Did It Ourselves

The Howard family Christmas Eve has been evolving and perfecting itself for several years. This year we made the move to Christmas Adam (the day before Christmas Eve...you know, Adam came before Eve). I was worried that it wouldn't be the same, but I found that when the company is good, the number on the calendar doesn't matter. The first rule is that you have to wear the new jammies that Oma gets for everyone.

We have English soup for dinner and peppermint ice cream with hot fudge for dessert.
Then we open presents. This is a day long awaited for us because the other rule of the night is that we make our gifts.
It turns out that making gifts is a LOT of work.
I like it though because when you make something for someone, you kind of give them a little piece of yourself along with the gift. Because I think these gifts are really special I've decided that I need to document what was done.

Kristin made this amazing doll bed for Rocky. Notice the handmade quilt.

Jilly made shirts for all of the grandkids. Each one was different and reflected the personality of the receiver.


I put together a recipe book and bound it in a cake mix box. If you wonder why my blogs have been few and far between the past several months, it is because this job turned out to be much bigger than I originally anticipated.

I also learned how to bind little journals for the boys and I made a hollowed out book for Opa and Ethan so they would have a place to hide their treasures.

This is the bag I made out of old candy wrappers.

Ehan and Joanna even got involved making a snow globe and using real leaves to decorate.


Matt and Kristin also made a longboard rack for Brandon, a book of crochet patterns for me, and potted some cacti for Jill and Jared. Jilly dedicated many hours editing and printing our blogs.


Rocky and Daisy also received some beautiful tutus made by their awesome aunt Cara and Debbie made a DVD of old family videos which is a treasure. I think we were all pretty envious of the duct tape wallet that Hayden made.
We also received a lot of other nice gifts and had a lot of fun with the Rigbys but unfortunately during our Christmas morning adventures we lost the camera in the couch cushions and didn't find it until it was too late.
We especially had a good time participating in the Spritz Blitz with Abia. We ate more cookies than we helped, which is probably one of the reasons it was so fun. It was great hanging out together and watching Brandon and Derek almost choke to death while laughing at their cookie creations.
Rocky had a blast hanging out with Cambria and Jonah and we all fell in love with our newest addition, Quincy. Cambria showed Rocky the ropes at the Discovery Gatewey Children's Museum.