December Goals Accomplished

 

In December I shared with you a few different goals that I was working on. It is now almost the end of January but I thought I would share with you how those goals went...

    First off, I had made the goal at the beginning of 2022 to spend time practicing on/learning to play a different instrument each month and then record it and share it on Youtube. Following that as planned lasted maybe 2 months but I did work on different instruments more throughout the year and I put in some heavier practice in on a couple of different instruments but over all I did struggle with this goal. In December I decided I did truly want to see if I could still accomplish it. That was finally completed today. So I went a month over in the goal but I did get it done.

   In my dreams I was going to be super proficient in each of the instruments that I played. That did not happen. I simply didn't have the time (or choose not to sacrifice in other areas in order to make the time) to practice enough to make that happen. So some of these videos I was rather embarrassed to post. But over all (other than sharing my imperfections!) it was a fun goal for me. I had fun with working on each of the instruments. Here is a video of each instrument (with two for violin - actually 3 as it is in the Church musicians concert as well).

Another December goal was to clean out (declutter) 2 spaces each week. That went well. This year I am working to do 3 a week which has been going well this month. Hopefully I can keep up in the busy summertime. It always does feel good to go through things, clean and get rid of things that we don't need.

 Making handmade Christmas gifts was another goal. That went pretty well and was fun. You can see my post that includes the results to that here.

As you can imagine I had a lot of fun with my financial goal. It went well. In the end their was $290 worth of gas stamps so we didn't really have that hard of a challenge. I used that for gas and all of our groceries. I see that I forgot to mention in the first post that I was also giving myself $12 cash to pay for overages when I didn't hit it on the dot exactly (as that would be pretty hard to do and they don't allow you to use a gas stamp card for say 93 cents. It has to be a dollar or more.  I did also use the gas stamps to buy salt for our softener and our softener was having issues that month so we had to buy salt quite a few times. Thankfully it seems to be doing better now.

   This ended up being just a fun challenge for me and Megan got in on the fun some too. I would come home from work and report on what I managed to get for $10 that day. Several times we splurged on truly unnecessary items.  One time she was wanting candy for making a gingerbread house so we went shopping after church on Wednesday night. We went to Menards and used my rebate there to buy a couple of bags of salt for the softener. At Marketplace I gave Megan 10 filled cards of stamps and she was able to get what she wanted with that and meanwhile I got some things that we needed/wanted with another 10. Then I got $10 worth of gas. Then we looked on the back of our receipts and there were coupons to get a free hot chocolate at the gas station next door. So we went and got that. We came home with gas, groceries, candy, salt and hot chocolate in our tummies and we had enjoyed our shopping spree. I think I spent 37 cents in overage that night and Megan spent around 25 cents. 

  Anyway that is the scoop on our December challenges. We had fun, saved money and according to Megan's college classes I improved my brain with playing all the instruments. So life is good!

   

Christmas Time

I hadn't gotten around to sharing pictures from Christmas time yet, I just wanted to record some of the fun and blessings from Christmas time 2022....

The Wednesday night before Christmas we enjoyed a time of singing carols by candlelight. I really enjoy using candles and it is fun and special to do something different from the ordinary. We enjoyed it.

Before the carol sing we had a "Shepherd's Supper": with Lentil stew and other stews, charcuterie boards with bread, crackers, cheese, dates, olives and things like that. It was yummy and fun to do something a little different there too.

  Megan and I had fun (and a few late nights and pushing ourselves too) making handmade gifts for everybody this year. We only do a gift exchange amongst me and the kids (not our whole extended family) so it wasn't quite as big of a project as it could have been.

  The first thing that we made was a bunch of candy. Our friends the Kleinsassers (or the females in the family anyway) came over one day and we worked together at it. We made peanut butter pretzel truffles (which were very yummy!), Christmas Crack, Rootbeer cream cheese candies, Eggnog truffles and Turtles. We made far more candy than we needed and I am working to take off some extra pounds that landed on my body now. :-) We did give candy away to people outside our family so that was a good thing!!

I had fun make these little forest friend magnets for Malcolm to play with.

I made this teddy bear/rice heating pack for him as well.

Megan bought an unpainted set of nesting dolls and painted it for him. It is super cute but the best picture I have is this one where they are on his and Aaron's laps and you can't see any of the fun details.

Malcolm didn't mind getting up early for exchanging presents before breakfast and church. He loves reading books now so Megan was reading him one at like 6:30 in the morning.

Megan had made cute little personal pies for all of us which we enjoyed at breakfast along with our traditional Vanocka braid, sausage, eggs and hot chocolate.

Thomas and Mara camped at a rendezvous this past summer and hope to go again. Thomas had borrowed a shirt to wear last year so I made him one of his own. Megan knit him a wool hat.

I didn't get any good pictures of Jonathan. I knit him a black hat for a present which he said he liked but he didn't try on because his hair was already in place for church. I also made some flavored syrups for coffee or other things for him, Thomas, Aaron and Megan. Megan made cookie dough (to be frozen and then cooked) for Jonathan.

 I made a harvesting Apron for Mara. It has a really big and adjustable pocket on it for gathering produce. I also made her a miniature journal necklace. Megan knit her a neat bag which she filled with cookie dough and other treats.

I knit this vest for Megan. 

I made (with help from Megan-in cutting out squares and my friend Amy -in sewing) this quilt for Aaron. Megan made him a wool green beret.

Megan made me this beautiful scarf.

Others gave very nice gifts as well but those were the handmade ones. Compared to many our Christmases I am sure are very simple. I am thankful for that. I like it that way. 

  One highlight of the time for me was all of us working together to make supper on Christmas Eve. We made hamburgers (with homemade buns), fried potatoes, onion rings, deep fried pickles and jalapeños and milk shakes. It was just fun to have all of my kids here and work together to make a yummy supper. After supper we played games and then everybody stayed here overnight. Having all my kids here together is such a blessing. I treasure it when it happens.

  One Sunday after church my parents and my brother Luke and his family joined us for lunch and that was fun too. Holidays are fun in that they prompt us to get together with family a little more and that is wonderful.

 

December Goals/Challenges

We have a grocery store in town (which is actually in the same building as the Flower Shop that I work part time at) that gives out "Gas stamps". You get 1 stamp for every $5 you spend and then you put 20 stamps on a card and that is worth $1 to buy either gas or groceries. I collect stamps and will use them occasionally but I don't shop there real often normally - especially since ALDI came to town. But one day not long ago my boss brought 3 zip lock bags into work and wondered if I wanted them. I guess their family had been collecting them for years but hadn't used them. I said "Sure"!

   When I got home the kids and I guessed on how much they are worth. I guessed $45, Megan $50 something and Aaron $180. I haven't gotten them all glued together yet but using up two bags plus a little more I am up to $190. What a blessing! So that brings about December's financial challenge: Use only gas stamps to buy all of my food and gas for the month. I also don't plan on doing any other shopping except for I have a $12 rebate check for Menards, $30+ in credit at a local second hand store (where I get pretty much all of my clothes since I can sell other things there and then just use money that I have made to buy what I want) and a $20 gift certificate to another 2nd hand store. Other than that I don't plan to do any shopping. The grocery store  where I will use the gas stamps does limit your spending to ten filled cards (worth $10) at a time. So it is a good thing that I work right next door. I can do a little shopping and getting of gas every day that I work if need be.

  My goal is not to spend hardly anything else either (other than giving or extra on my mortgage - the reason I want to save is for those purposes) but I do leave it open to pay money for activities if that seems the best way to spend time with those I love. That could include skiing, rock climbing, going out to eat, etc. I don't currently plan to do any traveling this month but if an opportunity should come up I would be willing to do that and pay the money for trip expenses if it seems like a wise thing to do.

    You may wonder how that works with Christmas coming. We have a very simple Christmas and this year we are trying to make all handmade gifts (and I will use the many, many things I already have on hand to make things with. Most of those things (fabric, yarn, etc) have been given to me as people know that I like to make things. I will be sure to tell you about the gifts I made but probably not until next month. So making homemade gifts is one of my other challenges for the month. I have ideas for everybody but I still would love to hear about any cool handmade gifts that you have given or received - especially for men. I can always use some new ideas.

 Another challenge is to clean out 2 spaces each week. This will help to get our house into a cleaner and tidier state and helps in the decluttering process as well. 

  Another goal that I hesitate to state because I am afraid I can't get it done - is to finish the challenge that I started at the beginning of this year to record a song on 12 different instruments in 2022. I rather dropped the ball on this one but I would still really like to do it. So I am going to try.

   I had a lovely week that I really would like to share more about but it truly is time to head to bed. I will leave you with a couple of pictures from this evening. We watched Malcolm while his parents went bowling and had a delightful time.

  

Megan is working to change the mantle from fall to Christmas and decided that Malcolm made a nice decoration.

Malcolm (on the Ukulele) and Aaron made some music this evening.

  Jonathan also joined us for supper this evening. My heart is full - I got to spend time with all of my kids today.

 

Enjoying the Simple Things...

   Winter is such a lovely time to slow down a little bit and to really just enjoy being home. It can be easy to get caught up in the bustle of preparing for Christmas but I hope you are able to truly enjoy each moment and each person that you are spending time with. Here are some of the simple things that I am enjoying....

• Fires in our fireplace.
• Stocking that we made last year with real rabbit fur and our names done in cross-stitch. 
• The glow of Christmas lights.
• Card-making.
• Watching Megan paint and crochet.
• Ice Skating on the river.
• Writing letters and thinking fondly of those that I am writing to.
• A simple supper with Ken while the kids were at youth group. Enjoying some fancy cheese and crackers that I was given for my birthday (a great gift by the way - fun and different and consumable!).
• Candles - I love my homemade beeswax candles and other non-scented ones. I need to remember to light them more often.
• Walks in the starlight.

• Drinking tea with family and friends.
• The reading of books that make me think and grow.
• Prayer - by myself and with others. It gives me such strength and peace.
• The making of music. I love to sit down and play the piano or pull out my violin. I love to sing with Megan while we work. I enjoy hearing Aaron play his guitar and sing and I welcome any other music that comes up in our home as well.
• Fresh bread.
• Phones calls from friends.

What simple things are you enjoying right now? 

Hello!

 I just wanted to pop in quickly and let you know that I am still alive and actually doing very well. Life has just been full of other stuff lately and after nearly blogging every day in October I took a huge break in November. I hope to be back a bit more this month! :-)

 Here are a few things that have been part of my life lately.....

• Our family hosted a craft sale. Most of my November was insanely busy getting things ready for it. I wanted to do the best job that I could and knew that there was an end date in sight so I got up early and stayed up late getting ready for it and used every available moment. Considering the amount of people that came and the amount of sales that were made it was not a successful event. However it was a learning experience so that is worth something and I am incredibly thankful that we didn't lose money on the venture. We just spent a lot of time.
• A wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday with family and friends. God is so very good to us!
• Starting a new music group class for 8 children. It has been a lot of fun and prompted me to practice some unused instruments again (to introduce them to the children) and to learn more about various composers. I have also been able to explore new and fun ways to teach various musical concepts. I am loving it!
• Preparing for teaching Medieval Music at our homeschool co-op this week. I am loving learning more about it and diving into a different music then I have truly tried before.
• Megan bought herself a zither. We have all enjoyed learning to play it and I am so enjoying seeing her take of on it. It has been so neat to watch her learn how to write out music for it which has made her learn more about music. Can you tell that we are just really enjoying God's gift of music an extra lot right now?
• Getting to help my sister Martha and her family unload their possessions in a new home that is about 6 hours closer to us then their last one (though still 2 hours away but that isn't bad). We are very excited about having them closer! They are the new camp caretakers for the camp that our children go to.
• Having fun going to a Christmas concert (more music!) with Ken.
• Having my sisters Martha and Keren and their families over for supper tonight. So fun to get to spend time together!
• Experiencing hail, sleet, rain with thunder and lightening and snow all in one day. That was today.
• Loving a beautiful sunset over a frozen river.
• Butchering (well helping - we were so thankful that my parents were able to help us!) 2 deer. The boys went hunting for the first time this year and they both got one. What a neat blessing! We have been enjoying the venison.
• This week, following our craft sale, I have been enjoying getting some fun reading in. I haven't read to many books just for fun for a while and now I have gone through several this week.

Oh boy, it is time to get to bed. I hope your December is off to a good start!

The 31st Day of Attempting to Live with Zero Waste

So it has been a month. It has been fun this little challenge of trying to live with Zero Waste. Naturally the zero is not really an attainable goal (rather like the "Be perfect, for I am perfect" sort of thing) but it was something to aim at. Tomorrow I plan on taking trash pictures and giving you a run down on how the month went. I think over all it was pretty good but I will share more details tomorrow. :-)

   I have missed several days of blogging for this series. I rather hope to go back and fill in the empty days but we shall see. 

  The next few weeks look to be pretty busy. We have decided to do a "Handmade Christmas Sale" on the evening of Black Friday and then on Small Business Saturday. I have been looking for ways to earn a little more money just now and we are going to try this out. So I will be very busy working at creating.

Mittens re-purposed from sweaters is the project I am currently working on. This activity isn't completely zero waste but it certainly reduces the amount of waste that needs to go in the landfill. And if I can make some money from it as well - that would be pretty sweet.

   Many of you are familiar with things I have made in the past (and if you are not you could just click on the "Handwork" button on the side bar) and I am curious what you might suggest would be a good item for us to work to make and sell from what you know that we make. And whatever you make you can be pretty sure that I will be keeping it as Zero Waste as possible. :-)

   

Seeking to Simplify {What about Holidays?}

Since we just celebrated a holiday yesterday I thought that I would write about Holidays and Simplifying in that area. I think that the purpose for trying to simplify in our lives is primarily because we want less stress and less chaos. We want to be able to focus on the things we find most important. Is that true for you?

 I also think that holidays can be a stressful and chaotic time for many people. Is that true for you? They don't have to be that way but somehow they can easily get that way. Holidays are very full of traditions and so often we keep going doing what we have always done growing up just because that seems like what we should do. Then when we get married we have to figure out how to add in the traditions from our spouse's family too. Things can start to get overwhelming if we don't start to make some conscious decisions about what truly works for us and what doesn't. Holidays are tricky too because they involve others. If we could just decide what works for me and maybe my young children (forget about what my husband wants, my parents, my in-laws, my adult children, etc) it could be easy. But do we really want it that way? NO! We want it to be a fun time for everybody and with everybody feeling loved and respected. So it can get challenging. Discussions need to be had at times and sometimes there is no way around it but somebody gets disappointed (or perhaps hurt or angry if that is their nature). But if we can have our discussions with love and respect and a willingness for a little compromise when necessary I think we can have a fun time celebrating Holidays with our family and friends. We can simplify and focus on what is truly important to us and get rid of at least some of the chaos and stress.

   I will admit when it came to blending families and holidays Ken and I have had it pretty easy. I know many (probably most) of you have it way harder. For one thing - I grew up in a family with very, very limited holiday traditions. We didn't do much at all to celebrate Christmas (my Grandma sent us a box of gifts and sometimes we would be involved in a Christmas program at church - that was it. And that was by choice and I don't think any of us kids felt deprived or unhappy about that.), Valentine's day basically wasn't observed, Memorial and Labor days were celebrated by going to church rallies (which we loved), On the 4th of July we generally went to the parade and once and a while fireworks or we did our own shooting of guns at home, Thanksgiving was a time to have a special meal and invite others over to join us, New Years Eve was very special with a New Years Eve sing at my Grandpa's. We did celebrate Birthdays but never any large parties.

  As far as Ken's family - They celebrated birthdays and Thanksgiving in similar ways to us and Ken didn't bring any traditions from the other Holidays into our marriage except Christmas. Also his parents had always made a big deal about their anniversary (mine didn't) and so that was something he figured we would do to. Christmas was a big deal for Ken (and it wasn't for me) as it was full of traditions from time at his grandparents. What is interesting now is that Ken's parents don't even celebrate it any more and his grandparents are now gone but the childhood traditions remain important to Ken.

   For us too our families live a long distance apart from one another (over 1,000 miles) so we don't have to try to split a holiday up jumping from one house to another. Also if Ken's family has ever been here for a Holiday (and most of my family is here too) than we just all celebrate together. Our parents and siblings are friends too so we can just be one big happy family. That is truly a blessing! Ken's parents could potentially move here sometime and so it is comforting to know that they would just join the party so to speak when it comes to celebrating holidays. If this isn't the case with your family is it possibly something that could be developed? Would that help to simplify your holiday time or only confuse it more - something to think about.

    So, largely we have not had a lot to stress us out concerning our extended family when it comes to holidays which I know is not the case with many of you. But still we have had to be mindful about the traditions that we have created and what we chose to do. It might start out fun  but get overwhelming over time so it never hurts to step back and rethink things and discuss them.

Our table yesterday

   In our family we do enjoy special days. I enjoy decorating and Ken enjoys seeing it he also enjoys helping some at times such as putting lights on the outside of our house. The kids always seem to enjoy any effort that is made to make a day special. Ken is good at gift giving, I enjoy making homemade gifts but going shopping to try to find ones to buy tends to stress me out. Ken loves traditions like a certain meal for a certain time, always going to watch fireworks or going on a walk to gather greenery every year. I am not personally as in love with traditions but I am learning to enjoy them too and to honor Ken by keeping them with him. As we observe what we really enjoy and what just feels stressful to us we are talking about that and fine tuning our holidays to be fun for all of us. 

When we think about clutter in our homes holidays can easily become a source of a lot of that. I know that many families get lots and lots of gifts for Christmas and Birthdays plus gifts at Easter and Valentine's day too. Are there other Holidays that people give gifts at? Early on in our raising kids this was a concern for me that there would be to much stuff which just clutters our home and honestly I feel it can lead to dissatisfied and ungrateful children so we have tried to be careful in that area. Here are some of the decisions we made it that area:

•  For Christmas we decided to set a limit - that all the gifts for a certain person must fit in their Christmas stocking. As you can see from the picture above that kind of gets stretched a little with things sticking out the top but still over all we abide by that rule. Also we don't exchange gifts with our extended family at this time so that does help a lot.
• For Birthdays. We do exchange gifts but we try not to be excessive and their are practical gifts (socks, other clothes, etc) given as well. The local part of my extended family does tend to join us in giving presents at birthdays but thankfully my mom is also largely practical in her gift giving and things don't get to excessive. We have never had birthday parties with lots of other children partly because I wanted to avoid large amounts of gifts. I figure we can have fun with other kids at other times. We have held skating parties, etc instead but not centered around a birthday.
• Valentines and our Anniversary. Ken and I used to exchange gifts at this time. This past year when I was feeling overwhelmed by stuff we visited about it and I requested that maybe we don't do that anymore. We still enjoy doing something special together (taking a trip, going on a date) and a card is fine but I thought it would be nice to avoid more stuff.
• Mother's Day and Father's Day - the kids tend to fix us meals, make cards, possibly pick a bouquet of flowers and maybe make a small gift but it is usually pretty simple and I love it that way. We do also like to spend time with extended family and I will usually try to give cards/small gifts to our parents.

   The way we celebrate holidays may not sound fun to you and I am not saying you should do it this way. I just think it makes sense to look at the Holidays you celebrate and determine if they are fine as is or if they feel stressful (not simple) to you and if so, why? When you determine the cause, what can you do to change it? Can you stop doing a part of it? Can you work on it earlier and not procrastinate so that it is fun - not stressful? Or is it really important to others and you need to pray for God's help in changing your attitude about it?

    I would love to hear your thoughts about celebrating holidays while seeking to live a more simple life.

  Also, quickly - my simplifying report for the past week. :-)

I got rid of 72 items. I cleaned out my e-mail inbox every day! I went through 5 pictures files every day. I did not sell anything. Also I still have been keeping a clean desk and that feels super good. A music student saw my office today and her comment was "You keep your office so clean!" That felt really good as that has been true this year but it wasn't true for many, many years. I have struggled with having a messy desk since I was a young child. At that time of my life I would move everything from my desk to my bed in the day so that I could work on it and then from my bed to my desk at night again so that I could sleep. In college I still struggled with a messy desk and then that followed me into my marriage. So, I am so happy that I have had a clean on for the past month and a half. It seems like the habit of keeping it clean should be truly developed now so I will just work at maintaining that habit. 

What Do You Have in Your Hand? {A Homemade Gift}

The plan for these posts is to encourage us all to look at what we have already to use rather than thinking we need to go out and buy something more. One way that I enjoy doing that is in making homemade gifts for others. I could go out and buy something for them for their birthday or Christmas or whatever but often times I have no really good idea of what they would like or could use. So just going out and buying something just so I can have a gift to give seems to me to be wasteful. So I have been working to do a better job of observing what people enjoy and then trying to figure out something that I can make (usually with things that I already have) for them instead.

Here is one of our recent (It was for Christmas) projects that we worked together to make for Ken using things that we already had on hand. It was a very successful (meaning he liked it!) gift and it was doubly fun because the kids and I had a great time working on it together.

  We made: "Ticket to Ride - Minnesota"

 
We have really enjoyed the game "Ticket to Ride" and we owned the United States version, and had played the Europe version but we thought it would be fun to have a Minnesota version too. Ken had found a map from 1930 that you could see of the railroads of MN and we thought it would be pretty fun to turn that into a game board.

   We had talked about months ago and hadn't done anything about it so as Christmas approached I thought that would be a fun gift to make for Ken. For my birthday in early December Ken bought me another version of "Ticket to Ride" which is Rails and Sails and has a map of the world on one side and the great lakes region on the other. That was pretty fun but we still thought it would be fun to do a MN version and it gave me the idea of putting the new game board on the back side of our original game board.

The items that we used to make the game were:

• Paper. I had bought a 500 sheet package of this heavy, large paper last year which we used for our printing press but I had a lot leftover that I could use. I did have to make it in 6 different sections as one piece did not cover the game board.
• Pencils and permanent markers.
• Modge podge
• Cardstock and a printer
• Stamp and Versamark inkpad.
• MN map
• The computer for lots of research.
• Wood (Jonathan made extra playing pieces)

I drew the outline of MN (the north eastern tip had to by cut off - poor thing - but it didn't have any railroads there anyway) on the papers. Then Jonathan and I figured out which towns we would use. We used the 1930 map as reference but couldn't put in every town and track they had as that would have made a game board that was way to crowded.

 Megan helped with a lot of the art work on the game board though Jonathan and I did some too. Mara and Aaron mainly just offered suggestions though they lent a hand a couple of times. You can see the wooden game pieces that Jonathan made in these pictures.

We were careful to get the towns in the RIGHT places on this map. That is something that bugs us about the USA version - Duluth is placed where St. Paul really is. After everything was drawn then I modge podged the paper to the back of the game board that we already had.

 We had to make new tickets for this game. I had fun researching each town and figuring out what they may have had going or coming from their town in 1930. So our tickets include what the train is hauling on them. We also put a picture of a real train from MN on the back side of our cards and then we stamped a stamp of MN with versamark (it shows up very lightly) on the other side.

On Christmas day evening we had fun giving it a try.

Another gift for Ken this Christmas was extra pieces (so that 6 people - not just 5 can play) for the Rails and Sails Ticket to ride version. Aaron and I made them out of clay and then painted them purple. Game playing is something our family really enjoys - Ken loving it the most so stuff to do with games makes a good gift for him. These ideas worked especially well as our game cupboard is rather crowded but this didn't take any extra space - these things fit in boxes that were already in the cupboard.

  Have you ever made a game? I have seen some other cool ideas out there before but it seemed like a lot of work and I hadn't attempted it. This was a lot of work but a lot of fun too and I was impressed by the educational factors of working on it. We learned our MN geography better, we learned some history (from my researching - and naturally I told the kids all about the interesting things I learned while sitting around the lunch table) and it was a great way to get better at art. 

 Reporting on my "No spend challenge" and "Using what is in my hand" - This past week went pretty well. I didn't buy anything except I did pay for the services of a Chiropractor visit for our dog, Kitchi. He has been limping for some time and the Vet recommended the chiropractor. He came in December once and was able to do some good but thought we better has a check up visit this month. Thank-fully he thought that should now take care of it. Kitchi had lost muscle mass (quite a bit) in one leg and it is now coming back again so that is very nice.

   Another item that did get bought (though not by me) was boxes of facial tissue. Jonathan reported to Ken that we were nearly out and the two of them didn't think that would work very well (even though the majority of us mostly use handkerchiefs) and so Ken went and stocked up on them. He also bought milk but I said that we would do that.

   Not buying is always an interesting challenge in the food department. We stock up tons of food for winter so it would take us a long time to get to the point of going hungry but still when I take a month or so off from shopping we do tend to run out of some things. Popcorn and white sugar have been missed a little bit. We are also running low on fresh produce but I am growing sprouts and wheatgrass to make up for that lack. Spaghetti noodles are also very low and Aaron feels that might be a bad deal but the rest of us think we will be able to survive. :-) Our chickens have decided with this cold weather (I think that is the reason) that they shouldn't need to lay very often so we have had to have quite a lot of eggless breakfasts. That is fine - I just have to think a little more as Eggs is often a normal breakfast for us. We have also been using up quite a bit of the milk that I canned this summer so that we don't have to buy as much. I am very thank-ful for all the good food that we are able to put up each summer and fall.

   Are you working to spend less at your home? I would love to hear your stories!

Our Town in Miniature { a fun family project}

I hope you and your family had a blessed Christmas time. We did. God is so good to bless us and provide for us each and every day. We had a fairly quiet holiday time at home with the family. My parents and a friend came over for Christmas Dinner but otherwise it was a time of celebrating with just our immediate family. I don't like that small of a crowd for Thanksgiving but I don't mind it at Christmas time. (My other local siblings were out of town visiting in-laws.)

  One of the things I enjoy about Christmas time is spending extra time creating things. We did a fair amount of that this year and really had some fun working on some group projects.

  One of the big family projects of this year was creating a Christmas window scene for Ken's office window at his Insurance Agency. The Jaycees club had announced a contest for the downtown businesses and Ken thought it would be fun to participate. We thought that would be pretty cool if a bunch of businesses would decorate their windows as it would make walking downtown a lot of fun. So we started brainstorming about how it would be fun to decorate it. We decided that it would be quite fun to make a miniature of our town (parts of it anyway) set in an earlier era. We especially wanted statues of Paul and Babe as that is iconic of our town.

  So we began....

Making Paul and Babe was a little intimidating. I wasn't quite sure how to do it. I have found with projects though that if you just get started and try usually you can figure things out as you go along and it will work out. So I printed off and picture and got some wire to use and got started.

I made some rough looking wire frames.

Then came the paper mache. I have hardly ever done paper mache but I think it is rather fun now. I can see more paper mache projects in my future. It is such a cheap craft using old paper, flour, water and then some kind of form. The form above was my original look for Babe but then members of my family gave me some good constructive criticism and I was able to add more paper and improve his look quite a bit.

They are coming along....

Meanwhile buildings were also being constructed. My big project was the old Carnegie Library and Mara made 2 houses, Jonathan constructed a neighborhood store/house (Which I found were extremely common in the 1940s - Our town had around 20 of them that year and our town is not that large), and Megan made a house.

After the paper mache was dry it was time for painting.

Late one night I also constructed a car. My family wasn't to impressed (the boys were really hoping I would find appropriate cars of the right size and era to buy- but we didn't) but I was pretty delighted with my attempt to turn a butter box into a car. I also was able to use some dried-up/gooey black paint to form around milk lids to make tires. The tire guard things are from toilet paper rolls. I find turning trash into something else very satisfying.

I mounted Paul on a piece of wood so he could stand up. They were placed in a snowy field by the "lake".

Here is our Carnegie Library decorated for Christmas.

Megan and I cut out bunches of snowflakes to hang with lights above. They look a lot better when the lights are on but I guess I didn't get a picture that way.

The side of Jonathan's house/store.

One of Mara's houses.

Megan decided that she wanted to have her little girl (we also hand made around 20 wire and yarn people for our scene) looking out the chimney, of the house she made, checking if it would work for Santa to go down. Ken and I weren't so sure about that look but humored her. The mother holding a baby is outside watching her.

The grocery store from the front with a lady with packages coming out of it.

We made some carolers to go sing at one of the houses.

We also made a bunch of paper mache snowmen that were scattered here and there. Mara made some "Christmas lights" from little beads which you can see in the "tree".

We had some people sledding on our hill. We created hills in various places by putting boxes under our tablecloths and batting.

This little boy is making a snowman while the gentlemen is looking at Paul and Babe.

The carolers at another house that Mara made.


The finished product.

 Also... Because you know I am frugal I just wanted to share that we only used things we already had for this display. Much of what we used was repurposed and so that made the project even more fun for me.

Here is some more information shared by our local TV station:

We worked on another big project this season as well - a gift for Ken - that hopefully I can tell you about soon. Did you do any fun creating lately? I would love to hear about it. Also if you have written about it online please leave a link!