I’m going to be a sewing maniac today, but first I wanted to share a few photos from the weekend.  Friday night our family worship group gathered in my home to put together Christmas boxes for an orphanage in Russia.  One of our member’s father visited there a few weeks ago on a missionary trip and what he found just about broke his heart.  Every child there was so precious and had so many needs. He felt almost powerless to help.

His daughter had the idea to recruit some help to gather necessities and some fun items to send out to the children.  All of our children helped choose what to gather.  Then on Friday we put it all out on my dining room table.

There were handmade hats and scarves (from all over the USA) and gloves.  Toothbrushes; soap and washcloths.  (Check out how cute these are!  Pam bought plain white washcloths then appliqued a heart on each one.)

For the Girls

For the Boys

There were small baby dolls; toy cars; bouncy balls and yo-yos.  Stamps; crayons, coloring books, calendars, pencils, silly bands, and bookmarks.  And for the older girls journals and lip gloss.  There was also gum and several kinds of candy.  Each of our children drew the age and gender of a child from the orphanage, then walked around the table choosing the right things for that gift.

Then the kids headed back to their parents to wrap a gift box so it could still be opened by Russian officials at inspection.

With 6 boxes to wrap (that was tricky!) I stopped taking pictures here.  But what a great evening!  It wasn’t without a little drama.  Some of the kids were confused and took more than one of each item for their bag.  It was traumatic on their egos to spread things out. But after explaining how the children might feel to find their friend with 3 and themselves with none…it made more sense. And my dear little Brandon thought he was making a gift for he and his best friend Isabelle to share.  When he found out that wasn’t the case, it was pretty awful. But after a few tears he was able to find the joy in giving a gift to a child he didn’t know who has nothing and will be able to truly appreciate it.

Then the next morning, I packed up the kids and headed to Grandma’s for our traditional gingerbread making party with cousins.  No kits were used here.  My mom bakes everything from scratch using a cast iron mold that she has had for nearly 20 years.

My nephew, Sean (what a cutie!)

Aunt Erica helping Brandon

My Heather

Heidi, almost 13! and my niece, Maddie.

Caleb

It was a hoot trying to get all of them to look at the camera at the same time.