Happy Birthday to Andi & Merry Christmas to me

As Sherie so eloquently put it the other day, "Your family is really bad at giving presents." I wasn't offended. I knew what she meant.

She meant it in the nicest way - really. We just don't have that ability to WAIT. Why wait? What if something happened to the recipient while your gift is stuck away in the closet waiting for "THE" day? That would be sad, now wouldn't it?

So to the left is my Christmas gift from Andi. She painted it herself! I was just amazed - when I think back to how many times we repainted wooden letters just to try and get polka dots to look right, it doesn't seem possible that the same person painted this.

So I got my Christmas present a few months early - all the longer to enjoy it.

Using that logic, I gave Andi her birthday present - art supplies. Brushes, canvases and a stand up easel. She already has her other birthday presents - a new purse and some maternity clothes. I was really going to save these, but once I saw her first painting, there was no holding me back.

Another advantage to early gift giving - you hardly ever have time to wrap anything - so that makes it easy on the giver. You might want to consider this when you ponder early gift giving.

So there you have it - birthday and Christmas all rolled up into one post. Not a bad deal if I do say so myself.