Hobby Horses and Holidays

My childhood memories of holidays were of week long preparations, new dresses, presents and family time. 

Lots of family time. And lots of presents. 

Two things are preventing me from reliving these memories with my girls. 

Number 1: Jeff and I are trying to live "eco-consciously". We want to live green and smart and instill these values in our daughters. Buying less is part of this mentality. 

Number 2: We live on Maui while our families live in Vancouver and Chicago. We can't fly out for every holiday or have family fly in for each holiday (see number 1).  

So what do I do to make the holidays special here? I rely on our friends (thank you friends - you know who you are!) for a sense of family and I MAKE a special gift for the kids. Gift making fulfills my crafty side, saves money and helps the environment (no shipping, no plastics, etc). This Easter I decided to make hobby horses. You know, those horse heads mounted on sticks that kids can "gallop" around on. I stayed up late every night for a week to make the horse heads. Perhaps I should have done more than browse a few examples and do-it-yourself blogs on the internet and actually sat down to read detailed instructions on how to proceed before I started. (If you want details on how to make the horses let me know). It would have saved me at least 2 hours of ripping stitches to fix mistakes and resulted in a more appropriately sized horse head.

The hobby horses are so top heavy - or should I say heavy headed? - that Emily drags hers around like a broom! The horses aren't perfect but I'm happy with them and the girls are too. That's all that really matters in the end.