Happiness and Cheer

Who would have thought, way back in 2012, that the Kid Ornament Exchange Party we held would be the start of a new tradition??  I can hardly believe it's been that long!  It seems like only yesterday that Ethan, Grace, and Sophie were in the mix for making ornaments and exchanging them with friends.  They may have grown up and moved on, but the tradition is alive and well for Jane, Alex, and Isaac.  Hahaha.

I'm pretty sure this was the most low-key, stress-free Christmas party we've ever held and as a result, it was a delight!  In the lead up to the big day, our younger half worked on their own ornaments in fairly typical fashion, with Jane carefully culling Pinterest to find her bright idea, Alex leaving it to me do pretty much everything except the painting, and Isaac happily going along with all of my ideas.  Hahahaha.  What we ended up with was a snow globe, a sled, and a reindeer respectively.  :)

 After tracing the bottoms of her snow globes, Jane hot glued the little Santa Claus and Christmas tree that we found at Hobby Lobby.

 We ended up using some plastic goblets that were the perfect shape and size for her vision.  Hot gluing the card stock bottom to the goblet rim seemed a little too dangerous for Jane to attempt, so I took over the task to finish things off after Jane filled them with "snow."

 They turned out really cute!

Our last minute touch was to wrap the stem with some red ribbon and then hot glue a jump ring for the ornament's hook.

 {I don't have any pictures of Alex working on his ornament, but he DID paint all the popsicle sticks in the making of it.}

 Plan A were these little bead wreaths from a kit I found at Hobby Lobby.  

 I was worried he wouldn't be able to do them at all, but he surprised me and worked away at making his first little wreath.

After realizing how long it would take for him to string 10 of these, and knowing the likelihood that he'd be done before they were, I decided to switch him to a Plan B.

 I hot glued these three little popsicle sticks and then let Isaac take it away with painting.

 I love the concentration!  Hahaha.

 Googly eyes...

Plus a sparkly red pom pom nose completed the look!

Ready to party!

Saturday afternoon was our designated party time, and after whipping up some cookies (the refrigerated dough kind from the grocery store -- because I was keeping everything as easy peasy as possible) and setting out the hot cocoa, we were ready for our guests to arrive.  Sophie was gone all day at a yearbook work day and Ethan was winning that bread at Sonic, but Grace was home and kind enough to help out with throwing the party with me.  {If you ask me, I think she misses participating as well.  Hahaha.}   It was fun to have some of the same crowd from last year plus some new faces this year!  It's always been amazing to me that every year we've done the ornament exchange, we've had unique ornaments from each kid and no duplicates.  Pretty impressive, if you ask me!

The hour passed in the blink of an eye, and at its end, everyone had 10 adorable new ornaments to take home.  I know it's still a few years away, but I'm really going to miss this tradition when all the kids have outgrown it!  I'll just have to enjoy it while it lasts.   :)