Lol, 'bug...I am amazed at all the gear we've collected in this house. I hate clutter, but somehow the baby stuff is okay. We even bought a car seat a couple of weeks ago. All right, here we go..today is officially Jude's birthday. Scenes from yesterday's festivities: It took Uncle Phil a little longer than it took Grandma to be okay with flipping Jude upside down. They seem to have the hang of it now, though. I don't think he knew what was expected of him with the bags of noisy paper, but he caught on pretty quick. The car was okay, but food is MUCH better! A Radio Flyer wagon and a teddy bear. What more does a boy need?? Uncle Phil put tears in my eyes by giving Jude his teddy bear from when he was little. How he got that white bear so clean is beyond me! Daddy got the paper started, and Jude more or less did the rest. Important "guy talk". Being an Uncle has been a wonderful thing for my cynical child ;) Nearly naked cake-eating. This day just keeps getting better and better!!! There's gotta be a better way! I just love baby feet! After the inevitable sugar-crash nap. HEY, helium.... RISES!! I don't know, he just makes me laugh! Learning words with Grandpa, who is wearing his IU souvenier Kendall Jackson cap ;) Thus far, no pictures with Grandma in them have surfaced. I'm not giving up hope, as there was QUITE a press gallery in attendance. What a good day! I was the only one who was able to talk Jude into feeding me cake, and I got a couple of kisses, too! Life is incredibly GOOD :D

I love this thread and glad to see it back! I am kind of hit and miss at doing crafts. I have done lots of the glass garden totems, I posted some pics here of them some time ago. And I do make jewelry as my hands allow these days. Right now I have been named Project Manager for our Garden Club and I come up with crafts and projects we can all do for fun and also to sell at our yearly sale. This is one of the more recent ones I taught them and I made for the sale. They are fall leaf covered candle holders. Super easy.

excel spreadsheets? lists? rooms dedicated to wrapping? Sheesh that's far too organized for me. I thought just getting the ornaments organized by tree was a HUGE undertaking! For wrapping I use the desperately rushed, christmas is in 4 hours, need a bottle of wine approach. I spread out the entire mess of crap with a hole in the middle for me and the wine, and begin digging my way out carefully :p I actually am organized when it comes to the decorations though. I have one attic for trees, one for ornaments that go on the trees that are on the 3rd and 4th floor as well as the decoration, and then I store the decorations and ornaments for the first floor and second floor are kept on the second floor. Less hauling down (and up) stairs that way :) I also label the boxes for the appropriate tree which is helpful when distributing boxes around the house. WHile I can obviously see what's vintage and what's traditional as well as all the other themes of a tree through the plastic boxes, I don't know how many vintage go to each tree unless I put them in separate boxes. THat leaves me just enough ornaments for each tree without taxing my little brain. I wish I could apply that kind of organization to presents LOL I do actually wrap all but the Santa ones in advance (so that's the 23rd verses the 24th btw) and those can go out under the main tree. I have been known to buy the same thing more than once...perhaps that list idea is a good one LOL Gad a room dedicated to wrapping and holiday storage...well I'm a bit nutso over christmas (major santa barf is in EVERY room) so that would have to be a big big big room! But it's a lovely fantasy!

I would look around your community for ideas. Mine has a splashpark that is popular among families with toddlers (it's like a mini, age-appropriate "waterpark" for the little crowd), a children's museum, some local farms that have children's programs, etc. Our splashpark is free, so for the "gift" perhaps a few beach towels, little flip-flops or sunglasses for the kids (if any of these are still available at a Target or Kohls--we get these things around Xmas time for those planning winter vacations to warm-weather destinations) and a gift certificate to a local lunch or ice cream spot. Your card explain a day of family fun. You could do this same thing with a local petting zoo, switching out the beach towels for hand sanitizer. ;-) That's just an idea off the top of my head, but my first inclination would be to look around my community to see what's available for families with toddlers. It's been a while since mine were that age, but I always savored those days when our family just blew a whole Saturday having nothing but fun with the kids.