Monthly Archives: December 2012

Personalized Jigsaw Puzzles

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.

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Here’s the countdown at my house.

My cousin, Janice, sent this little Santa chalkboard to my oldest daughter when she was about 1 or 2 years old, but she wasn’t old enough to grasp the concept so I stored it away.  I found it the other day when we brought out all of our Christmas decorations.  I showed it to Olivia, who’s five now, and explained what it was.  She absolutely loved the chalkboard and the fact that it was going to show her how many days until Christmas.  Thanks cuz!

As for gift ideas for children I absolutely love jigsaw puzzles, especially personalized ones because they can teach your child how to spell their own name.  There are many places where you can get a personalized jigsaw puzzle, but I like the web site www.frecklebox.com.  They have many personalized items (I also love their story books) and I have given many gifts from this website.  Sign up to receive emails so you can get discounts on their merchandise, which is very helpful if you’re on a budget.  Here’s a couple of their puzzles with my daughter’s first and middle name, which I got a long time ago.  They have a glossy finish to them and currently my youngest daughter is having fun putting these together.  I will be getting one with her name soon for Christmas.

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Once my girls are done playing with these I’m going to tape the puzzle together and frame them.

Stay alert, stay alive.

Until next time…

A year round gift

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  I can vividly remember the first time I gave my mother a custom-made family calendar as a Christmas gift to her.  She started crying!  It was of course tears of joy, but I wasn’t expecting her to cry.  Be overjoyed, yes, but not cry.  Needless to say, she absolutely loved it.  She completely immersed herself into the calendar.  It was as if the world around her suddenly disappeared and it was just her and this gift that she couldn’t wait to see.  I watched her intently.  She paused at each month and you could see her eyes darting here and there, taking in all of the images.  A loving smile would appear on her face and I knew she was looking at pictures of herself with my daughters, her only grandchildren, so far.  A small laugh would escape her when she saw the funny pictures.  I got a few “Oh my gosh,” and when she reached the end of the calendar, she let out a big, “I love it!”  Sweet music to my ears.

There are many places and web sites where you can make a calendar.  So far, I’ve made mine on www.shutterfly.com because they offer great promo codes and free shipping.  The calendars always come out great.  Since I like to include more than one picture, it usually takes me more time to assemble them into place.  Once you’re done and you complete your order, the calendars are on your doorstep fast!  My cousin loves taking her pictures to Wal-Mart and making her calendar there herself!  She’s the one who gave me the idea to give a calendar as a gift because she sends me one every year.  Another tradition that we’re forming and I love putting it on my kitchen wall and looking at my gift year round.

Stay alert, stay alive.

Until next time…

Christmas Tree

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well and getting ready for the Christmas countdown.  It has begun and yesterday we put up and decorated our little (four-foot tall) faux tree.  I’m not a big fan of cutting down real trees.  No offense to anyone.  I grew up with reusable ones.  I prefer not to hurt our environment and I like to save some money wherever I can so after I got married I went and bought my very own tree and it’s been serving us well for eleven years.  I might get a bigger one in the future, but for now this tree is perfect because I’m able to situate it high up where my darling two-year old, who loves to touch and doesn’t like to use her listening ears, can’t take any of the ornaments off.  My sweet cousin, Janice, started a tradition a long time ago of sending me an ornament each year so my tree is decorated with those cherished embellishments.  Some are handmade by her using pictures, while others were purchased signifying special moments in my life for example when we were expecting and our children’s birth facts.  I do have a love/hate relationship with decorating the tree.  I love displaying it, but kinda of hate the time it takes to decorate it, even if it’s four-foot tall,  because I can be a little stubborn with where the ornaments have to be specifically placed.  I did give in a lot this year because I didn’t put up all of my ornaments.  I just wanted to finish, fast!  And we did.  So the tree is up, now it’s time to wait for Santa to bring the presents and place them under the Christmas tree, which I take down the night before and place the presents around so my kids think that Santa came to our house.  This year my daughter became aware of placing cookies for Santa so she wants to do that for him.  🙂  It’s cute.  I love it and I hope you guys have fun decorating for the holidays.

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Mercado Christmas Tree 2012

Stay alert, stay alive.

Until next time…