Today we have a very special post dedicated to the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Jenna’s sweetest baby cousin Brewer was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and spent a full month in a CMN Hospital. Here’s what she recalls about that time:

“I remember thinking, here is this cosmic event in our lives, that seemed to stop time, but these nurses see this or something similarly devastating everyday! Because of this I assumed that the staff would be hardened and disconnected to Brewer’s condition. It was so the opposite. They were Brewer’s biggest cheerleaders who triumphed at every success and who shed tears along with us at his set backs. The halls of this hospital represent such a wonderful community drawn together by one purpose, which is to cure children. I truly felt angels walk those halls all the time I spent there, it’s an amazing place!”

It is almost heartbreaking to share, but did you know that a million children will spend this Christmas holiday in the hospital? Every single minute, the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals provides $6500 in care to those children – they call them all a “Miracle Child” – totaling $4.7 billion dollars since they founded in 1983. Most of those funds were raised just one dollar at a time. We are so lucky to have a CMN Hospital locally and any funds we donate will help children right in our own community.

In honor of CMN Hospitals and the wonderful work they do, we wanted to create a DIY for those Miracle Children! Those of you who have spent time in hospitals know that there are strict rules for the types of gifts you can bring inside, like no fresh flowers, no balloons, no stuffed animals,  etc. So, we wanted to come up with an inexpensive gift, made with love, to bring to those kids. Here’s what we came up with!

You can purchase a pretty great train set at Ikea for about $10, and then with a little trimming and craft foam you can make it extra special. Grabbing some mini trees, plastic animals, and these foam skylines and they can create a whole city scape!

For the doll-lovers, we whipped up a foam “paper doll” set. Using a paper doll template, (this one is great) cut out your basic doll. Then add pieces of clothing, shoes, accessories and hair styles! We used a roll of double sided tape to hold the pieces on while playing.

This post is brought to you by Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. We’ll be back later this month with an update on a special project we collaborated on for our local CMN Hospital, in the meantime if you have any room in your holiday budget, donate $5 and give a miracle to a child in the hospital this Christmas!