Homemade gifts 2011

Now that all Christmas gifts have been given, I can post this. I didn't make as many gifts this past year for Christmas, but I made quite a few. I made several of these lotion baskets. I really liked doing them and found a couple of things I want to continue making for myself. I made a lemon scrub that is great for hands, feet, and face. It's just lemon juice, olive oil, and sugar. Some of the jars of lemon scrubs started to separate after a few days. They just need to be stirred up and they're fine. The lotion was easier to make than I thought. The first few jars I did, I made the mistake of multiplying the recipe and heating up the ingredients all at once and that messed up the temperature. It turns out much better to make one jar at a time. I found that when I made one jar at a time, followed the directions, and didn't worry about the temperatures, they came out perfectly. I got emulsifying wax on ebay. You can also get it on etsy or from Mountain Rose Herbs. I LOVE the lotion! Really, really love it! Normally my hands start getting dry in October and my knuckles stay cracked and even bleed at times until April. Even washing my hands hurt. I've used this lotion since October, and my hands haven't been dry at all yet! I don't think I'll ever buy lotion again! This is better than anything else I've tried, and I've used a lot of different lotions! The hardest part of these gifts was pouring the chapstick into the tubes. And even that wasn't that bad. I put the lotions and scrubs in mason jars and printed labels for them and also for the chapstick. I found all of these recipes last year (before Pinterest, believe it or not), but I had already made other gifts. It was pretty neat making them. I never thought I'd make my own lotion! So here's the recipes:

Lemon Scrub - works great, I use it about once a week
Chapstick - pretty good
Lotion - seriously the best lotion ever, I use it several times a day!



I've also followed these directions for a DIY mask/pore strips. It worked great! And I've been using this oil cleansing method for my face for about a month and have really liked the results. I love saving money/do it yourself/using less/simplifying! I also want to make this hair detangler for Rebecca. And for my hair I want to give this all natural hair care a try: Baking Soda Hair Cleansing. Please, don't think I'm crazy.

I also mostly finished the baby clothes quilt for Joy. We haven't worked on it in a while, so a few monthes ago I decided to finish it for her. I didn't get it quilted or tied off, so I decided to leave it up to Joy to decide what she wants to do with it, then I'll do the binding and finish it up.

I made a family version of the Guess Who game for the boys (which I saw on Pinterest). I got the game at a yard sale and just printed out pictures of relatives. I can't seem to get the pictures off my camera, but it was something like this one.

I made some sugar free brownies for Uncle Ken. I got some Splenda from a diabetic lady at church (that stuff isn't cheap!). I printed a couple of blank family trees for her to give as presents (like the ones I did last year), and she gave me Splenda. :)

I love doing homemade gifts, and I'm already coming up with some for next year!

Tennessee Christmas

Here are some highlights from our Tennessee trip over Christmas weekend, in no particular order. It was an awesome Christmas, and we had a great time. Rebecca had so much fun playing with the boys! It was definitely one we'll remember for a long time. And maybe in a year or two we'll have a big family Christmas in Arkansas!

We were driving through the mountains and saw a bunch of elk. They walked in the road in front of traffic and didn't seem to be in a rush.

This is one of the overlooks we stopped at after we realized Clingman's Dome was closed.

At Ober Gatlinburg

We were waiting to ride the slide at Ober Gatlinburg, and by everyone I mean not me. The slide looked like fun, but I didn't want to ride the chair rail up there. Rebecca really, really, really wanted to ride the carousel, so Aunt Kelly rode with her. After it stopped, Rebecca said "I go slide".

Here are the Marquez's (is that grammatically correct? I don't know). It looked like fun, but someone had to take pictures. :)

Rebecca loved the slide.

Stephen and I took an afternoon to ride through the mountains while Rebecca hung out in Gatlinburg with Aunt Kelly, Uncle Joe, and the boys. We didn't really plan to go anywhere, just drove to the visitor center, saw a sign for Cade's Cove, and decided to go there.

There were deer everywhere in Cade's Cove! So cool! This is one of the bucks we saw. He was just munching on his snack and keeping an eye on us. He didn't care at all that we were snapping his picture.

The boys mined for jewels in Gatlinburg and Rebecca played with a little water and dirt.

Santa came for a visit on Christmas Eve and brought Rebecca and the boys Christmas jammies. Rebecca wanted the present, but she didn't want much to do with Santa.

Christmas morning opening presents. This was a dog that Nana and Pappaw gave her. Aunt Kelly named it Bernie. Rebecca really likes it.

a Baptist church in Cade's Cove

a cabin and barn at Cade's Cove

The whole family Christmas day

This is Minga Falls in North Carolina. The climb for this one was not bad or as crowded, and was beautiful.

This is Laurel Falls. The climb up to it was not so easy. It was 1.3 miles back in the woods, and almost 700 feet higher from where we parked. But it was really pretty too. I remember trying to get my family to come here when I was a teenager, and I could never talk them into it.

After we left Minga Falls we went to Cherokee, and on the way there an elk walked out of the woods right by the car. He was huge! I didn't have the camera ready though, so this was the best picture I got.

a Methodist church in Cade's Cove

Rebecca loved spending time and playing with Aunt Kelly, Uncle Joe Joe and the boys. In fact she cried when we put her back in our car instead of their van!

This is a view of Gatlinburg from one of the overlooks in the Smokies. I love to see the mountains like this, when you can really see why they're called the "Smoky Mountains".

Psalm 144:5 Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.

I still love going to the Apple Barn! They've added a lot to it since I was younger. It used to just be the restaurant, store, and cider mill. Now there's a candy shop, another restaurant, a winery, a Christmas store. It still brings back memories though.

Christmas tree 2011

Color pictures

Here's a couple more for those that prefer color pictures. :)

We're off to see the wizard

We got the kiddos pictures yesterday in their Halloween costumes. I'm so glad we do this before Halloween! It is not easy to get three young children to cooperate at the same time! Here are a few good ones. Through 2 costume casualties (Jackson/Scarecrow lost some straw & Rebecca's dress tore a little), one camera malfunction, and trying to get three kids to all look, walk, sit or do any one thing at the same time, we did get a couple of cute pictures.

This is my favorite:









I took this one right after I brought out my spider I made for my camera. Jackson was looking at it.

Easter - part two

As promised, here are more pictures from our Easter weekend.

Rebecca went on her first egg hunt at the Taylor's house. My friend suggested we practice at home so she would know what to do. We did, and she seemed to enjoy it. But when it was time to hunt and collect eggs, she didn't want to. Stephen picked one up and tried to give it to her, and she pushed it away. He opened it up for her, and when she saw there was candy in the eggs, she wanted them.

Justin is a pro at this by now.

I guess this might be Jackson's first egg hunt since we forgot to have one last year.

After church on Easter Sunday, we tried to get pictures of Rebecca with Justin and Jackson.

Guess which one didn't want his picture taken.

Rebecca was being cooperative for the moment. . .

And Jackson smiled a couple of times. . .

So Justin had a talk with his Mom. . .

After which I got this:

At least I got a pretty good one of my parents with all three kids.

Then it was time for more egg hunting. . .