Tonight as my kids were watching Charlie Brown on TV, Daughter of Purpose found a stash of toys I had in my room. Obviously by the way it enraptured her, she had not found these as of yet. I just had to laugh, they were the simplest things I’ve ever made.

I’m sure you are laughing along with me at the “paper dolls.” If you know us and you look really hard, you’ll see that some of the paper dolls are my children. Some are the children of my cousins. A few years back, we had a “family reunion” of sorts since my cousins live all over the map. Our children are all the same age and had a blast together. Trying to think of a way to keep their time together alive, I came up with this idea. I think I saw it in a “Family Fun” magazine. It was really meant for the kids to do and then I’d laminate them. What really ended up happening was the moms ended up making “their children” on into the night–not the kids! Despite that snag, I do have to say they were genius. My kids played with those things for weeks and whenever they reappear, they have such a good time reminiscing about that trip. As Daughter of Purpose delighted in finding her siblings in a “paper doll” form, it hit me that these were again a great way for her to meet some people in our family that she had never met before. It hit me that while my niece and nephew are in the mid-west for a few years, I should use our time together at Christmas to do the same thing for Daughter of Purpose. That way she won’t forget her cousins while they are away.