We made ALOT of our gifts this year, I would say about 1/2 of all our gifts were handmade, or at least some part of it was. The girls and I made these scarves for all the grandparents on my side of the family (my mom, dad, grandma, and mom's husband who the girls call papaw as well). I got the idea from Sara's Art House, the girls helped cut the fringe and then stitched the words on, I zigzagged them onto the scarves (although I am a little embarrassed to say I did, I took a picture of the worse of the 4). We put hearts on the grandmas, a mitten on one and a football shape on the other of the grandpa's.
We made these pillows for my mom, with a reindeer made of each of the 4 granddaughters foot and hand prints, and for my sister with just her girls. I got this idea from some craft blog but cannot find it now. Their pillows were plain with the reindeer on them, I added the Christmas fabric boarder. The girls stuffed these themselves and had a BLAST doing it who would have thought adding stuffing could be so much fun for an 8, 3, and 2 year old :)
A close up of Bethanie's.
I made tu-tus for my nieces and my cousin's little girl. Found how to make them from Mom Dot, they are SOOO easy. Here is Alyvia's (2 year old niece), the tiara, boa, and necklace I found in the dollar section at the local grocery store. The tank top was one of Elianna's that she had never worn, I painted Alyvia's name on it with pink glittery fabric paint. I was so happy with how the hole set went together. 
This is Baby Bailey's, it looks much longer than it actually was. I would say it was no more than 8 inches long. The crown on a head band I also found in the dollar section, it was cheap made but looked SO cute on her.
I also made both of the nieces an outfit. I made the skirts like this one (which is where I got the instructions for making them). The shirts I bought then cut one of the princesses from the skirt fabric and attached it to the shirt along with the first letter of their names. For Alyvia I made a little purse to match as well (she LOVES purses more than anything else). They turned out REALLY cute but I didn't get a picture of them.
We painted sweat shirts for my dad and my grandma. Here's my grandma's, feet and hand print angels. I had seen these on a kids site to make these angels with construction paper and tried it on a sweatshirt. I was happy with the turn out even though we got paint in a few places it wasn't suppose to be. 
I didn't take pictures of my Dad's. We actually made him 2, one with pictures of the 4 girls that said Papaw's girls. Then at the bottom said "Girls just wanna have fun...with their papaw", I was really tired when I painted the words on the shirt and kinda regretted it later. DH thought it sounded kinda bad. The other one we put the girls hand prints on it and wrote "Best Papaw, Hands down".
I also made a very cute apron for SIL that I made from a panel that I got from Walmart. I added a ruffle to the bottom and lined it so it could be reversible. It had snowmen and was really cute but I forgot to take pics of it too.
The girls also made my mom pictures of her and them. They drew the pictures with markers, wrote "Mamaw and Me" and I put them in frames. Mom loved them.
I really enjoyed making gifts for everyone, enjoyed being creative, seeing their faces when they opened their homemade gifts, but it really wore me out. Next year I still want to make alot of gifts but will start MUCH earlier. I was so last minute on some of these gifts that I was up till after 6 am on Christmas day (DH was waking up for the day as I was going to bed for the night, lol). And then had to finish my cousin's little girl's tutu in the van on the way to our Christmas gatherings. And I still have at least 2 more gifts to make -purses for my mom and sister. And was wanting to make my mom and sister a calender with the artwork by the kids.
Other than gifts we made some other things as well. The girls both made one of these in Wednesday night class at church. It's simply a paper with "shadows" of Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. They colored them blue, then they rubbed baby oil on them to make them transparent. They glued craft sticks for the stable, glued glitter on a star and put on the top. Then put a little lamb with a cotton ball as wool on the front. I sat them in the front windows where we have Christmas lights on the inside. These were such easy ornaments but I just LOVE them. They look SOOOO pretty at night when it's dark outside and the Christmas lights are on. They look like they are all lit up. The picture doesn't really show how truly pretty they look. 
Lastly I saw these snowmen doughnuts here. They were so simple but so cute, I just had to make them for the girls. Well when I was at the store getting the white doughnuts I saw the chocolate ones and wanted some of them too. The next morning when I was making them for the girls I had a great idea. I made whole snow men instead of just the heads....
PENGUINS!!!! The girls and DH got a big kick out them.
My favorite picture of the day :) Bailey, my niece being held by my Mom. Isn't she a cutie!?!?! She is such a happy baby.
Here it is without the flash, my tree topper lights went out right after about a week after just replacing the light strand in it last year.
Here is 
It's a Precious Moments baby girl that says Baby's first Christmas and has the year. My grandma got it for her. When I saw it laying there I could feel the tears coming to my eyes and I had to walk away for a minute, Elianna was already really upset, she didn't need to see me getting really upset too. THANKFULLY, it was a clean break, a little super glue and other than a couple little shiney spots from the glue, you can't even telll the difference. My tree looks awful now and it's really wobbly ( I think I may have cracked the stand when I stood it back up) but you know I am just REALLY thankful that none of the kids were hurt and there wasn't more damage to my onaments. 
Tonight the girls went to bed really late, as is becoming the norm for weekends, but they were still in the bed talking and giggling (that was a previous YGMT, that I will miss the giggles). So I went in there and sat with them for a while. I was telling them they need to get their room cleaned up before Christmas because Santa sure wouldn't leave many presents if he saw how messy their room is. So they were talking about how many, "maybe only 2 or 3 or maybe even just 1". Well that wasn't the way I wanted the conversation to go! So I told them that I thought 3 presents was a good number for Santa to bring since that's how many Jesus got when he was born (I am borrowing that idea from someone else but can't remember who it was that said it, Thanks if it was you). You would have thought I had said 30 gifts each, lol. Both of their eyes lit up and they both said YEA! Then Elianna started asking how many she got on her birthday, lol. I told her her birthday was different than Jesus' birthday, she said "yea, cause we don't have cake or anything", lol. I said well we could, I said I thought that was a good idea to make a cake or cupcakes and write Happy Birthday Jesus on it on Christmas morning. They LOVED that idea too. I'll really miss the excitement they show toward the little things, I really hope they never loose that though. I'll also miss, when they are grown and out of the house, getting to go sit with them in their beds just chatting. Oh, and the hugs and kisses, I got LOTS of them tonight while I sat with them in the bed, I will definetly miss those. For more You're Gonna Miss This Moment go visit 
This is a picture that was emailed to me back in 2006. This is my DH's, step dad's, daughter's daughter. SFIL (step father in law) didn't even know this daughter of his existed till about 7 years ago. One day she just contacted him and said you might be my father, they met, he and her look just alike, she met the family, she was VERY friendly and everyone liked her and welcomed her into the family...except MIL! MIL was jealous of her for some unknown reason. She would contact her behind SFIL's back and say really mean things to her and overall just treated her like crap. Finally the long lost daughter just quit calling and coming around MIL and SFIL. MIL would always try to act like the victim by saying things to me about how she doesn't understand why she ever wanted to meet SFIL if she didn't want to be a part of the family and that she didn't understand why she wouldn't come around...she didn't know that I knew the things she had said to her in private. I use to keep in touch with her and she would send me pictures of her little girl all the time but then she moved to Florida. I still get emails from her every once in a while but not often. ANYWAYS, this is her little girl Hailey, who was absolutely cute as a button with big pretty eyes and long beautiful hair, on her first day of dance class :)
