Gifts and Receipts

Merry Christmas! I hope all of my wonderful readers had a great holiday. Kyle and I were blessed to get to spend it with our families, and I'll post some pictures of all of those celebrations soon. For now, though, I'm getting my last work day in before leaving for Kansas. I am looking forward to more time off because although I've only had to work two days this week, they've been brutal. Mainly because no one else is here, but also because I have been dealing with credit card statements and approvals. I "enjoy" keeping up with our personal budget as much as you can enjoy a task like that, but work is a different story. I have an aversion to anything relating to accounting. It's probably because I  have trouble comprehending reports and always forget to submit something. Pesky details!

The only thing keeping me going the last few days has been thinking about this weekend and all of the fun giving and getting that comes along with Christmas. This year purchasing and wrapping gifts was more fun than ever before, and Kyle and I got some really good gifts, too.

As can be expected, watching the nephews open gifts was a blast and it reminded us of how excited we used to get when we were little.
Greg and Stacie bought this cute hat for Conner. :)

The wrapping paper I bought was a little hard to tear.

My Grandpa Taylor is really hard to shop for, so his was the last gift I decided on. I saw a fun idea on Pinterest, so I decided to try it out. I used instructions from this website to find and cut out the states our family lives in. I also had to find an image of China to print out. I printed them all on off-white card stock, cut them out, drew a heart where everyone lives and then framed them. The end result wasn't perfect but I was really happy with it, and I think he really appreciated it.

Kyle and I each got a gift we were really excited about. I am the proud owner of my very first sewing machine. Oh the craft projects I can now tackle... Kyle got new plastics and stickers for his dirt bike. This was the gift he wanted most and last night he spent most of the evening putting them together. He can't wait to go riding!


And finally, another gift I got this holiday was several of you telling me how much you appreciate reading my blog. This is just a little hobby of mine, and I am flattered that any of you would take time out of your busy lives to see what's going on in our world. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you!

Well I am off to Kansas for more gift giving. What was your favorite gift to give or receive this year?

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