Wordless Wednesday: Oh Christmas TreeS

Who...

...would have thought
that something so little {the cookie and kid}

could have made such a big mess?

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
******************************** I did NOT let Eli play in the kitchen this week while I sat at the counter and blogged closely supervised him. He did NOT have a blast playing with all the spoons, spatulas, tongs, ladles, vegetable peelers, and ice cream scoops. I did NOT simply pick up all the above mentioned utensils and place them back in the empty drawer when he was finished playing. I would never let my one year old play with sharp perfectly safe utensils and then put them up without giving a second thought to cleaning them.

I have NOT been SUPER lazy about putting out Christmas decorations this year. Half of my decorations did NOT go right back to the attic as soon as Jason brought them down. The other half is NOT sitting in the dining room patiently waiting for me to get a little motivation. Because of my SUPER laziness, I did NOT buy this {oh so cute} box at Hobby Lobby thinking that it would be a great {and easy} replacement for our nativity set.

The First of Many PJ Parties

Henry and Grant had a PJ party at church this week to celebrate the end of preschool choir for the year...and to celebrate CHRISTMAS of course.

They made fun Christmas ornaments, ate pizza and cake, and got a cup full of fun Christmas goodies. I figured I would let Eli join in on the PJ fun too. Plus it was nice to come home and put them all in the bed!
Considering the fact that we have at least three more PJ parties planned in the next week....I think you may be seeing more pictures of their SUPER cute PJ's again soon!

The Stockings Were Hung...

...on our stairs! After I made our new SUPER cute Advent Calendar, I decided that we also needed new Christmas stockings. For one thing, the old ones were just sad...and they also clashed with the pretty Kelly Greens and Christmas Reds in our calendar.

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I used some of the same {polka dot} material, along with some red satin, and white dotty minky material to make some new SUPER cute stockings for Henry, Grant, and Eli!
I used our old {and ugly} stockings to make a pattern. I just traced around the stocking on some brown packing paper!
I cut out two stocking shapes in the green polka dot material for the outside and two stocking shapes in the red satin material for the liner. Then I cut the white dotty minky fabric about the size of the cuff on the old {ugly} stockings and monogrammed each of the boys names on them!
I attached the cuff to the front of the stocking and sewed around all the edges.

Then I attached the two stocking pieces together along the long {non-curved} side.

I did the same thing with the red satin liner.

I layered the two pieces, right sides together, and sewed them together across the top edge. Don't forget {like I did the first time} to add in a stocking hanger too!

I laid the stocking pieces and the liner pieces right sides together and sewed all around them....leaving about a three inch whole in the liner about halfway down the side.

You use that hole to turn the stocking right side out, then sew up the small hole. This is the tricky part if you haven't ever done it or seen someone else do it. Finally, you push the liner down into the stocking and then you have brand new SUPER cute Christmas stockings....

...hanging on your stairs!
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DISCLAIMER: Though our Christmas stockings turned out SUPER cute, I am not currently planning on quitting my day job to become a stocking maker. I didn't really use a pattern {other than what I traced from our old stocking}, and my sewing plan took a few hours of contemplation and ultimately was borrowed from a dress pattern that I have {and only used once}. I am NOT a professional, but if you need help with these instructions {and you really want to make a SUPER cute stocking} send me a message and I'll see if I can help!