Special ornaments

We started a tradition last Christmas with ornaments. I took the girls to Hobby Lobby to let them pick out their own ornaments. I followed my sister (or copied her) with this idea. They get to pick out any ornament that they want with the only restrictions being not glass/breakable and not too expensive, which is why we head to Hobby Lobby. We did it again this year and took daddy and James with us. And the three of them jointly chose for Elliot since I do not dare take him into a place like Hobby Lobby quite yet. They enjoyed the little outing and had fun picking out there 2013 ornaments. Here is what we got:

After trying to decide between several that she just HAD to have, Madeline ended up choosing a cute little "kitty cat sitting on a fancy couch" ornament. Pretty perfect for our fancy little Madeline.

Annabel also had a hard time narrowing it down, and had the kitty cat ornament for herself at one point, but she ended up finding a "beautiful angel with hair like mine" that she fell in love with and was so proud of.

And James was so funny and grabbed as many ornaments as he could hold and would not let go of any of them. Trying to explain the "pick your ONE favorite ornament" concept to him was a challenge. And of course he went right for the painted breakable ones. But he finally chose this super cute little stuffed "jingle bread man" (gingerbread man) ornament. I love to hear him call it his jinglebread man!!

For Elliot, they picked a cute little child-friendly Elf ornament that they said looks like little Elliot. He liked it!

They enjoyed showing off their special ornaments to everyone who came over and moving them around on the tree daily. James lost the little rolling pin that was attached to the gingerbread man's hand almost immediately, and Annabel broke both wings off of hers despite my constant warning to leave it high on the tree and not mess with it because it was breakable. I super glued them back on after the first drop, but after the second drop and them breaking off again, I said oh well. She says it's ok because she still looks beautiful even without the wings. And now we have four little plastic boxes labeled with their names so they could pack away their own ornaments until next year when they can add another one to their collection.