What's Under Our Tree This Year.....

After decorating the tree they ate pumpkin chocolate-chip cookies and drank hot cocoa while listening to Christmas music


I alway enjoy reading about gift ideas or hearing about what my friends are giving others so I can get ideas. So, I decided to post what we are giving this year to give you some ideas. Because my hubby occasionally reads this blog, I'll have to refrain from revealing what I am giving him.
Last year I did a "Giftorama" series featuring pics of lots of gifts we gave. Go here to see them.



I was too busy to get pics of everything before it was wrapped, so it'll just be a list this year:

Alathia:

*4 pretty little girl dolls (8inch x 4inch) with comb-able hair and outfits (25 cents for all of them at a yard sale this summer)

*A placemat I created on the half-off sale at http://www.seehere.com/ with lots of pics from our Denver Zoo trip featuring her favorite animals

*A SEEDS music CD--Encouragement (Bible verses set to upbeat music the whole family can enjoy)

*A BPA-free water bottle

*A fun sweatshirt hoodie ($3 on Black Friday)

*A stuffed ballerina doll (25 cents at the thrift store)

*A 1983 Cuddles baby My Little Pony ($2 on ebay--Ali plays with My Little Ponies nonstop like I did when I was little but I can't stand the new style of ponies with their misshapen bodies and huge heads and enormous eyes. So, I found the first pony I ever had, Cuddles, for a fun surprise for her!)

Total Spent: $22.50

Jeremiah:

*A toy vaccuum (25 cents at my friend's yard sale--he loves to play with this and everytime we would go over there he'd play with that the whole time, so of course I bought it!)

*A toy jeep (10 cents at a yard sale in like-new condition)

*A placemat with his favorite pics from the Denver Zoo

*A stuffed monkey (to replace the favorite one he lost somewhere-the kid loses EVERYTHING!)

*A BPA-free water bottle

*A SEEDS worship music CD--Praise

Total spent: $22.35

Justus:

*A stainless steel sippy cup (The Safe Sippy)

*A big white Teddy Bear with clothes that say "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" (25 cents at the thrift store)

*A plastic baby train set (25 cents at a yard sale)

*New pacifiers

Since I don't have a lot for Justus I thought about wrapping up some old toys from the shed because he'd never know they were his own old toys and wouldn't care. But, now that I think about it, I think he'll be so wrapped up in playing with his train he won't even care that he didn't have quite as much as the other kids to open this year!

Total Spent: $17.50


Gifts For Them To Share:

*Candy cane coloring books--tell the story behind the candy cane


*Praise DVDs (they LOVE to dance to praise and worship music, especially music videos of it. Found a couple on sale on http://www.christianbook.com/ for $3-4 each).

*Virtue Books--6 books on manners, honesty, friendship, kindness, etc.

Total spent: $13





*I will also be throwing some little boxes of raisins, some bagged crackers, and some cutie pie oranges in their stockings (instead of candy) since they love all of those things.*




Total Spent on the kiddoes for a wonderful Christmas:
$75.35






Some of you may think this is terribly high, while others may think this is terribly low. To each his own, right? The funny thing is, we only budgeted $20 to spend on ALL THREE kiddoes this year because we knew we had quite a few yard sale toys in storage for Christmas. But, I went a little overboard, as I have a tendency to do with all the great Christmas sales, and the extra $50 just came out of my grocery money, which is fine since bulk-cooking allows for a lot of wiggle room with the grocery budget!



I should add that the toys from the yard sale are in TOP-NOTCH condition! I have a friend who has some very zealous in-laws and parents who buy her girls gazillions of toys and she is a perfect housekeeper who keeps her toys absolutely spotless (even runs them through the dishwasher once a week!) So when she planned a yard sale I planned to be there FIRST! Unfortunately some early birds came when she was setting up and cleaned out "all of the good stuff" so she said, but I still came away with 4 or 5 bags of awesome toys for a couple of bucks. Some went to our church nursery, some we used as little surprises for the kids to unwrap on our last 18 hour drive to MN, and some we saved for Christmas.