Mother's Day Necklaces

I like celebrating the grandmas. It takes some of the pressure off how I'm feeling about the whole loaded day. I like to channel my energy into celebrating the grandmas. Yes, I feel very grateful I have two extremely needy children to hug. I also appreciate what most moms appreciate on that day; peace and quiet. The irony. But oh man. Will it ever feel right knowing Andrew will never be involved in the whole celebratory bit? Meh.

Ever since Benjamin's first year, I've made photobooks for each month of the previous year, including places we've gone and family we've seen. They also have a book from Andrew's pregnancy and birth. The grandmas love these, so I use them as a gift (which is totally the best gift I can think of!). Considering Mother's Day always takes place in May, it also lights a fire under me to get the photobook made. It takes me a solid 1.5 months to complete these books, averaging about an hour each day. It takes forever!

With that said, I love creating them because I get to review all the great times we had that year and knock out three birds with one stone. The two grandmas receive them as gifts and I have two additional printed for Benjamin and Claire. They'll have one for each year of their childhood.

The photobook is great, but it's the same gift each year. I also like to think up something creative and kid-friendly that the kids can do to celebrate their grandmas at this young age. This year, I used this tutorial to make heart fingerprint necklaces for the grandmas.

Other than my perfectionist nature not liking how my kids were not perfectly paying attention and cooperative with the exact angle of their prints (ha!), I think they turned out quite cute.

We had enough clay to make quite a few. Benjamin made his own and painted it... what else... pink.