Santa's present

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. We sure did. It was our first one as a family at home. Well I guess Gregg and I spent Christmas alone when I was pregnant with Lills on bedrest, but as you can imagine it was less than exciting. This year was so much fun! I had wanted to make tamales on Christmas Eve but I couldn't find any of the essentials at the grocery stores so we ended up with a mexican feast featuring tacos. It was really good and I am guessing a lot less work. Then for Christmas my dad sent us a turkey from the honey baked ham company. It was amazing and again a lot less work because it was already precooked, we just had to heat it up and make some sides. Lilly and I made gingerbread cookies for Santa, this gingerbread recipe is amazing.

Santa brought Lilly a garden!



When I started asking Lilly what she wanted to ask Santa for for Christmas. She had no idea really what or who Santa was so I started making suggestions of things she might like from him. She seemed most excited when I mentioned expanding her play kitchen with a garden.


Santa was utterly and jaw dropperly inspired by Homemade by Jill's felt playhouse. That playhouse is something else, all the details she used, I can see why Santa was so inspired by her. Fortunately for me, Santa knew that our dining room table also serves as my sewing table so making a whole playhouse would mean I would have to share and he knew that was not going to happen. So he decided on a single panel garden to place next to her kitchen.


When Lilly and I were working on her letter to Santa, we were drawing what the garden might contain some things I suggested and others she suggested, a pumpkin, green beans, and a yellow "baby" (spaghetti squash) were a must in her book.

(the veggies and flowers are in pockets)

(the fruit, birds, and butterfly are all attached with velcro)

One day when Lilly and I were in the real kitchen we both had our aprons on she noticed that I had a hook to hang my apron on and she did not. She asked me if Santa might bring her a hanger for her apron too. um, an organized play area? yes, Santa please bring one! That darn guy also thought having two bags to hold all her plates, cups and play food would be a good idea too.


Santa had the BEST time making her garden. Each part was so much fun to work on. And even though he barely finished it before heading out on Christmas Eve it was just not a stressful project.


So far Lilly seems to really enjoy it. She is very into telling stories so Gregg and I have used the garden and the new play food in our stories. She likes to cook for us and now will go to the garden to pick us food!