Don’t you just love handmade gifts?  Especially when it’s little hands that made them?  These are 2 candles my “big girl” Emma made me for Christmas.  The candle on the left she made in her preschool class.  They mod podged little images on the outside & sprinkled it with sparkly glitter.  The candle on the left features three white snowmen made from three of her fingers.  She made that one at our MOPS group.  They are just so sweet & I remember when she gave them to me for Christmas she was so excited to be able to give me something all on her own.  So teachers, childcare workers, caretakers of children everywhere – these little things that you help our dear ones make warm my mommy’s heart in these cold winter months.  Thank you!  And keep ‘em coming!  I’ll gladly fill my entire house with knick knacks if they come from the hands of my girls.

Oh, and I love the title of this post because it reminds me of my mother-in-law’s former store:  Handmade with Love.  She no longer runs a brick & mortar store, but if you like jewelry, love unique things, or love shrinky dinks, you should check out her latest endeavors over at Fun Jewelry on eBay & Create Happiness on etsy.  She’s quite talented!

Well, I better get to bed.  We need to get in some active time tomorrow before the next big snow hits!

It’s snowmaggedon!  The snowpocalypse!  And whatever creative “snow” terms you can think of.  We’re averaging on 30″ of snow here in Arnold, Maryland.  And before the biggest snow hit, Josh had 6 boys from his high school bible study come over to spend the night.  We took on these extra six kids knowing we’d probably have them for a day or two.  And when I went shopping on Thursday, I accounted for that too.  Well, last night, after consuming a LOT of energy drinks, the boys had some energy to burn.  So they went out until 1:30am and built a massive snowman, threw snowballs at each other, & began the biggest igloo I’ve ever seen (in Maryland, that is).  We are guessing the snowman tops 7 feet.  It’s hard to measure since there’s so much snow piled up around it now.  But it is above Josh’s head and he’s 6′4″.

So the above photo  – which I snapped VERY quickly in my t-shirt & jeans – features:  Josh, Dan, Chris, Jake, Brian, Teddy, & Steve.  Thanks for coming over guys, and thanks for eating half a bag of wings, one bag of pizza rolls, 2 batches of pancakes, one pack of bacon, 1 dozen eggs, half a gallon of orange juice, & half a gallon of milk.  We loved having you!

Photos:  I’ve been reviewing Mark & Lindsey’s photos.  They got married back in October & I was working on their wedding album before I go to Ethiopia.  I’ll share that a little later.  Now I’m off to put kids to bed & work on perfecting our igloo!  We’re thinking chimney & fire!