Inge
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| Inge and the Candy. Always her favorite. |
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| Where's the dancer? |
I have to add a little paragraph here to explain about the jewelry box. We try to not spend much money on gifts at Christmas. AS you can imagine, the cost would add up quickly. We usually buy one "real gift" in the $10-15 range and otherwise fill in with little fun things from second hand stores. This year all the younger girls got a little keepsake box or chest of some sort. Inge had seen this jewelry box at some thrift store and I bought it, thinking at the time I'd have one of the older girls rig some sort of something to spin when the music played.
Apparently I forgot that part. When John wound the back, before Inge even got it opened, the music started. Some of the kids noticed that and thought it was strange. But then when she finally figured out how to open the clasp, after waiting with anticipation to see what kind of do-dad the spinny things was, there was nothing there, they all burst out laughing. I was totally clueless, since I was snapping pictures and didn't even notice the deficiency.
Poor Inge! Oh, well, she liked it anyway, and I assured her that Clara or Sophie could put something cute on it to spin.
Everyone got new gloves this year. It's hard to keep everyone in decent gloves with our long winters.
Donna
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| Donna with the snowman ornament Sophie made her |
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| A new game |
You can tell in the pictures that Donna is still feeling a tad peaked from her influenza over the weekend. But her extreme expression in the following picture is because she ate one of Clara's super sour gumballs. After I snapped the picture, she had to wipe away the tears that started dripping down her cheeks.
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| Donna modeling her new scarf. |
Since Inge is my only little home during the day these days, she ends up getting to do things the others didn't have opportunity for when they were little. She picked out gifts for the other littles at the local consignment store. The brightly colored scarf Donna has on in the above picture is from Inge.
Stella
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| Stella's gives her gifts a thumbs up |
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| The activity book Inge picked our for Stella |
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| You might be a redneck if ... |
Sophie made the smaller girls little Christmas ornaments. She wrapped a few of them in this handy-dandy redneck packaging: Clay pigeons picked up after the youth group shoot out in the fall. Perfect for housing small treasures. Just add a strip of packing tape around the seam.
John
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| New gloves and a new book |
John's new book is a deaccessioned book from the TRF public library. Han Solo's Revenge, copyright 1979. I don't know for sure where I found the book, but it's got a 25
¢ sticker on it. It looks like a very John-ish book.
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| The Scooby-doo from Inge. |
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| John's arranging the candy "chunks of coal" Sophie got him. |
Sophie
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| Fixtures for her new purple and orange bedroom |
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| Orange bath towel, a trinket box, and a new skirt |
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| New gloves and a book on Medieval Chivalry |
Clara
Clara saw an antique bedroom set at Community Consignment in Thief River Falls last fall. It was a great deal, but still more than we'd spend on something just because we wanted it. In fact, it was more than we'd spend on birthday and Christmas together.
But Clara really wanted that set. And I really wanted the store room organized. And Clara wanted the store room organized, too, so she could move her bedroom down there. I told her that if she cleaned and sorted and straightened the store room and hauled out all the big stuff that didn't really need to be down there so there was room to bring more stuff in, we'd get her the bedroom set for her Christmas and birthday gifts combined.
And she did.
And we did.
At first glance the pair of gloves she got for Christmas might seem a little sad and pathetic. But she did get a pretty nice gift. Just nothing she had to open today.
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| The bedstead |
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| The dressing table and night stand |
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| Clara's room at this point. |
We still have to sort through and move more things. But at least she has a little bit of space to call her own. The curtain hanging behind the headboard is our big storage shelves for boxes and bins and other large items. That will be removed eventually, giving Clara another two feet further toward the right along the whole length of the room. The area behind the camera in this last picture is a heaped-to-overflowing closet area that is still inaccessible. But it's a start. And I'm happy to spend the money on something that will hopefully be something lasting for Clara.
theMom
Joe usually shops for me sometime in January, since his brain is pretty full of pastor things all through December. But I did get a few things. Clara gave me some candy and Matt gave me some bullets for my Bersa. I had mentioned to him that I hardly ever shoot because I feel like the expense of ammo is such a luxury item. What a guy! I also got many fun things from my Sunday school students, but my computer stopped reading my memory card half way through the upload so I don't have pictures of them. One of my favorites is one of those printed metal family name necklaces. Among other things, I also got a handmade wall sign from one of my little guys, a goodly selection of candies, a new coffee mug, some ornaments, and a couple of luxurious handcreams by Perfectly Posh.
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| What my son got me for Christmas. |
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| What my daughter got me for Christmas (Man, that's a really ugly picture, isn't it?) |
Now I can Eat, Shoot, and Leave. Kind of like that book from a few years ago.
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