Days 9-12

Day   9 - read a Christmas book, which was just almost magical in front of the fireplace with the tree lights aglow.

Day 10 - go see Christmas lights, which I had originally planned to do up big-time, by going to the Keizer Parade of Lights with some friends.  When time came to go, Brian had the coziest fire going in the fireplace, we had been lazy all afternoon, and the last thing I wanted to do was bundle everyone up to go stand outside and look at lights.  So, we went for a short 15 minute cruise through the neighborhoods around our house, singing at the top of our lungs to John Denver and the Muppets' "12 Days of Christmas".  Everyone loved it just fine.


Day 11 - draw a Christmas picture, which was kind of a lame wimp out on my part, strategically planted in the middle of things to give Mom a semi-break.  My little artists were in 7th heaven.

Day 12 - make Christmas cookies, which consisted of popping open a package of Nestle "pre-printed" sugar cookies.  Jacob actually took over and baked almost all of them himself.  All Austin and Leah are truly concerned with is consuming the finished product.  I truly had great plans to make cookie cutter dough and let them do the whole cookie cutter thing, but ya' know...  at the end of the day, I'm a pre-packaged cookie kind of girl.

Santa Baby

Day 6 - we went to the library to get Christmas books.   We missed the tiny two foot shelf of actual Christmas books, but loaded up on enough books to carry the kids through the upcoming school break.

Day 7 - was supposed to be drinking hot chocolate with Dad, but between Jake's Cub Scout meeting and a last minute emergency brake job for a friend, they ran out of time.

Day 8 - today's activity was taking silly Santa hat pictures, along with drinking the missed hot chocolate.  I was worried this would be one of the activities my kids just wouldn't get into, because it seemed rather simple, but they got into it just fine.

O Christmas Tree

20 days left!  It definitely makes the countdown go faster when I have to keep up with my own self imposed list of activities from now until Christmas.

This weekends activities, very strategically, included getting our Christmas tree Saturday, and decorating it Sunday.  The hilarious details of the weekend could fill their own post entirely, so suffice it to say that after one very late start, one toddler meltdown, and one wasted trip across town, we got our tree at a church 3 blocks from our house about 8:30 Saturday night.

Sunday after church we brought the tree in to decorate it.  

It's a lovely sculpted Grand Fir that we scored for $20.  As soon as Brian brought it in, the whole house was filled with the smell of pine, one of my FAVORITE things about the holidays. 

Unfortunately, it was followed not too long after by the smell of burning plastic. 

Again, long story short, but after one melted Hot Wheel and some flames shooting out of places on the wood stove that they shouldn't, we postponed decorating until Monday.

Some adorable father-son time.  Brian taught Jake how to safely start a wood fire this weekend. The plastic aroma and flames are not attributed to him.

They are, however, very much attributed to her:

Yes, she is lounging in a box.  I'm not sure why I bought her Christmas presents.  She's happiest with things like this.

Random cuteness.  My boys would have me take their pictures all day long if I was willing. Sometimes I just throw them in because they're cute, if not story related.

The lovely fire, pre-stinkout.  It was so nice and snuggly laying on the couch in front of it, until the smoke alarm went off.

Our tree, finally "decorated".  Lights and the angel, that's all it's getting this year. 

She's my favorite part, so it's okay.

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Today's activity was making homemade Christmas cards to send to loved ones.  Thanks to some craft paint and cute Christmas stamps (which I remembered last minute that I had) this activity was far less stressful than the weekend's events.

Busted Ornaments

Today's advent pick was making ornaments.  

Last year we didn't have a Christmas tree.  Aside from having just moved and unpacked in the four weeks prior to Christmas, we had a 20 month old terror running a-muck.   I hated it, the boys hated it, but I knew that putting a tree up with the Diva at that point was just like dancing on the edge of the cliff -we'd be asking for trouble.  This year I don't know that she is going to be much better, and she's definitely got more skills in her destructive repetoire but gosh darn it, we all want a tree.

So we're compromising.

We're getting a tree, but we're not putting any ornaments on it.  Lights and tinsel yes, but nothing breakable.  Jake is still a little worried she might "get in the tree and climb up it", but I'm fairly confident this can be a win-win situation.

Hence the idea of making ornaments.  Paper ones would be fun to make, and who really cares if they get destroyed?

 This is Leah's crafting stool.  She will sit in a chair for any other table activity, but for crafts, she has to sit in this stool.  Go figure.  She also made another lovely pink Christmas decoration.  It looked rather like an Easter egg.  At least part of her is girly.

Austin loves crafts of any kind.  He thoroughly enjoyed making ornaments, even after he realized he was trying to cut paper with Play-Do scissors.

For whatever reason, making ornaments was kind of a bust for Jacob.  At one point he just sat cutting paper into strips and thought we would just hang those around the tree.  

  

And that's the extent of our ornaments.  Austin spends a lot of time on one thing, and Jake just wasn't interested.  We still had a good time, however, listening to music and making cookies while we crafted.  

Random note #1 - My kids all this time have thought the Muppets were called Muffins, and they're pretty sure there are 52,000 of them.  I learned that tonight while crafting.  Who knew?

Random note #2 - I hate taking pictures in my dining room.  The lighting is horrid and there is all that glass on the sliding doors that reflect flashes.  

Once There Was a Snowman

The countdown is on!  I can hardly believe it's December, but we are ready for it around here.  The decorations are up, the tree will be here this weekend, and we started our advent calendar activities today.  

Our first activity was making snowmen.  We hauled out all my (sadly unused) scrapbook supplies, and the kids had at it.

I did not try to explain to Leah that pink isn't really a Christmas color

almost as soon as we got her snowman glued down, she ripped him up and was done.

I loved seeing how each of the boys designed their snowman

 Mine

 Jake's

Austin's

Epiphany of the day - crafts are not for 2 year olds.  While I don't want to exclude Leah from our advent activities, unfortunately I think there are going to be some best saved for after her bed time or during nap time.  Somehow, it's a complete killjoy when your child throws her craft at you and has to be sent to her room in a screaming temper tantrum.