we've been making things....

For Christmas this year. My brothers called with a request to help them find a gift for our mom and step-dad. I decided we should help them create the "perfect date" so we started by buying gift cards to some fun places. We had a fancy restaurant, a clothing store for a nice outfit, a nail salon and a car wash. A couple of days before Christmas I had all these gift cards and didn't know how I would present them to mom and Brian on Christmas morning. I pulled up youtube to find a cute gift basket idea and the first thing to pop up was a recipe box. It just looked like an ordinary box, until she pulled off the lid. Then I knew it would work perfect for my gift cards.

Luckily I had EVERY supply already at my house. (Good thing because it was already midnight) I stayed up until 2 am decorating it and I think it turned out really cute!



under the little flaps I had the gift cards all tucked in.


Coming up next...... Primary Birthday Stuff!

I came up with this cute idea for our primary children's birthdays this year. They would receive a balloon on their birthday with a little coupon telling them to visit the bishop for their special treat. Then when they go to the Bishop's office, he can give them one of these cute suckers! The idea was great until I involved the Bishop. I told him what was going on, but I guess I wasn't specific enough. The first week the kids took their balloons to his office and he took the balloons away from them and gave them a sucker. (ha ha) He called later that night to confirm that was what he was supposed to do and I just had to chuckle. "No, Bishop, you just rip off the little coupon and give them the treat." He felt so bad, he was going to go and redeliver the balloons himself.


(This basket will be really cute the weeks we have more than one birthday balloon!)


We've also been making goodies in the kitchen. A couple days before Christmas we went to my moms to decorate Christmas cookies. My brother Derek stayed home all day baking cookies and making frosting. Thanks Derek for making a fun activity!



Christmas brought us some fun surprises...
We enjoyed making homemade ice cream in our new maker. We decided on lemon ice-cream with a marshmallow topping. Good thing I got this new mixer to speed things along. (Sundays are turning into our ice-cream night. Last night we made a chocolate peanut butter ice-cream. It tasted just like a reeces peanut butter cup. Top it with raspberry jam and you have yummy treat!

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I think he likes it!