my favorite presents

My favorite part of this Christmas day was watching the kids open each other's presents.
We had each child pick a name and they made a present for that brother or sister.
With just a teensy bit of help from Mom and Dad, ahem.

I blatantly, if not quite as stylishly, copied Design Mom for ideas.
Have you seen her ideas? Crazy cool.

Elia made Del beanbags.
We went to the store, she chose her fabric, she cut it out, I sewed and she filled.
Deli loved them and we all found out that Papi could juggle!
Who knew?!



Mikey made Josie some covered headbands.
I helped with the covering, but he manned the glue gun and flower sticking.
That is, until he stuck his finger in a glob of hot glue, then he moved from assembly to management.

Deli painted Mikey some fantastic pieces of modern art, which we than
affixed to some Romper Stomper cans that Papi had assembled.
Mikey got on, took a couple steps, and got off, declaring, "I will never get on those again."

Josie made Elia some barrettes and a ribbon belt decorated with ribbon flowers.
She made the flowers, did lots of the sewing and much of the frustrated directing.
Why, oh why, can't I understand her directions of knotting the thing and putting it between two things, so that the ribbon can stay on and then add another flower?
Now I know how my mom feels when I ask her to sew me things that are only visible in my head...

There was nothing sweeter today than the pride in each of these enanos faces as they gave their gifts to their siblings along with hugs, kisses and thank yous and your welcomes. It was the sweetest gift I received today.

And for the record, once Mikey had shoes on, he loved his walking cans.