Advent Calendar Activities

Tonight starts the advent calendar! Yeah for December 1st! The children really look forward to opening the boxes on the calendar. Last year we took a new approach to the calendar and it worked really well. I'm still tweaking the activities but here's what we've got so far...

1. Receive Christmas pajamas for the season

2. Drink hot chocolate and watch Rudolph

3. Write letters to Santa

4. Go to the lighting of the tree

5. Put together a package for a soldier

6. Go caroling at the nursing home

7. Sit by the fire and read the Christmas Story

8. Christmas books

9. Make peppermint ice cream

10. Go into the city!

11. Watch a Christmas movie with Grandma

12. Family Christmas activity

13. Buy gifts for needy children (pick an angel from the tree at church)

14. Wrap gifts

15. Receive toadstool ornaments

16. Make Christmas candy figures

17. Do 5 nice things for 5 different people

18. A treat

19. Go see the Princess and the Frog

20. Make gifts/cookies for friends

21. Sing carols together

22. Put on pajamas and tour the neighborhood looking at lights

23. Make peppermint eggnog

24. Christmas Eve breakfast/ pajamas

Tree Trimming

Last night we had our annual tree trimming dinner and ornament exchange. The children are super excited for Christmas and were really looking forward to decorating the tree. They also have a lot of fun trying to decide what their new ornament will be and represent! Picking out the tree was hard this year but I think we found the perfect one!

While dinner was being made and lights were put on the tree the children decorated Christmas tree cookies and we all sipped on Cranberry Spritzer (the adult kind and the child friendly!).

This year Grace received a soccer player since this was her first year playing soccer. Harris received a tennis player since he started playing tennis.

For dessert we had tree cookies that we made into ice cream sandwiches.

P.S. Does anyone have any advice on keeping two very curious kittens out of the tree? We keep finding Coco sitting in the tree!! I think that it might give Bryce a heart attack!

Football Friday

Our friends, Kristin and Tim, put together a fun game of football this morning. It was the perfect activity for the day after stuffing ourselves full of food! Here's the rundown (get it?)...

Warm ups

Huddles

Plays

Hot chocolate (and lots of doughnut holes)

Time with friends.

Everyone went home with a cute football ornament!

Thanksgiving

We had a lovely, laid-back Thanksgiving. We have so many things to be thankful for, including a day filled with time together and delicious food. Our day included...

Turkey Pancakes

The preparing of and eating of our traditional (delicious) Thanksgiving meal.

Lots of games

And lots of time together!

I hope you all had a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving!

Who's ready for Christmas?

Thankful t-shirts

I really think that it is important that our children learn to be thankful and appreciative of all that they have. We've been reading and talking about what it means to be thankful. Early in November we read the book Thanks for Thanksgiving, and I asked each of the children (separately) what they were thankful for. I then went to a local embroidery shop and had t-shirts made that listed what they children were thankful for.

Harris' list

Grace's list

I got the idea from a catalogue, Chasing Fireflies, but thought that it was rather pricey at $38 per t-shirt. I ended up spending $30 total- including the t-shirts! They turned out really cute! I'm thinking that it might turn into a new tradition.

Cake painting

I have a new favorite thing. Words do not adequately explain how much I love this painting. Bryce surprised me this weekend with a painting by Carey Haynes. But it's not just any painting.. it's the first cake Bryce and I ever made together. It was for Grace's first birthday and to this day it's one of my favorite cakes we've ever made. It was just so pretty, feminine and simple. I love how Carey incorporated the bow and the texture in the painting is just wonderful.

I know that I have explained this before but I think that it bears repeating. Bryce and I have a long standing tradition (7 years to be exact!) of staying up late the night before our children's birthday parties and making their birthday cake together. I do all the baking and making and Bryce does most of the decorating. To me the cake is what a birthday is all about (you know, besides celebrating the child's birth!), and I really love the time that is spent coming up with the type of cake we will serve and then watching a lovely cake take form under the influence of decorating tips, icing bags and even candy. To date we have made 12 cakes together!

And now I have a beautiful painting to remind me of our cake making tradition. I think the painting is stunning! Thank you Bryce for giving me something so lovely and meaningful. May we make cakes together for many more years!

New Moon

I have a confession. I thought I might be embarrassed to tell you all that I did such a CRAZY and WACKY think but I'm surprisingly not. Maybe it's because I enjoyed myself so much!

I went to the midnight showing of New Moon. (You might remember my obsessive reading of the Twilight series) It was just myself and ten other of my fun loving friends... and an entire theater full of the local high school students.

My friend Gretchen hosted a late night gathering beforehand and she really out did herself with fun details. Unfortunately, my camera battery died after just a few pictures so I don't have many pictures of her cute decorations. I did get a few though...

Gretchen even gave us bags full of goodies to take to the theater.

P.S. I was standing in line to go to the restroom and as I walked away I heard a young girl behind me say, "I hope I'm not one of these Moms one day." I'm sure she finished the sentence with something about how pathetic it is. However, I've been thinking how glad I am that I'm still up for such fun endeavors and who really cares anyway? I wonder if in 15 years she will feel differently?