to double sided printing and page folding. The comic and more graphic novels are a little bit different. They have tiny, printed screen shots of the preview pages courtesy of Amazon.

It's hard to tell from these photos, but the books are tiny. Most of them are just over an inch in height. The biggest is still under two inches tall.

My favorite ended up being Hayden's little Calvin and Hobbes book. It really looks just like a tiny version of the real thing! He reads C&H every day at lunch. Even though it is too small to read the actual words, he could tell me what it says because he has them memorized!

Here are all eight completed ornaments...

Top row: 

Lego Ninjago (JD), Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Eli), Cat in the Hat (Annabeth)

Bottom row: 

Calvin and Hobbes (Hayden), Around the World in 80 Days (Justus), 

Solar Flare (Wesley), The Nightingale (Roz), and Field of Prey (Trevor)

If you want to see them, here are some of the other ornaments I've made in recent years...
Hot Cocoa Mugs 2014
Stamped Washers 2013
Felt Owls 2012

Fourth of July

We had quiet 4th of July at home this year. We grilled some burgers and had a few traditional side dishes. We weren't going to do any fireworks, but some kind friends from church gave us a few for the kids. When it got dark, we went out to light them off.

Annabeth was covering her ears before they were even lit!

Jerry let the boy light theirs by themselves. No one was burned so I guess that was a success.

The big one - we used as the grand finale - was awesome! And my new iPhone camera did a great job capturing some shots. I took a few video in slow motion mode and they turned out great. You can really see the bursts when you watch it in slow motion.

Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July!!

Puzzling

When Roz is here for a holiday we like to work on a puzzle. We have tried when Roz isn't here but never get very far without her guidance. In our family Roz is the puzzle master!

I got several larger puzzles at a garage sale this year. They probably aren't designs we would have chosen ourselves but they were good enough. This one was 1000 piece boat scene.

We set got it out Christmas Eve and finished it up Monday morning before Roz and Trevor left.

Shown Family (Fried Chicken) Christmas

We had a very busy Christmas week this year. I am going to start at the end and work backwards. :)

We got together with the two other Arizona Shown Families for a Christmas get together on Saturday, December 27th. We decided we liked last year's menu of fried chicken enough to do a repeat. This year, since Roz and Trevor were here, we hosted at our house.

On the menu was: fried chicken, a potato casserole, deviled eggs, cheese/sausage/crackers, veggie tray, chips of various kinds, Christmas cookies and goodies, and a homemade pecan pie. We all ate way too much and then exchanged gifts.

The kids were super happy with the Minecraft books they got. They blocked out the rest of us for a few minutes to check them out. I love seeing kids excited about getting books!

GGS and Grandpa didn't forget Libby. She loves her new toy. It didn't take her long to figure out it squeaked. The rest of the night we kept hearing squeaks.

Do my in-laws know me or what!? Chickens, goats, and Downton! Makes me want to sing…"these are a few of my favorite things…"

Hope you had a great Christmas and spent some time with family too!

Christmas Afternoon

In addition to the Home Alone movie marathon, we tried to come up with a few other fun Christmas activities. I ended up finding an Amazon Lightning deal that would make a great gift for anyone. I wasn't sure who to give it to so we decided to make it a prize for a game. We decided on a game of chance and not skill to level the playing field.

We ended up choosing a game of Christmas Bingo. I found some cards online and printed them. Then we set the timer on Jerry's phone and called out a space every 30 minutes. It was a close game, several of the kids were just one call away from winning.

But in the end Trevor won the Packers Light Up Pillow Pet! Congratulations Trevor!

All the boys, including Trevor, spent some time putting together their new Lego sets.

A bit after noon we started prepping the food for an all afternoon snacking feast. We had quite the spread. Chips & dip, veggie tray, cheese/sausage & crackers, bacon wrapped pretzels, meatballs, and hot wing chicken dip.

 Followed by Christmas goodies of all kinds.

Merry Christmas from the Shown Family!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning the kids got up a little earlier than in years past. They tried to be quiet, but were pretty excited. Jerry and I were awake not long after them, but we didn't want to wake Roz and Trevor too early so we didn't start opening gifts until they joined us around 7am.

For the first time ever we were able to take a traditional photo in front of our own tree with ALL seven kids in the photo! Annabeth wasn't born the last time Roz was in our house on Christmas morning.

Jerry hands out all the gifts and then we take turns opening one gift at a time. This allows everyone to see what the gift was and slows things down a bit so we aren't done opening presents in five minutes.

I read online about wrapping a big box in wrapping paper to use as a pretty "trash can" for the wrapping garbage. You can see it between JD and Trevor in the photo above. I cut a big hole in the top and we cleaned up as we went. It worked great and I will definitely be doing that again.

We don't go to crazy with gifts, but everyone ended up with a nice little pile in front of them.

Trevor and Roz got the majority of their gifts in envelopes which is probably just the way they like it! But we stuffed their stocking with goodies and wrapped a bunch of small items so they wouldn't feel left out of the unwrapping fun!

Trevor surprised Jerry with a signed Jake Plummer Cardinals jersey. Very cool! He will frame it and hang it in his office at work.

When I was in Minneapolis in September, I looked all over at Junk Bonanza for wooden eggs. I didn't find even one. Roz ordered me some on Etsy. They are perfect! I can't wait to find a cute basket to display them.

Slowly the living room transforms from a room full of gifts to a room full of toys and new belongings. Trying to find a home for all the new stuff will have to wait. The living room is allowed to stay a bit messier than normal for a day or two.

While we were opening gifts we had our breakfast casseroles baking. When the fun was done, breakfast was ready! We had the two egg casseroles (one with bread, one with hash browns), pineapple, lemon poppyseed bread, and the donut snowmen.

For beverages we had juice boxes (that were supposed to go in the stocking but there was no room left for them) and hot chocolate. Our good friends gave us a "Cocoa Grande" machine that makes a big batch of hot cocoa and keeps it warm. It was perfect for a big family Christmas celebration! The hot cocoa was, of course, served in the new personalized mugs everyone got on Christmas Eve.

It was a late, leisurely breakfast followed by playing with new toys, relaxing, and a Home Alone movie marathon!

Sibling Exchange 2014

Right before bed on Christmas Eve the kids did their sibling gift exchange. This is a special and exciting time for them. We were so happy to have Roz with us this year!

Youngest goes first. Annabeth was so excited she didn't even wait for us to give the okay. She opened her gift as soon as it was in her hand! She got a wooden bead necklace set from Eli.

JD got two Lego sets from Wesley. Wesley double wrapped them inside another box to throw Pickle off track when he shook the box. We wrap the sibling gifts and put them under the tree right away. Since the sibling gifts are the only ones under the tree before Christmas they get "investigated" and guesses are made. Wesley's double wrapping worked. I think JD was pretty surprised!

Justus was a wise shopper and made his $10 stretch. He got Hayden an ASU baseball cap, a sketch pad, and some colored pens for drawing.

Justus has been telling Annabeth for months all he wanted from her was Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies. So that is what she got him! FIVE boxes all to himself!

As you can see, he was in Cosmic heaven!

Roz got Eli a much needed new set of headphones. Now he can use his own set to listen to some audio books!

Hayden had a hard time coming up with something for Wesley. We thought and thought. One day we were in the dollar store and Wesley asked for a cat calendar. I told him no. Later I thought maybe a calendar wasn't such a bad idea after all, but to make it more fun we chose a page-a-day cat calendar on Amazon. Wesley loved it! He's not allergic to the photos of cats, just the real thing.

JD had to find something for Roz that was small and portable so she could get it back home in her suitcase. Roz gave us a little hint and he spent his $10 on several tubes of Burts Bees chapstick. Roz opened one up to use right away.

It was another successful sibling exchange and since the wheel goes all the way through 2018 we already know who will be shopping for who next year!

Christmas Eve

With Roz and Trevor here we kept busy on Christmas Eve day. In addition to cookie decorating and working on our puzzle, we played some football. Well, Annabeth and I didn't, we just watched.

We tried a new candy grab game I found online. Each person starts with two candy bars in a paper sack. We got all different - no two alike. Everyone takes turns rolling a dice. What happens to your candy depends on what you roll. Sometimes you get to trade bags, sometimes you have to put one in the bowl, and sometimes you get to dump the whole bowl into your bag! It was fun. We decided that if we play again we would remove the "skip a turn" and replace it with something else.

Before we started, we made the rule that if you cried you had to dump your bag in the bowl and be "out". No one cried! Even when someone ended up with an empty bag at some point! When the game was over we put all the candy bars in the middle and everyone got to take two.

For dinner we went with a Mexican theme. Carne asada, tortillas, and fresh pico from the Carnceria on the corner with cheesy bean dip and Jerry's favorite tortilla chips. (My Nana's in case you are wondering.) Jerry snapped this photo of the carne on the grill with his phone. Yum! It was delicious!

After dinner clean up we loaded everyone up to go look at the Loop of Lights again. We thought it might be a bit crazy but we ended up getting a great parking spot and it wasn't too terribly crowded. We walked the loop enjoying the lights. When we got home we had the sibling gift exchange, but that will be a separate post.

After the kids went to bed the rest of us got busy. We set out all the gifts. I had them stashed in the guest house so Jerry, Roz, and Trevor carried them all over and set them under the tree while I worked on stuffing stockings. The stocking were hung by the chimney with care set by the TV with a fireplace video on. 

Then it was on to breakfast prep. Roz help me make two egg casseroles. Jerry and Trevor assembled the powdered donut snowmen. I told Jerry I didn't want to make them this year and he couldn't understand why until he tried to assemble a few! Those little donuts are fragile! One wrong move and they crack. The guys managed to make enough for each of us to have one and ate the few remaining broken ones.

I got everyone except Annabeth a personalized mug. I let them open them before the sibling exchange so they would be clean and ready to go Christmas morning.

The last job of the evening was taking the traditional tree photos with the gifts underneath. I love how the tree looks in the dark; it's so pretty!

Then it was off to bed knowing we'd probably be up pretty early the next morning!