Things I Love Right Now....

*Sitting all cozy in front of the fire before bedtime as we read our Advent Book of the night

*The fact that Lil' C will not take off the Diego Santa Hat she found in the Dollar Store...what a treasure for her....she wears it all the time

*Z's reactions to the elves daily antics

*Lil C singing "Jinble Balls" all day long

*Watching a different favorite holiday film each night

*Egg Nog in my coffee

*That the majority of my homemade gifts are finished and the fact that we handcrafted so many things this year

*Watching old rerun holiday episodes of some of my favorite TV shows on Netflix (Family Ties, The Office, Cheers)

*Our Holiday Traditions, especially the trip to the liquor store this week to see the trains...what fun!

*The fact that I did not spend a dime on wrapping stuff this year....everything is wrapped in things I found around the house or paper bags.

*That I gave my first homemade gift away last night and both of us cried

*The glow of the house at this time of year....love those Christmas lights

*The anticipation of what is to come

Mommy the Busy Elf

Man have I been busy creating lately :)  I LOVE to be creative and this year (as always) I have taken on way too much and have very little chance of getting it all done.  But it wouldn't be Christmas without late nights elfing!!

I am jumping with joy because I just finished Z's homemade gift.  Each year we make the kids one homemade gift from the heart.  S and Z are in charge of Lil' C's gift this year and I wanted to do Z's.  I had a tough time deciding what to create but in the end settled on a reversible Super Hero cape.  I went to the fabric store, bought some cheap Satiny material and some fabric fusing stuff.  I checked out a bunch of websites to figure out how to make a cape and found this one to be the most helpful.

 I made my own pattern and free handed the super hero emblems.  I then ironed them emblems onto the fabric fuse material and fused them to the cape.

 I sewed the emblems as well to make sure they wouldn't fall off. 

I then sewed the right sides together leaving six inches at the bottom so that I could flip it right side out.  I then went around and sewed a 1/4 inch finishing stitch to finish it all off and VOILA....

I can't WAIT to give it to him....I hope he loves it as much as I do!  I also made it so it fits my neck ...that way when they ask me to play I can do so comfortably ;)

Chores for Charity

During the month of November, Z's school asked each child to do chores around the house to earn money to go and buy canned goods for the food pantry.  Z took this job very seriously and worked hard to earn money and felt a lot of pride as he went to the grocery store to pick out the food to donate.

This school project inspired me to continue it into December but this time I thought it might be nice for Z to pick a charity to work towards.  I gave him three choices....a charity to help people have clean water, a charity that would give a needy family a farm animal to help nourish them or a charity to help families build a house.  He chose to earn money to help buy a family an animal and is currently working toward a share of a cow (his choice).  This picture was taken a while ago and he is currently up to $11.  He has a ways to go until he gets to his $50 goal but Christmas is not the deadline for us.  He will work until he accomplishes his goal and then he will go online to make his donation to Heifer International.

I hope that this project will be the kick off of to the new piggy bank system that I want to start with him.  I want him to start placing his money into three categories....save, spend and share.  Right now all his money just sits in his piggy bank until something he REALLY wants comes up and then he spends it all :)  We will take it all one step at a time, after all he is only five.

Santa Knows Jedi's :)

Yesterday we spent a morning with Santa at the Children's Museum where we are members.  They had a special activity (limited to only 15 children) where the kids got to really hang out with Santa while they decorated cookies, made ornaments, listened to a story and got to have their picture taken.  It was very cute and a big surprise for Z...he had no idea what the special adventure was!

It took Z a while to warm up to Santa but once he did, it was magic.  He told him that he had been good and asked for Star Wars Legos.  This prompted a five minute conversation between the two Star Wars fans....Z was in HEAVEN!!!  He told Santa the Jedi name he had made up for himself and Santa told him that he has had jedi's up to the North Pole before.

Lil' C was a bit nervous around Santa and refused to sit on his lap.  She did warm up though after 35 minutes or so and did give him a hug and touch his hat!  Z went back for a second conversation (after a lot of hemming and hawing) and told Santa all about how for the last two weeks he has turned out playroom into a workshop to make toys and delivers them using our couch as a sleigh.  Santa was most impressed by this :)

 This intimate setting was the perfect way for my kids to interact with Santa.  They had time to feel him out, could approach him slowly and Santa was so good about making a connection with each child.  While not talking with Santa they made ornaments and decorated cookies...it was a wonderful morning.

My December Photo of the Day--December 8th

December Photo Project

I am a little late for this project but decided I'd catch up right here :)  I've been taking lots of photos this month so it wasn't too hard to catch up.




December 1st--Writing to Santa

December 2nd--Our Tree

December 3rd--Playing with the Nativity

 

December 4th--Making Christmas Tree Garland

December 5th--Advent Wreath

December 6th--Skyping Christmas Carols

 

December 7th--My elf left this behind

Christmas in the Outback

Since last fall, our Dining Room window has turned into the family mural.  We have created many landscapes (many of them have been shown on this website) and I'd like to share the latest with you now.  Z has been begging for awhile now to create the Australian Outback.  I had asked if we could wait until January and create a mural from a favorite holiday story but he insisted on the Outback.  So we compromised and here is the result....

Can you see the little santa hats on the animals??  Yes this is how we compromised...Christmas in the Outback :)  Here is a closer look....

I can't imagine that there are too many families with this kind of holiday display in their homes ;) 

Christmas Tree Garland--Inspired by the Land of Nod

The Land of Nod had this really cute Christmas Tree Garland on sale for $29.99 (it is now sold out).

I thought that was a little steep in price and decided to take on the challenge of creating our own. Sunday Z and I sat down together with all of our felt scraps and created 14 very unique and colorful trees for our garland.

We have a Jupiter Tree, a Saturn Tree, an Earth Tree, a Bubble Tree, an If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Tree, a baseball tree, a monster tree, an under the sea tree and some other standard trees.  I sewed them all by hand to a piece of blue ribbon and by some miracle it fit the length of the playroom window (I did no measuring!!!). 

We LOVE the results and it brightens up the playroom.  Our version cost nothing because we used our scrap felt but in my mind it is priceless :)  Here is our version....

The Kid Hates Cake and Ice Cream

Every birthday party Z has been to in the last few months ends the same way....TEARS!  He loves the playing part of the parties (bouncy houses, arcades etc.) but when it is time to stop playing and eat pizza, cake and ice cream....the kid goes to pieces.  He cries and cries and cries and no matter how much we role play with him or prep him for this moment of the party...it always ends the same. 

Z does not eat birthday party food, he also does not like to be in confined spaces. Party rooms are usually small and the kids are crammed in stuffing their faces with this tasty birthday food.  Z use to go in, try to sit (he was an emotional mess) and be close to tears the entire time.  Now he resorts to full out tears and won't go into the rooms at all.  It is torture for him, embarrassing for us and just plain awful.  The only solution I see....unless somebody has a different one for us....is to take a break from parties for a bit.  It will be hard for him, I am sure, to miss his friends upcoming parties but I don't know what else to do.  Any advice???

The Gift of a Story

Z and C opened up their first advent book last night and it was so exciting!  I love that they have a fun gift to open each and every night and that there is so much excitement over a book that they already own (but haven't seen in a year).  That is the fun of books, they are truly magic and that is why I love this part of our Christmas Countdown. 

This year I decided to extend the fun right until New Years Day.  I remember as a kid, the week between Christmas and New Years was a bit of a bummer.  You have all that build up for Christmas Day and then it is over with the blink of an eye.  I thought that it might be fun to continue the opening of books until January 1st.  The books after Christmas include books about Kwanza. a New Years Eve story and some of our favorite Winter Stories.  I hope that this will help keep the fun alive for the entire Christmas Week :)

If you notice, the wrapping paper is not that Christmasy :)  Well S and I made a pact to buy no Holiday Wrap this year.  We are using paper bags, paper we already had, bags we have saved and even T-shirts with festive bows.  It has been a bit of a challenge to wrap this year but also a lot of fun.  This fish paper my MIL gave me a few years ago and I think it looks wonderful under the tree with the bright blue!

Letters to Santa

This morning I was awoken by my enthusiastic son Z wearing a Santa Hat :)  "Mommy, It's December!!!  Time to open the Advent Calendar.  But Mommy if it is December, where is the snow??"  I had to giggle at this energetic chatter so early in the morning, pulled him into bed and snuggled with my very own Christmas Elf :)

The activity of the day for our advent calendar was to write our letters to Santa.  Z grabbed his list off of the fridge and he and I set out to work on the perfect letter.  He asked about Rudolph, Dasher and told Santa he had been very good this year.  He then asked for his Christmas wishes.....Star Wars Legos and Imaginext Dinosaurs. That is all he wanted to ask for, despite the long list that has been written since October.  Star Wars Legos were not on the original list and I finished my shopping back at Halloween!!  He is also not getting Imaginext dinos from the big guy, my sister got him those....so what is a mommy to do?? 

Well I learned a big lesson today, don't shop for Santa gifts until the letters have been sent!  I can't return the items I have bought (bought them too long ago) but I will save two of the items for a future date and I just bought two items online at LEGO.  Oh well....as I said, lesson learned!  Thank goodness Lil' C is too young to know what is going on and will be very happy with the items that Santa brings for her :)