Howdy, howdy! It’s 2014, and I’m coming back from a hectically-restful, blissfully-happy, excellently-beautiful holiday vacation!! We celebrated 6 Christmases, I witnessed one beautiful birth which I will share in another post and rung in the New Year with a stellar wedding with my parents and sibs. It has been a pretty stellar two weeks, that’s for sure.

I’ve had a few people ask about our homemade Christmas tradition that started a few years ago, so I thought I’d post a little roundup! Christmas in Minnesota was beautiful, cold and deliciously white this year. I love me a good ‘ole snowy white Christmas. I put my thinking cap on this year for the kiddos and, with some very-appreciated help from Mr. Nick, we pulled off some neat-o gifts. I created a paperchain countdown for our nephew, Gavinn. However, unlike a regular countdown chain, this one had little things written inside each day. We saw Frozen 3D, went to the North Pole, went swimming, experienced Cherry Berry and his favorite lunch spot {Subway, my friends. My nearly-5-year-old nephew loves Subway.}, plus there were activity days like create his Christmas list, draw his favorite thing about Christmas, sing his favorite Christmas song, etc. It was pretty awesome and I think he enjoyed it.

Our niece, MiaRae, received a take-along-doll house created and followed through by this girl {I’m pointing two thumbs at myself right now} and I was so excited with how it turned out. I made our niece, Casey, a sleepover tent as she had recently informed me that she loves camping and sleepovers and story time. 🙂 So I created a little button-up tent, sewed up two sleeping bags with little Barbies, a ‘campfire’ and some woodland creatures. She loved it and I think it was my favorite, too! Our nephew, Jax, received the most ummm…let’s say…thought-provoking, patience-testing gift of a horse tire-swing. He was pretty eh about it, but it was also butt-freezing outside and he was on his umpteenth Christmas celebrations so…I’ll cut some slack. 😉 I think the pony will get lots of attention and use this summer!

Unfortunately, this is about where we ran out of time, steam, motivation…and got so our nephew Cole received a sweet remote control car and our littlest niece Miss Savi J’s gift hasn’t even arrived yet, so…hey, can’t win ’em all, right?!

For the adults on my side we gifted dates: Fogo de Chao with Teege and Chels; tickets to Jim Gafigan with Tawna and Charles in April {so pumped!}; and a wine and beer tasting with mom and dad!! Yay!

My family also rocked in the creative department with delicious gifts of canned goods {complete with a bean soup that I’m pumped to try} and some insanely hot habanaro hot sauce from my brother and lady friend; hand-stamped jewlery, nummy-smelling cinnamon ornaments, a growth chart for Jax, and some yet-to-be-delivered products from Tawna and Chuck…my mom created a beautiful quilt for Miss Savi J and a hand-stiched doll for Miss MiaRae {so stinking cute!}. It was awesome!!

Please excuse the super dumb iPhone photos. I didn’t take a single ‘real’ photo during any of our holiday celebrations. So. Lame.

In other news, we sported a whopping 50 people at my parent’s house for my mom’s-side of Christmas. Haha…that fact just makes me laugh. Oh, our holidays were a chaotic, loud, wrapping-paper frenzied, fizzy-lifting-drink-filled, merrimaking that I loved.

Now it’s 2014 and I’m back to the grindstone, so come back soon to see what I’ve been up to…it was a busy fall and I’ve got lots to show you!!!

Share: