Homemade Sock Puppy

Bryan and I are kind of weirdos when it comes to holidays and birthdays and our parenting methods. I am sure if you know us even just slightly you already picked up on that. When it comes to birthdays we really don't think that you should have a "gimme, gimme" attitude. We think some people put too much emphasis on receiving stuff on their birthdays. We would rather teach Seth that we are celebrating him. There is nothing wrong with receiving gifts. We just don't want that to be the focus of a birthday celebration. We put a lot of thought into what we wanted to do each year and we decided a small gift or two was o.k. if it was meaningful/homemade and something we knew that he would truly enjoy. We also thought that it would be neat to provide some kind of special experience as a family. So for this year, he received a small set of foam lincoln logs, a homemade sock puppy, and we plan to go to the Nashville zoo in the next week or two. Here's a closer look at this year's homemade gift.I started working on the homemade puppy last week and made him from a pair of socks that I got at Mighty Dollar. I used a pattern that I had found from the book Sock and Glove by Miyako Kanamori at the local library. It was pretty easy to make but next time, I would like to shorten the arms and legs. The pattern didn't specify to do that so I didn't. The result was a little sock puppy with extremely long arms and legs. I also had to redo the ears three times before I was satisfied with them. The whole project took about three hours and I realized I am really not good at using embroidery thread. I need more practice hiding my knots. Overall though, I think he turned out pretty cute and I think Seth was appreciative of his gift made with love by mommy. He started clapping after throwing him around a little bit.