Christmas Preparations

While Justin was away on a work related trip, we received a special delivery from Mimi filled with fun Christmas activities. The boys enjoyed decorating their snowmen with stickers.

  The package also included some gingerbread ornament kits as well as Christmas paper chains. So, I let the boys do both of those activities and then we added them to our basement Christmas tree. They were so proud of their ornaments.

  We also started a new tradition in the Brown house this year. We wrapped 24 Christmas books and the boys opened on book each night until Christmas Eve. We had the books under our Jesse tree in the hallway between the boys' rooms, but I never managed to get a picture of that tree this season. The boys really loved getting to open a gift each night.

  I have a friend who told me that she made lotion bars for all of her co-workers as a Christmas gift. I was telling Justin the story and he wanted to try to make some for work and for us to share with teachers and such. So, I went out searching for the ingredients (my friend had time to order ingredients online).  I was able to collect the items needed and Justin and I made lotions bars after the boys went to bed one night.


I had a special request from Aunt Shira to made some snowmen handprint ornaments from the boys this year. I had actually seen these on Pinterest too and thought they were cute. Garytt did a great job with the project. It was a lot more of a challenge to get Westyn to get a clear handprint. He kept trying to squeeze too hard, which would smudge the fingerprints. It was definitely an exercise in patience. We did eventually manage to get enough acceptable ones to call it good.


I was happy to be done with the handprint portion of thise project.


We let the paint dry for a long time. Then, Justin added the snowman details with a Sharpie.


Ok, so I was happy with the way the ornaments turned out. Then I decided to add a clear coat to protect those precious handprints. Mommy meltdown.  The clear coat must have had a decent amount of alcohol in the ingredients because it caused the Sharpie to run and turned some of the white paint pinkish. I was so disappointed. We decided that only a few of them were complete losses. We decided to go ahead and give most of them out despite the issues. Live and learn, right?