We Christmased...

Christmas Eve found us at Bass Pro Shop taking pics with Santa...We had so much fun and it wasn't busy at all, surprisingly!  There was so much FREE fun to be had!

The carousel was adorable!

There were all different animals.

Violet loved it!

Did I mention it was FREE?!?!

I was so happy that Violet did well with Santa!

Not the best pic, but with four kids, you get what you get!

There are crafts there, too!  This day was cookie decorating...

So fun and saved me from having to bake later.

The kids in their Momma and Nana-made Christmas Eve Jammies!

Flannel sheets from Target make for cheap yardage.

I love these peasant style gowns.  Caught Violet mid-yawn.  Ha!

The boys...

The kids left goodies for Santa!  

Lilly wrote a letter to Santa...

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE what she wrote on the inside!!!  Warms my heart so much!!!

Santa came!

The table all set for Christmas brunch...

Christmas Brunch is always the same...sausage balls, muffins, and fresh fruit.

The mirror got gussied up with paper snowflakes from Wal-Mart and a sign I made.

The hutch...little crooked, oops!  Shouldn't take photos at 3am!  Hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas!!!

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Days 11-12

Day 11...happy, scrappy signs.  Since my Cricut took a nosedive on me, I had to go to my local scrapbook store to cut the letters.  I just bought some wood, had it cut to size, painted it, and Mod Podged on the letters.  I drilled a hole to put the wire thru to make the signs hangable{which is apparently NOT a word-ha!}, and tied a bunch of ribbon on.

Day 12...I bought candles from Wal-Mart, which smell AMAZING, took the labels off and glued burlap and/or ribbon around them.  Simple and cute!

This one is for Jackson's teacher.  She has a more rustic/natural Christmas theme, so I thought the burlap and yarn would be great.

For the rest of the teachers, I used a fun polka dot ribbon.

The packaging.  My camera seriously hates me.  I think a kid got a hold of it or something, because I cannot get a focused picture for anything!  Anyway...I printed off tags that said, 

"May your days be Merry and Bright!  

Happy 12 Day of Christmas!

Love, 

Lilly{or Jackson or Fisher}"

That, my friends, completes the 12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts!  This was a lot of fun, but a LOT of work!

Come back soon and I'll show you our home all decked out with Christmas Cheer and share some other good news!

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Day 10

Day 10...Wooden Nativities.  I found the tutorial, or basic instructions, here.  I glued my people together, as I didn't want them to wiggle or come apart.  I also sanded my wood, but the original maker did not.  Other than those few little differences, I mostly followed her instructions.  I love the simplicity of these!

This is how I packaged them up.  I printed the passage of  Luke 2: 8-14 and stapled it on.

⁸ Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ¹⁰ Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Day 9

Day 9 brought the teachers pumpkin bread.  I got the packaging from Michael's...a Martha Stewart Christmas clearance!

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Day 8

Day 8 brought felt snowflake ornaments from Target, along with Hershey's Kisses and peppermints.

I put them in a quart size Ziploc bag and stapled a doily to the top.  A stamped tag finishes it off!

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Days 5-7

Hey there!  I hope y'all had a great weekend!  We did!  We had two cookie exchanges, so it was a super busy, fun time!  

Day 5 of the 12 Days of Christmas was snow globes!  I'm sure you've all seen these around Pinterest and other blogs.  I love them!  They are super simple and inexpensive to make.  I saved my jelly and spaghetti jars, so it brought the cost down even more!  I just took the labels off, washed the jars really good, and spray painted the lids.  Then, I took trees from Wal-Mart and glued them to the lids, added in a little snow, screwed the lids back on, and voila, a cute gift!

I loved this packaging!  I took small tags that I aged in coffee and cinnamon, stamped a 5 on, then tied them to the bag along with a snowflake ornament, and grey ribbon.

A little closeup...the snowflakes came from The Dollar Tree in a pack of six.

Day 6 was yummy, homemade cookies!  You can tell I went all out on the packaging!  Haha!

These cookies are seriously yummy! You can find the recipe here.

Day 7...I decoupaged ornaments with book pages and glitter.  I then printed out the Noel on the computer and strung it all on twine.  My inspiration came from Pinterest.

I just nestled these in some kraft paper shreds in a cellophane bag tied with twine.  Simple and beautiful!

12 Day of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Day 4

Day 4...I made tags that the teachers can either tie on a package or decorate with.  My personal favorite is the snowman.  I just found a vintage snowman postcard, saved, and printed it to size.  Then, I just used a glue stick to adhere it to my tags, which I soaked in a bath of coffee and cinnamon to age, then used good ole Elmer's to make a bead around the edge and sprinkled glitter.  LOVE how it turned out!

I wrote a little poem, then stapled it to a fun cellophane bag.  Ready to give!