Giving thanks and making ornaments

Oh, my poor blog has been so neglected lately!  Seems like crafting and blogging has been getting put on the back burner more and more.  However, Christmas will soon be here and this almost always gives me a good excuse reason to be creative.  I have several things in the works and have managed to partially complete several projects, but since none of them are finished yet, I have no photos to share.

I do have some handcrafted ornaments that my girls made for our annual Thanksgiving/family reunion.  DD#2 is always so organized and knew what she wanted to do and had things to make them well in advance.  She would have been finished weeks before Thanksgiving if her mother had been more on the ball!  But I did manage to get her the rest of the materials she would need for her altered cookie cutter ornaments.

a gingerbread man complete with pearl decorations

Santa with his pack of goodies

After she finished, we discussed that a bit of glitter or sparkle would have really dressed these up.  She still has a few she will be making as gifts, so we'll have to see what she does with them!

DD#1 is most definitely her mother's daughter!  She was frantically finishing her ornaments Thanksgiving day!  Luckily, she went with a fairly simple paper ornament.  She is thinking about putting a decorative punch edge on the next ones she creates.

It was hard to get a good photo showing just how

pretty these were...  I love the papers she chose!

I know I am quite late with my Thanksgiving wishes, but shouldn't we be thankful every day?!  This year has been quite chaotic and it seems like we have very little down time, however, there have been so many positives for us that all of the stress has been viewed as a 'strengthening of the irons'.  My job has been quite the adventure this year and I am usually exhausted at the end of the day, yet it has also been so rewarding.  I am neck deep in the realization that I can make small differences that lead to great things for others.

I was also reminded of how amazing my girls are (moms need that sometimes).  We always sponsor a child at Christmas through our church's giving tree.  We do our best to get the things on the wish list while still keeping with our budget.  The girls were so caught up in shopping for a little girl they had never met (and probably never will) that the gifts were over our budgeted amount.  They both agreed that we could spend less on them so the little girl could have everything they picked out for her.  DD#2 even told me that she no longer needed us to get the game she had asked for.  She was going to save her own money and decide if she really needed it.  I love all of the little Christmas miracles that seem to happen every year!

My goal this Christmas is to make gift giving more meaningful.  Of course, this has added a lot more baking and creating to my list, but I'm looking forward to opening my busy schedule to do some fun things with my kids and sharing the love with others.

Well, it is past my bedtime and tomorrow is another busy day.  I hope you are also counting your blessings and preparing to celebrate this season with love in your heart! I also hope that you have a bit more luck than I at finding time to be creative! At least there is always Christmas break!  Thanks so much for stopping by! I am so thankful for all of my blog friends and visitors!