For the past couple of years the girls' 4-H club has collected donations to send Christmas stockings to soldiers serving in Iraq. My girls' contribution to the project has been to put their sewing skills to work. They make Christmas fabric bags that can be filled with items from the A Soldier's Wish List website.

The bags are 10" x 12" and the straight lines make them much easier to sew than a traditional stocking shape. They hold more too.

The kids sewed a ribbon into the seam that ties around the top to close the bag once it's filled.

The kids got a chance to see my friend Meg's serger in action with this project, which made the couple of bags sewn on it look professionally done.

The girls and their friends made a dozen gift bags in about an hour. It's an easy sewing project that everyone enjoys.

Of course, there's lots of chatter when you get a bunch of girls together to sew and you can see from the video that G. was quite impressed with the serger.

If you're interested in sending a package to soldiers serving overseas this Christmas, check out the ASWL's site explaining how to do it.

In the next couple of days the girls and I plan to get outside for some low-key exercise to help me get back in to shape -- and get back on topic about enjoying the outdoors with kids.