Presents!

This post is mostly about presents we gave or made, but there’s some other things snuck in as well.

I found this post and decided to make a question jar for my sister.

First I printed off the pages of questions (already done!) and cut them apart.

 

I rolled each strip on a pencil to make a nice curl.

 

I was going to use a mason jar, but with all the curlies, it was too small.  Luckily I had a big ol’ applesauce jar laying around.  Next time I will fold the strips instead of curling them.  I think they’ll fit into a quart jar then.

 

I prettied it up.  I also added a bow, but forgot to take a picture afterward.

The point of it is basically just to have questions laying around to answer.  If you’re bored or need a game or a journal prompt, pull out a question to pass around and answer!  I will make one for us too, I just haven’t yet.  I think it has the potential to be pretty fun!

On Black Friday I found a deal for an electric griddle, and I was able to use a gift card.

I don’t know how I survived without my griddle for so long!  I love baking up a double batch of pancakes and freezing them.  It took forever with my little skillet.  This is so much better!  And I can cook lots of bacon and lots of eggs and several grilled sandwiches – lovely!  And Merry early Christmas to me. :)

Tuesday night at enchilada night Grandma had gifts for the kiddos!

Joanna LOVES her guitar!

And Natalie loves her microphone!!

The girls have played and played with them this week!

I did very little wrapping this year, but most of what I did involved brown paper or paper sacks.

I love drawing on the ribbons and tags.  :)

Earlier in the week I gathered up and organized the kids’ stuff for their stockings.  Since I couldn’t very well take the stockings down, I used grocery bags to organize.

For posterity, here’s about what went into Joanna’s stocking:

Natalie’s was pretty much the same.  I ended up taking out the book since it didn’t fit.  I’ll save it for birthday or a road trip or something.  They LOVED the simplest stuff the best – chocolate milk and Teddy Grahams – whoo hoo!

This was the day a couple of weeks ago when the play kitchen came.  I couldn’t budge it off the porch!  I ended up just closing the window blinds inside so the girls couldn’t see out.  Another advantage of coming in the garage is that we miss anything on the porch!

More on the lives of these presents to come!