I was happy to see my breakfast was sending me some love one morning.
Normally when I make the kids their Christmas pajamas I usually do just the bottoms and then buy a tee for them to wear with the bottoms. But this year I wanted to try more. Kenedy and Ryker are to the age where I think they would rather have store bought pjs, Kenedy more then Ryker, but finding age appropriate flannel for a boy is pretty difficult, it's much easier to just buy some. So I had more time to make more elaborate pajamas and I decided to make Avynlea a onesie and Rylee bottoms with a button up top. I got stuck on making the collar and when we came out to Nyssa I brought my stuff so that Alison could help me to figure it out. She said she was not really good with collars and had me go over to her friends house who is an amazing seamstress and she was able to talk me through it. My machine does buttonholes and sews buttons on which is pretty amazing to me so I sent a picture of the buttonhole to my family and then I took video of my machine sewing on the button.
I like to do a nice Turkey dinner for Christmas Eve and when the turkey was done cooking Kefford and Kenedy were in charge of the carving. Kefford carved the turkey on his own at Thanksgiving and Kenedy was pretty insulted that she wasn't included because it is tradition for her to do it with him. I made sure that she was down in the kitchen with him for this turkey carving.
For thanksgiving Avynlea wanted to make a rainbow jello. I was super naive and decided I knew how to do it and we didn't need a recipe. Boy was I wrong. Avy made a cool rainbow type jello but it wasn't what it was supposed to be. We decided for Christmas Eve dinner we were going to try again and this time do it the right way. I thought it was going to take forever to make and so I had her do it on Thursday even though we did not need it until Saturday night. We had plans to go to Nyssa on Friday and I thought it would not get done in time if we started it Saturday morning. Boy was I wrong, again. This rainbow jello was pretty easy to make and actually did not take very long to make it. That's ok, it is better to be over prepared and early then not prepared and risk the chance of not having it done...or something like that. So she made the jello and it turned out perfect and we had to take a picture of the fabulous job she did!
After our wonderful dinner I let the kids open their new pajamas and they also opened their new ornaments.
Rylee got Hermione, Avy got Belle in her blue dress, Ryker got the Hulk and Kenedy got Captain America
We actually found material that had everybody's favorite princess on it. I made Rylee her pajamas out of the Jasmine material I found but I did not use the Belle material for Avy's because I managed to find hers last minute and on a fluke. I checked every time I went to Hobby Lobby and JoAnns for Belle material to no avail. Rylee and I were out running some errands about two weeks before Christmas and I was planning on stopping at Hobby Lobby for some ribbon I needed. We were driving by The Craft Warehouse when I decided to stop in there for the ribbon, saving us a trip to Hobby Lobby. I went by the material to check out what they had and was thrilled to find Belle material! So exciting!
Avynlea made pillowcases for Rylee and Kenedy for Christmas and Rylee made pillowcases for Ryker and Avynlea. They both did an awesome job and were excited to make presents for their siblings.
After they got their pajamas on we read a Christmas story and talked about why we celebrate Christmas. I talked to the kids about how grateful I was for our Savior and that if it weren't for Him we wouldn't be together forever. I am thankful that we have this time of year to do more reflecting on our Savior and to remember how blessed I am.