Christmas in July

What did we do the week we were in Indiana? Christmas in July of course! 

 Karen's mom surprised us with a tree. 

Grandma played Christmas carols on the piano and we sang along.  

Grandma had ornaments for us to decorate. The kids really enjoyed the glittery glue and gluing ribbons to their ornaments.  

Grandma helping Micah with her ornament. 

Grandma made popcorn for them to string.  

I think more popcorn was eaten than strung... 

...but we did get some strung. 

Our beautiful tree all decorated.

The kids were quite proud of their tree.  

A little goofiness for the camera.  

We had given Grandma a box of our old t-shirts a while ago that we saved for a quilt.  We were thinking one quilt, well, we got four! 

We have two pictured here, but they were all beautiful.  Grandma did different themed quilts. The purple one pictured above, is Karen's and the one pictured left is Michael's.  This was very special to us.  Let's be honest...Michael cried...alright, I had tears too.  

Grandma got Jada a sewing kit, so she is now our official family mender.  Grandma was, but our mending pile would grow quite high in Guinea Bissau, so Jada has now moved into that role with her sewing kit.  Grandma made Micah's doll, Molly, an African skirt out of tie & dye material from the women of Catel, Guinea Bissau (pictured above right). The boys got some cars that they will easily be able to take on the plane and Lydia got a gift certificate to buy some books for her kindle.  These were not typical Grandma gifts (usually she makes something similar for all the grandkids), but they were all very practical gifts for our new move.  

All five kiddos with Grandma. This was a very memorable day from our visit to Indiana. Thank you Grandma for making this special for us.