This post is part of the Mommy and Me Christmas blog tour, hosted by Seams Sew Lo. We have some lovely sponsors who are providing fantastic giveaways at the end of this post. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this page and enter!

An interesting conversation happened between my two older boys and my husband on Saturday.

Mr. A: “What are Elves for?”

Nathan (husband): “They help Santa make the toys.”

Mr. R: “But why?”

Nathan: “Because there are a lot of kids to make toys for.”

Mr. R: “And they cut off heads.”

Nathan: “…yeah, I guess in Lord of the Rings they do…”

Oh boys. They crack me up. This conversation happened while they were out at the dinosaur museum and running errands so I could have sewing time to myself. I made the mistake of thinking I had a few extra days to complete these shirts for the Mommy and Me tour when in reality I didn’t, so it’s been a whirlwind of sewing around here lately! My dear sweet husband and children have put up with me more than they should. I owe them a nice fancy treat… think these shirts will count? 😉

Come, they told me… Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum. I’ve a drum pattern for you, Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum!

Happy holidays to you! I’ve been busy making up this fun and quiet drum as part of the DIY Christmas Toy Blog Tour hosted by Seams Sew Lo. This tour came about from her Best Homemade Christmas Toy Sewing Patterns post, and I am quite excited and honored to be part of it! Not only is there the free pattern for the toy drum, but our sponsors Phat Quarters Fabric and Seamingly Smitten are graciously offering a giveaway at the end of this post. Win-win for Christmas!

Back in September, I made some pajama pants for Mr. R and Mr. A as part of a contest for Patterns for Pirates. Though I didn’t win, I had so much fun making the pajamas! I wanted to share them in a special way, so I thought I’d do a round up of some boy-approved pajama patterns. Though most pajama patterns can be made for boys and girls, I made sure to leave out the extra frilly options. 😉

The list includes both free and paid for versions. You’ll find that though the free versions are great, the size options are usually very limited. It takes a lot of time and effort to draft patterns in different sizes and test for the sizes, so you know when you pay for a pattern you are usually getting something high quality. Either way you go though, you will be supporting a sewist who will be very appreciative of you sewing her pattern!