Christmas Recap: Craftiness and Gifts from Self

Me and M

I will have a post to go with these pictures tomorrow.  For today, I really just wanted to make a picture post with a few captions.  This Christmas, a small goal I had for myself was to make as many gifts as possible something that I had either made/decorated myself, something I had someone else make, something that meant something to both me and the other person, and/or something I bought locally.

I really enjoy tying bows.  So I got some inexpensive ribbon and adorned some of the presents.  We got together with my sister-in-law and her husband and took some pictures of our kids together and filled two giant picture frames with 15 pictures each of the kids.  I can't show you the frames here, unfortunately, because my niece's face can be seen in them (privacy and whatnot).

 

My kids learned all about their Polish roots through my mother-in-law on Christmas eve by helping her and my sister-in-law make homemade pirogies from scratch.  My kids are an 1/8 Polish and the pirogies were good!

 

We spent Christmas Day at my [adoptive] parent's house.  We talked about what traditions are in our family there and they had never thought about whether we have any or not.  We all decided that we really (really) like ham though.

The second picture there is my dad and me, our fingers locked together.  I think he was about to arm-wrestle me (we always arm-wrestle, why, I don't know because he always wins) but the wrestling-match never came to fruition I suppose because he recalled all of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classed I've been taking and decided against it.

 

I had these awesome ruby-colored shoes made for my niece at this shop on Etsy.  My friend Diana sewed a purse for my [original] mom from fabric she had admired when we visited Diana's studio.  I have to mention that although Diana is not adopted, we would probably make her an honorary member of our community.  She's followed my blog since day one judgement-free; what more can you ask for in a friend? 

 

I made these, one for my mother-in-law, and one for my [adoptive] mom (I will probably send my original mom one too for her birthday).  If you can't see them very well here, it is the first initial of each grandchild written in sand with a starfish.  I grew up five minutes from this beach and I love it there.  These pictures are very meaningful to me.  I stood out there one windy day in late October capturing these.  That sounds more adventurous than it was, considering that my genes are from New England and my friends and I growing up have been known to have been out there swimming as late as November.  These combine my love of family, the ocean, and photography all in one.

And it was W's first Christmas.  Here's big brother showing him the ropes.

Stay tuned for the corresponding post tomorrow.

 Enjoy!