For some of my relatives this Christmas I am making gift sets of homemade bath and body products.  For Bob’s aunt (don’t read this, Katie), who loves my soaps, I am making a set using her favorite fragrance, plumeria, in each product.

I already made the soap bars, last week.  Today, I made a candle, using microwavable soy wax from the craft store.  I found out that all of my Bramble Berry soap fragrances can be used in candles – yea!

I am also going to make bath fizzies (!!) and lotion to round out the set.  I received my citric acid for bath fizzies yesterday and made a sample batch of three.  This is an awesome, super-fun project that you must try.  I will do a full post on the fizzie endeavors when I am through.  (Probably this weekend.)

Today, we did some Christmas crafts.  I dumped out a box of assorted crafting materials on the floor and we tried to come up with some ideas.

I made this paper ornament out of scrapbook paper.

I made these a couple of years ago, too.  You can also use old Christmas cards.  It is a good recycled ornament project.

From Martha Stewart,

These airy ornaments are a breeze to make. Cut a card into narrow strips; you’ll need about eight to 20 pieces, depending on how much space you want between them. Stack strips and punch holes through both ends with a hole punch (if the stack is too thick, do a few strips at a time); insert a paper fastener into each hole. Bend the stack into a C shape (the card’s design should be facing out), and wiggle the strips apart so they fan out to form a globe. To hang, take decorative thread and, starting at the middle of the strand, wind it around the paper fastener several times, then knot ends. When the holidays are over, push strips back into a stack to store without crushing (removing one fastener makes it easier).

There are other recycled ornament ideas at the link.

Big E made this snowflake ornament, using beads and wire.  He came up with this all on his own.

D did not feel like doing crafts, so he got out a cook book and found a cookie recipe that we had all of the ingredients for (peanut butter).  He asked if he could make them and did it without any help whatsoever.

They were the most amazing peanut butter cookies I have ever tasted.

That plate was empty within minutes.

Little E stayed in my bed and played with his Power Rangers.  He is sick today, fever and all.

I hope to get some posts done with more of the things I am making for Christmas, this weekend and next week, unless I catch whatever has Little E down for the count.

Originally, their boundaries were much closer to home.

We live in an apartment complex with privately-owned streets, accessible to the city streets only on 2 sides of the property. We live at the corner of the two sides of the property that are not accessible to city streets, in a cul-de-sac that is bordered on one side by a brook.

They were always made to stay in the cul-de-sac, unless an adult was with them.

This always worked out fine because they were best friends with the girls next door and never had any reason to want to leave.

Then the girls moved.

After a long period of mourning, they were ready to find new friends.

They did, but their new friends lived outside of where the boys were allowed to go.

One friend lives outside our neighborhood, but just across the street from where one of our streets outlets to the city street.

The others (two brothers) live in our neighborhood, but up the street, out of my sight.

I had been letting the boys go up to the park, which is at the center of our neighborhood. There, they were able to play with lots of kids.

But I was always conflicted about it.

Was I giving them too much freedom?

When I found out that they were going out of the neighborhood and a few blocks away to the store, I knew that they were not ready for that freedom.

We grounded them for a week and intended to slowly give them back their freedom.

Then last night, Big E said he wished the girls never left.

I thought he was just missing them because we were looking at some photos on their mother’s MySpace page.

When I asked him why, he said, “Then we never would have left the circle. I don’t think I was ready for that much freedom.”

Wow!

I am so amazed at that level of self realization.

I don’t know that I have ever been more proud.

But I do know that they will not be having their freedom back for a while longer.

Here are the results.

From Big E…

From The D…

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he was passing in back and forth in front of the kitchen door, so I said, “[Big E], are you cleaning or just pacing back and forth?”

“Both,” he replied, “I’m multi-tasking!”

So, I am going to add three more categories: Little E Things, Big E Things, and The D Things.

Big E said, “Yeah, if Jesus didn’t save us, and die for our sins, then we wouldn’t get to go to heaven and be with God.”

Big D said, “Well, we would; we would just have to sacrifice an animal every time we did something bad.” (He reads a lot of Old Testament.) “And not just any animals, our good animals, like sheep. We would have to get them all clean and nice looking, then sacrifice them with our own hands – yuck!”

I never really thought about it that way.