Traditions

This year we starting many new traditions for our little family. They aren't big and glamorous. They aren't expensive or take a lot of time, but hopefully, they will make priceless memories. Okay, that was my cheesy line for this post. Now that that is out of the way...

I love Pinterest. I have found so many inspirational ideas which have fueled my own creativity and I am so excited! Anyway, on Pinterest I saw a cute pin about a finger paint Christmas tree. I decided that each year my kids will do one and it will be neat to see how they've grown each year and if they want they can split them and take them when they've grown.

Hope seems to have gotten more and more difficult with each passing month this year and refused to dirty her hands with the paint. What four year old doesn't want to finger paint? Mine, I guess. So this year, the first year, Noah and Eden's hand prints made the Christmas tree.

Maybe next year ALL the children will participate. :)

Another tradition we started was making gingerbread houses. Uncle Brian, Aunt Autumn, Caleb and Cameron came over to make some too. I am so glad they were able to share this experience.

We used graham crackers instead of actual gingerbread this year and will probably continue to until the kids get a little older. We had lots of little candies and Ben found some Snowman Marshmallow Peeps that were cute accessories. Several times I found Hope eating her decorations instead of applying them to her house, but in the end it all came together.

Look at those beautiful kids. Noah was creative as usual and made house number "19" out of pretzels and he made a cannon out of hard candies for the roof of his house. Little genius. Every time he sets his creativity to something he amazes me.

Speaking of his creativity...another tradition that I passed on to my children from when I was little is that each of the kids drew a sibling's name and got them a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve they got to open the presents from each other. This year Hope drew Eden's name and was only  interested in giving her something that Hope herself would want, so mommy took charge got decided that Hope would give Eden a baby doll, which they both ended up loving! Eden drew Noah's name. Again...she's 21months so....Ben and I picked out little Halo action figures that he's been wanting for a while. Noah drew Hope's name and decided he wanted to make her a super hero cape and mask. He picked out the fabric and designed the eagle symbol on the back and did some of the sewing. I was very proud of him and really excited for him to give it to Hope. She was a little disappointed when she opened it, but I think once they have a chance to play with it and she sees how useful it will be to their play she will adore it!

Christmas post will be coming soon! Happy New Year!