Christmas in July

It was such a pleasure planning, making, worrying about, organizing, instructing, and loving this project. I certainly could not have done it on my own, so many people helped and I am SO grateful for their generosity. If I do say so myself the packages turned out darling and had more in them than I anticipated. I had enough to make 40 packages when I originally planned on 25. Once again I am overwhelmed with people's generous hearts and caring excitement. Chris and I delivered our bundles on Saturday, July 25th. While it wasn't near enough it was the best we could give. We'd love to send these families on a cruise or to a spa but how impractical is that! We made these bundles with sincere love, complete understanding, and knowing that everything will work out, even if it's saying goodbye. It was healing to give back and hopefully this is the first of many more projects. Our holiday at a glance.

Christmas in July started a bit early, on Wednesday these cute 8-11 year olds went down to the hospital to show the staff what they had worked on and to see and understand what really goes on in the unit. These girlies made: all the blankets, donated all the stuffed animals and headbands for the girls, and made 10 sets of thank you cards. Thanks girls and thank you Eve for organizing these activities! And thank you to Nicole and Ashley for accommodating and speaking to these girls. And THANK YOU Heidi for sharing your experience, I know it wasn't easy but it was PERFECT!

39 stuffed animals

Aren't these so cute? They were just as soft as they were adorable! Not too big, the perfect size for a perfect, little body!

Each baby girlie will look precious in these headbands! There were 26 total.

I ended up with 36 sets of thank you cards. Each set had 5 cards, that's 180 cards! They were all SO creative and I know they took hours to make. I was not blessed with creativeness and so I really appreciate those cute girls, and my amazing friends: Karen, Chris, Kristin, Lindsey, and Renae!!

My super cute friends, Jen and Natalie made 25 of these darling packaged, super cute cd's. Those are Jersey's shoes she got for Christmas and never got to wear. The songs they selected for this cd aren't coincidence. These songs played a major role in those 6 weeks we had with our girl. I feel like they were inspired to chose the songs they did.






These cute tags adorned the outside of each bag. Not only are they SO cute but they briefly share Jersey's story and darling face. Thank you Shanen and Mom for helping me with these, they were perfect!

It wouldn't be Christmas if there wasn't something yummy to eat. My fabulous mother-in-law, Eve, made 40 soft, delicious sugar cookies, enough for each family to have 2. Thank you !

Each basket also got an eye mask. My mom and I spent an entire day, and I mean a good 12 hours sewing these adorable, pain in the rear cuties. We ended up with 32. Thanks mom, I know it was a very looooooooooong day!

That's my cute sister who's modeling. She and my mom helped package up all these fun things.



I ended up with 85 beanies, 85! That's a ton! Thank you Chris's sister, Carissa's friend,Kristin, Jamie, Mandy, and Jesse! They came in many different sizes from teeny to large.


That's my friend Jamie, she's responsible for at least 25 hats, sorry girl, I forgot to count! I appreciate you learning for me and then spending a zillion hours crocheting them! Your flowers are better than mine by the way.

I have the sweetest, most generous, concerned friend, Mandy, she has a heart baby too. She's sent us fun packages in the mail, things for my blondies and even a precious bracelet for me. She writes me often and is always up to date on my blog. When she read about my project she wasted no time and made 14 darling sets of bows for the girlies. I've never met her, she lives in South Carolina but I hope someday to meet her and darling little Evie. Thanks girl, they were perfect!

Because it's MY project I felt it appropriate to include something about Christ so each package had a small picture in it. It was a good missionary opportunity.

Natalie, my sister, and I assembling the packages. My mom was in charge of organizing everything in the bag and then Natalie and I tied the ribbon and tag to finish it.

Girl package. Boy package.

25 assembled packages.