Wow! I'm Really Early For Christmas

Just listening to the lovely rain, at 2:30 am. I'm not usually awake. But I went to bed so early this evening because it was so dark and the house was cold. I had hoped our electric blanket had been able to resurrect itself and start working again. I changed the setting from high to "8" and it did work! I had my own little miracle and so grateful for a warm bed.

I was going to look at Twitter, read the news, check my children on Facebook, but our bed was so cozy, I fell right to sleep. And now, more than 8 hours later, I'm wide awake.

I'm enjoying soft, sweet music, listening to the rain, and thinking about what today will be like and Christmas Day.

I didn't put-up one single decoration for Christmas. Steve put the tree up and my grand daughter gave me the lovely wreath. I was really in the "mood" of Christmas. But, I was very, very much trying to make all the Christmas gifts... and what I couldn't make,  Kiely was helping by making cute and stylish hats. So fun working together and so blessed Kiely and Matt could come down and share Christmas with us.

My goal was to make each family a "Family Yahtzee" game. I ended-up being rushed because our saw didn't work, my Steve had to borrow one and ripped a 2x4 to make the blocks. Okay,  our sander is missing and we looked everywhere! Steve often goes to his mother's house and she said that she needed to give him his dad's sander.

Yay! He brought the sander home and it wasn't a day later we found-out that the sander belonged to our brother-in-law. Steve's nephew was working on something down at Steve's mother's house and left it there. Oops! I guess the sander Doug used so much, went away a long time ago. Steve jumped in the car and took the sander right back. Kinda' funny.

I sanded the blocks by hand, but all the blocks were still needing so much more. I decided to cover the slivery blocks with Mod-Podge and cute papers and then put the faces on each side corresponding with matching paper I picked for each person(s) or thing.

A couple family's don't have six children or not through completing their family ...  so I substituted the Temple, heart for love, etc. I made for each face or object 6 times and Mod-Podged it all together. Our weather has been really wet this year, so I had a long drying time. The paper background really helped me keep the pictures in order. I turned and pasted and turned and pasted, so every picture went on a certain paper.

I Liked The Black Grunge Frame Like Instagram Photos

The Fan Is On The Right Side To Help Drying

We made each  individual family their own score sheet and laminated one to keep with a bunch of paper copies. I just used a copy of a Yahtzee sheet and erased what didn't work and added the names in with the Photoshop. It wasn't easy, but it fit an 8x11 sheet of paper and we cut the excess on the sides off.

This is the Biggest I could Get The Game Scoresheet. Just use a Photo-editing program and add text to the points in both "Upper Section" and "How To Score"

I went back to the blocks and painted each side with "Triple Coat" Diamond Glaze. The blocks look like glass. I made some pedants for the girls and used "Enviro-Tech" resin glaze. Wish I had used that product on the blocks. They would be water-proof. It's okay.. The best part, if they have a baby and want to add more like another face on each of the blocks, the "Diamond Glaze" is only $3.50 a bottle and 40% off if you have a coupon. Just a matter of gluing a picture over the each side and adding a coat and wait 24 hours and add another coat for a glossy-look.I had the fan on the cubes because our humidity and cold house made the time longer to set the blocks coating to a completely dry touch. No tacky blocks here.

I bought bags cheaper than I could make them to hold each game. I did send two sets off already, but now I hope I separate all the families correctly. Hummm, should I mix them up a little so they think I'm losing it?

I know we still need to laminate a couple family's scorecards. Hope the business store's open today. Nothing could have changed the timing on my making these. I had to wait. I waited for the wood, I waited to see on families (more on that later), I waited on the computer to be fixed so I could layout the scorecards, and lastly, get each the latest family picture using the cute family Christmas cards.

I made the pendants last minute, too. I was trying to replace Kiely's graduation necklace because the magnet part was too heavy. I had the supplies, so she picked the little designs or pictures. I didn't want to throw-away any unused resin, so I just kept making pendants. That was fun! "Enviro Tech" has a You Tube video to do the pendants and they turned-out perfect. I think Diamond Glaze does too. I should've watched it.

Here's my daughter's present: Yahtzee and Pendants

The young men grandchildren are receiving a couple boxes of "Fruity Pebbles" cereal that is not given at home and quite the "junk" food cereal for breakfast. No worries for affecting schoolwork, they'll have the cereal gone before school starts-up again.

I gave a lot of scarves as gifts this Christmas. I've been knitting through-out this year and everyone actually needs warm around their necks, right now.  Go figure--no hot "East Wind" this year. We did have that only one East Windy day, but it was cold.  As years have gone by, the change has gone from almost 90• twelve years ago and Steve was always on fire calls to now, gradually an earlier rainy time.

It's still sweetly raining, I'm warm. We managed to skip all the money problems Christmas used to bring.

Our focus continues to be on the the birth of Our Savior. This morning my family will be out "in-force" giving-out baskets to the poor and needy. My Marnie spent yesterday's Sabbath afternoon giving blankets to the homeless in town. My heart is glad that she, and my sweet children are worried about the cold weather for others without judging. They're really looking forward to this morning's "Christmas Basket Run."

Rotary Christmas Baskets

Our family had the fire department flatbed and our FJ with a trailer. It was a very emotional experience with my family. I'm not sure of all the little ones, but the older and way older, touched my family in a way Christmas is suppose to be like with no-judging-love, kindness to all, and with examples from Jesus in the Scriptures. Giving is what The Savior would want us to do at Christmas. The "Spirit of Christmas" in my children is like no other gift I could ever receive. Merry Christmas!