I'm Back

I'm finally back. Seems like its been a while! Like 3 weeks. Right? I know, I know! I was enjoying my vacation. We had a lot of fun!

Our kids got out of school early this year. It was nice because I had one full week to prepare for the holidays without any school events! Well minus Basketball practice for my son! Yep! He made the team this year! YEAH! So proud of him.

So on to our vacation...I spent that week sewing and packing. We planned on surprising the kids with a trip to DISNEYLAND for Christmas. Because of the cost of tickets and food, I was making a lot of the kids gifts this year. The older kids all got some Disney patchwork blankets when they were younger and I wanted to make one for my youngest. I had saved all the material from making the last ones. So it was very easy to make it. Thankfully most of the material was already cut! Woo! Hoo! Got that done! Then I made each of the girls a cute lil owl pillow! They turned out so, so cute! Because my son is 12, I decided not to make him a cute, cuddly pillow and bought him something. ha!ha! I also made a cute puppy blanket and pillow for our employees new baby. I love how it turned out! 

By the way, I will be sharing pictures below. Don't worry!

We made our family members ornaments this year for Christmas. They were snowmen made from white tennis balls. Very cool! We made a few more things for them too. For Daddy this year, the kids made a really cool shirt. We saw it on Pinterest. I will try and find the link to it sorry. But they drew on the back of a shirt. Roads, buildings and personal touches. On the front it said, "My Favorite Shirt". They also each picked out 1 car to go with it. They love drawing on daddy's back with body crayons and thought this would be fun too! My hubby and kiddos are so sweet too! They went to our jewelry store and picked out charms for a Pandora Bracelet for me! I love it! They picked out an elephant, chick, good luck (my oldest daughter picked this out. She is always so lucky. Finding four leaf clovers and money all the time) an airplane, orange jeweled flowers, one with two hearts from hubby and while we were in Disneyland, a Mickey Mouse charm. I was very happy.

So here is how we surprised the kids... Hubby is always on Craig's List! We told the kids that we had to head south to look at truck dad found on Craig's List. They wanted to know why we were taking our Christmas stuff. We just said that we were going to celebrate with family down there and needed to bring stuff. They bought it! YEAH! So we left and drove as far as we could. It's about 9-10 hours depending on stops. We made it more than half way before we stopped at a hotel. The next morning, we went to the complimentary breakfast. The kids were still clueless. We then told them, that we were going to let them open one gift before we left. They were excited. I had wrapped up their Disney blankets and Disney ID's. We knew that when we left the hotel, we were going straight to Disneyland. The kids couldn't wait to look at the truck and leave. Ha! Ha! So we went back to the room, and videoed them opening their gifts. They were very quiet! Then when they realized it was all Disney, they screamed a little. ;0) We told them we were going right now to Disneyland! My youngest, so cute, asked "After we look at the truck?" LOL "No sweetie, we tricked you! Did it work?" we said. They all said "YEAH!" We succeeded in keeping the secret. We wanted to drive further, but we knew the older kids would know where we were going by landmarks, since we have been to Disneyland before. 

Disneyland was awesome! We spent 5 days there. Including Christmas Day! It was so busy, but worth it! I can't say we will go back on Christmas day again, but like someone said, we were able to mark that off our bucket list. Check! I will share a few photos below of our trip. But I have to say, one of their favorite parts was going to the Animation Academy over in California Adventure. We went there 5 times and it was the first thing they wanted to share when they got to school. They all love drawing and I was quite proud of our artistic family!

The rest of our family vacation was spent relaxing and resting from the long trip. Kids are all back in school and the routine is back on. Kind of nice. I missed the routine!

Here are a few pics

Our Snowman Ornaments...white tennis ball, baby sock, and permanent markers.

Disney Blanket...this is the disney blanket I made for my youngest! Sorry it's not the best pic!

Back of the blanket

each of the kids had mostly the same fabric, but all different designs.

Front of the blanket

I embroidered her name and added the cute lace border.

Daddy's Favorite shirt

It was late when we finished and I snapped this with my cell.

One of the owls before it was finished. There is another pic below of them holding them.

We printed out and framed these for family.

Here is a pic of a lighted Christmas Tree we made. If you are interested in how I made this, just send me a quick email. I'd be happy to share. I do have better pictures and I added a bit more to this too!

The puppy pillow and blanket I made for our employees baby.

...Christmas Morning...

Very bad quality photo. Sorry. But it shows their smiling faces. That's all that matters. Right? LOL

When we surprised them with Disneyland

With their blankets and Disney ID's.

A few pics from Disneyland

Happy New Year Everyone! I can't wait to see what this year brings.

Thanks to everyone who sent us Holiday wishes via the blog, text and email! Hope your vacations were as fun as ours. What did you do?