DIY Christmas gifts for kids!

We've all seen the Christmas gifts that you can make yourself but if you're anything like me, you may not find many of them to be very good. I've come across very few that I would actually give to people and I don't think any that would work for my own kids. And lets face it, buying for my own children is my biggest stress when it comes to Christmas gifts. Everyone else only receives gifts if time and budget allow.

So imagine my delight when I came across this site

There are so many great toys that you can make for your kids with very little money or skill!

I've already printed out this for 4 year old James and plan to have everything cut out and put in a pretty box for him to color and assemble. All it cost me is the paper, ink and a little time. Perfect!

These Fabric Nesting dolls are adorable!

And then there's this cardboard velcro robot...How cool is that?

O Christmas Tree...

The boys and I decorated our Christmas tree this past Sunday afternoon. It was a little different this year doing it ourselves and having Owen help, but it was fun. We took a break after putting on the lights to have hot chocolate and chips, then the boys hung the ornaments.

I think they did a beautiful job!

Nutty Butter Cookies

Image from Amazon.com

Awhile back the littles and I were reading this Dora book about a quest for chocolate for Abuela's chilly day surprise. Among other characters and things, Dora and Boots meet Tico who offers them some of his Nutty Butter Cookies.

When we finished the book, I had the idea to make our own Nutty Butter cookies together for a little treat. Obviously I had no idea how to make such a cookie, but that didn't stop us! I just used a regular chocolate chip recipe that I pretty much know by heart now, and instead of adding chocolate chips, we added whatever nuts were in the pantry at the time. All the kids needed to know was that there was both butter and nuts in our cookies and they were satisfied.

I didn't think to take a picture at the time, but they were good and we had a lot of fun making them. Instead of just reading the story and then going about whatever chores I had to do, I took the time to expand the simple story into something much more. Now when we read this book and we get to the end where Dora asked what we like to do on chilly days, we can talk about those Nutty Butter cookies and maybe even make some more.

Christmas has arrived....

Making the most of a small room

Some of those pictures of James are just precious! I love the one where he's pretending to make binoculars out of his hands :)

I realised yesterday when I was cleaning up the little's room* that I've never written about the decorating that I've been working on in there for months. Actually I haven't done anything since the beginning of the summer, but it's an ongoing project none-the-less.

I probably should have closed the curtains, that glare is terrible. The two youngest share this somewhat small room and so I had to make it friendly for my preschooler and toddler. I don't want to be redoing this room next year either, so I wanted something that would last a little bit. One of my favorite details are the "O" and "J" above their beds. I took the glass out of dollar store picture frames and painted the letters. So simple.

The room is painted a sky blue with clouds around the top. I haven't decided if I'll paint an animal mural on the lower half yet or a racetrack. Owen loves cars but I think the animals may last them both longer (not to mention their curtains are an animal print).

This shelf was here when we moved in and because we're renting, I don't want to paint it or take it down. Actually it would probably ruin the drywall behind it if I tried to take it out anyway. So it works as a bookshelf and a place to keep Owen's diapers. Plus their night light is clipped to it and I hang their robes for bath time on the bottom.

This was their closet. One of the best things to do in a bedroom to make more room is to take off the closet doors. I can hang all of their sweaters and nicer clothes up and fit everything else into a single dresser (mine from when I was a kid) There's also room for bins of all their small toys and their extra blankets.

And this is a hidden treasure. We live in a four level side split which means that the top half of this room is adjacent to our roof. From what I can tell, this door leads to some sort of attic, although I've never actually looked. I used to have their dresser in front of this and hated the wasted space that it caused. Until I took a closer look, that is. Now it holds all the kids' big toys:

The entrance to the attic, or whatever it is, is behind the poster.

So what would you do, cars or animals?

*Ever notice that when you're trying to clean up their toys, kids always get a new interest in playing with them? Mine could be bored and whining but the minute I start cleaning up their toys, it's like they've found a bunch of new treasures.

FOUR!

James turned four last week and instead of writing some long sappy post about how BIG he is or how much I am in awe and love with him, I thought I'd share some pictures of the last year. Starting with his 4th birthday and working back...