favorite ornaments

The kids have been very interested in the ornaments. Kevin's favorites are two small metal trumpets which he loves to blow on (most likely mixing his spit with the spit of all of Ryan's siblings as well as many of Kevin's cousins' spit--yummy!). When we got the trumpet ornaments out he held them and kept saying excitedly, "I'm so happy! I'm so excited about the trumpets!" Magical.

Heidi's favorite ornaments are these tiny wooden dolls (shaped like the nesting Russian dolls, except they're all the same size and don't nest) and of course a little stuffed bear that she likes to snuggle while lying down on the floor. It's so sweet to see her get one of the wooden dolls off the tree and happily walk around holding it and showing everyone.

The kids also love the two jingle bells.

I am getting closer to having the Christmas gifts done. Yesterday I finished the bean bags. I ended up with 20, which is a ton once you look at them. I cut out rectangles, folded them in half to make a square, and sewed around the edges, leaving some space, then turned them inside out. Then I filled them with rice and sewed them shut. It was a fairly easy project. The quiet book has been more work. So far I have five pages done, and I was hoping to make eight. We'll see how far I get. I'm getting pretty good at sewing buttonholes now. I'm not even scared of them anymore. I'm still trying to decide how to divide the pages up, since I wanted it to be a gift the kids would share, but I want them to both get to open some of them. Sometimes I am amazed at what my old sewing machine manages to pull off. A few days ago when I was making the buckle page, the sewing machine sewed those buckles down with no protest at all. A lot of pins got bent in the process of making the bean bags, though.