This is nothing too fancy, just a baby Jesus in a stable made out of an envelope. And its kind of a scary looking baby Jesus. After drawing Jesus' eyes, nose and mouth, Audrey decided that he also needed to have arms and legs ON his face.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
December 6: Make a Christmas craft
Isla was sick today, but Audrey and I still found time to complete our Christmas activity for the day: make a Christmas craft.
This is nothing too fancy, just a baby Jesus in a stable made out of an envelope. And its kind of a scary looking baby Jesus. After drawing Jesus' eyes, nose and mouth, Audrey decided that he also needed to have arms and legs ON his face.
This is nothing too fancy, just a baby Jesus in a stable made out of an envelope. And its kind of a scary looking baby Jesus. After drawing Jesus' eyes, nose and mouth, Audrey decided that he also needed to have arms and legs ON his face.
Friday, December 7, 2012
December 5: Buy a gift for the Angel Tree
Audrey's school has an Angel Tree where they are asking for donations to help children around town. We picked an ornament off the tree yesterday and got the very last one! Our tag said: Amaze game by Thinkfun. I wasn't expecting something so specific!
They said we could find it at Wal-mart. So our activity for today was to go to Wal-mart and buy this gift. I really want my girls to appreciate the idea that it is better to give than to receive. This season, I am trying to find ways to teach them this valuable lesson. And I really just think it's fun to give gifts to people, so I want them to think it's fun too!
So, we went to Wal-mart, and I searched the aisles but could not find this game anywhere! Instead, I came home and ordered it from Amazon instead. It will be here Friday.
Our gift giving activity for the day was not a total bust though. Audrey also had a haircut with Jenni this morning. So we made a Christmas card for Jenni and stopped by Panera to get a gift card for her (and a bagel for us). It was cute to watch Audrey shyly, yet excitedly, deliver her gift to Jenni today.
Also, Jenni curled Audrey's hair today for the first time. She looked so beautiful!
They said we could find it at Wal-mart. So our activity for today was to go to Wal-mart and buy this gift. I really want my girls to appreciate the idea that it is better to give than to receive. This season, I am trying to find ways to teach them this valuable lesson. And I really just think it's fun to give gifts to people, so I want them to think it's fun too!
So, we went to Wal-mart, and I searched the aisles but could not find this game anywhere! Instead, I came home and ordered it from Amazon instead. It will be here Friday.
Our gift giving activity for the day was not a total bust though. Audrey also had a haircut with Jenni this morning. So we made a Christmas card for Jenni and stopped by Panera to get a gift card for her (and a bagel for us). It was cute to watch Audrey shyly, yet excitedly, deliver her gift to Jenni today.
Also, Jenni curled Audrey's hair today for the first time. She looked so beautiful!
Catching Up
My goal to blog everyday in December got sidetracked when Isla got sick on Wednesday night. Sick with a stomach bug...as in vomit. I really can't handle vomit. Seriously, I have major issues and cannot stomach it. At all. Everyone tells me that it is different with your own kids, and you are able to find super human strength to deal with it. But everyone LIED!!!
When Isla started throwing up, I ended up curled in a fetal position doing deep breathing techniques to prevent myself from joining her. And I am not exaggerating. Thank goodness Daniel has a stronger stomach than I do. She vomited a lot, all night Wednesday and all through the day Thursday. It got a little easier to handle on Thursday, only because she had nothing left to throw up.
It appears to be only a 24 hour bug, as Isla is much better today. I am hoping and praying and begging that no one else in my family gets the bug. I really cannot handle any more vomit.
Anyway, I'm going to try to go back and catch up on our past couple of days of Christmas activities AND Isla's 18 month doctor's appointment today.
When Isla started throwing up, I ended up curled in a fetal position doing deep breathing techniques to prevent myself from joining her. And I am not exaggerating. Thank goodness Daniel has a stronger stomach than I do. She vomited a lot, all night Wednesday and all through the day Thursday. It got a little easier to handle on Thursday, only because she had nothing left to throw up.
It appears to be only a 24 hour bug, as Isla is much better today. I am hoping and praying and begging that no one else in my family gets the bug. I really cannot handle any more vomit.
Anyway, I'm going to try to go back and catch up on our past couple of days of Christmas activities AND Isla's 18 month doctor's appointment today.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
December 4: Picnic Dinner
Monday, December 3, 2012
December 3: Letter to Santa
I'm neutral on the topic of Santa Claus. I don't really have a desire to encourage Audrey to believe in him, but I also have no problem talking about him and participating in some fun Christmas activities that have to do with Santa So that's what we did today.
Here is Audrey's letter that she "wrote" and mailed to Santa. I am most impressed with the names and letters she wrote at the bottom. Writing letters has also been a struggle with Audrey. She wants to do it, but she is such a perfectionist that she gets really upset when her letters don't look exactly like the example. She's still young and has lots of time to learn how to write, so I haven't really pushed her to write any letters in a long time. But she has been doing some writing at school. I was SO impressed today when she wrote all of these letters (with the exception of the "s", which I helped her with) by herself. I helped her spell our names and she wrote, Audrey (well, she knows how to spell her own name), Isla, Mommy and Daddy, along with some random letters just for fun. This may not look all that impressive to you, but it is a big improvement for Audrey, especially because she did it all without tears!
Also, it was 70 degrees today, so the girls and I spent a lot of time playing outside. It was a little breezy, but you won't hear me complaining about a 70 degree day in December ever!
Here is Audrey's letter that she "wrote" and mailed to Santa. I am most impressed with the names and letters she wrote at the bottom. Writing letters has also been a struggle with Audrey. She wants to do it, but she is such a perfectionist that she gets really upset when her letters don't look exactly like the example. She's still young and has lots of time to learn how to write, so I haven't really pushed her to write any letters in a long time. But she has been doing some writing at school. I was SO impressed today when she wrote all of these letters (with the exception of the "s", which I helped her with) by herself. I helped her spell our names and she wrote, Audrey (well, she knows how to spell her own name), Isla, Mommy and Daddy, along with some random letters just for fun. This may not look all that impressive to you, but it is a big improvement for Audrey, especially because she did it all without tears!
Sunday, December 2, 2012
December 2: Wrapping Presents
Today's Christmas activity was to wrap presents. I purposely put this early in the month, hoping it would motivate me to get a head start on the present wrapping.
We wrapped about eight presents today, and Audrey helped with two of them. She was very eager to cut the wrapping paper (cutting with scissors is a fairly new skill for her), but she quickly found it frustrating and not fun. I was happy to let her do her own thing, as the present wrapping went much more quickly without any "help" from her.
This year, I'm stealing an idea I have seen around the internet for buying presents for my kids (and Daniel too). I love buying presents for people. I love shopping around and trying to find the perfect gift for everyone on my list. I would go crazy and spend all kinds of money on presents for other people if I could, especially my kids. To help keep the present buying under control, this year I bought four presents for each kid, one in each category: something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read. It's kind of cheesy, but I like spreading out the presents into different categories so that we don't just buy our kids all toys. Daniel is getting presents in these categories as well...what a lucky guy.
If you are still shopping for your kids and looking for ideas, here is what our girls are getting this year.
For Audrey:
Want
Audrey is getting the Cinderella DVD that was recently released. We don't have it, and she is a huge fan of the Cinderella story. I believe she has seen the movie once at a friend's house, but she knows the story well from a book we have.
I'm breaking the rules and getting Audrey two things that she wants. She is also getting these Tinkerbell fairy figurines. Both of my girls are obsessed with "guys" as we call them, little figurines like this. Audrey has a set of Tinker Bell magnets that she has played with for over a year, and I know that she will love these figurines even more. (And I'm ready to get rid of those magnets!)
Need
Audrey needs some new underwear. Kind of a boring present, but she will be excited about it!
Wear
I got this dress from Tea Collection for $15 when they were having their Black Friday sale. I love Tea Collection's dresses, and Audrey loves to wear dresses, so this should make everyone happy.
Read
I ordered a few books for Audrey through her Scholastic book order at school. I'm so excited about being able to order through Scholastic book orders...they offer great prices on paperback picture books that you cannot find anywhere else! She is getting Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons. We have the Pete the Cat and his White Shoes, and we all love it. She is also getting If you Take a Mouse to School. We check out these books by Laura Numeroff all the time from the library. Audrey calls them "Give the animal a food" books (even though this one isn't about giving an animal food, but many of the others are). I figured it was about time we owned one. And she is getting Silly Sally, which I think she will like because she loves silly things lately.
For Isla:
Want
Isla is getting this Fisher Price Rev n Sounds Race track. Isla loves cars, and I think she is going to love this. We have never really had many cars in our house with two girls, so it should be fun. I got a good deal on this at Kohls online one day....it was already 15% off the sale price, then I had an additional % off. I ended up getting it for around $18 with free shipping.
Need
Isla is in need of some new shoes. She is still comfortably wearing her 6-12 month Pedipeds from last spring. But her feet are very, very slowly growing, and I think she will be ready for a bigger size soon. I love Pedipeds so much, that I was even willing to pay full price for these shoes for Isla. That never happens!!
Wear
H&M recently opened in our mall, so I checked it out the other day. I found a couple of cute things for Isla. So she is getting a shirt and a dress. I can't find a link to what I bought online, and I just wrapped them today so I can't take a picture. But they were cute! I've never bought kids clothes from H&M before, so I am curious to see how they fit her.
Read
Isla is getting Alice in Wonderland: A Babylit Colors Primer. This is a selfish purchase on my part. I hope Isla will like the book, but I am really getting it for her just because I like it. These Babylit board books are so fun and cute! We have the Pride and Prejudice one, and selfishly I would like to own the whole set! Isla is only getting one book, because her one book was the same price as Audrey's three books! Though I was really tempted to get her this Wheels on the Bus book, but I resisted.
We wrapped about eight presents today, and Audrey helped with two of them. She was very eager to cut the wrapping paper (cutting with scissors is a fairly new skill for her), but she quickly found it frustrating and not fun. I was happy to let her do her own thing, as the present wrapping went much more quickly without any "help" from her.
If you are still shopping for your kids and looking for ideas, here is what our girls are getting this year.
For Audrey:
Want
Need
Audrey needs some new underwear. Kind of a boring present, but she will be excited about it!
Wear
I got this dress from Tea Collection for $15 when they were having their Black Friday sale. I love Tea Collection's dresses, and Audrey loves to wear dresses, so this should make everyone happy.
Read
I ordered a few books for Audrey through her Scholastic book order at school. I'm so excited about being able to order through Scholastic book orders...they offer great prices on paperback picture books that you cannot find anywhere else! She is getting Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons. We have the Pete the Cat and his White Shoes, and we all love it. She is also getting If you Take a Mouse to School. We check out these books by Laura Numeroff all the time from the library. Audrey calls them "Give the animal a food" books (even though this one isn't about giving an animal food, but many of the others are). I figured it was about time we owned one. And she is getting Silly Sally, which I think she will like because she loves silly things lately.
For Isla:
Want
Need
Isla is in need of some new shoes. She is still comfortably wearing her 6-12 month Pedipeds from last spring. But her feet are very, very slowly growing, and I think she will be ready for a bigger size soon. I love Pedipeds so much, that I was even willing to pay full price for these shoes for Isla. That never happens!!
Wear
H&M recently opened in our mall, so I checked it out the other day. I found a couple of cute things for Isla. So she is getting a shirt and a dress. I can't find a link to what I bought online, and I just wrapped them today so I can't take a picture. But they were cute! I've never bought kids clothes from H&M before, so I am curious to see how they fit her.
Read
December 1: Christmas Cookies
I started writing this last night, but I was too exhausted to finish. Then I woke up feeling horribly sick, and I had to stay home from church this morning. My stomach has issues sometimes, and I don't think it was too happy about all the Christmas cookies I sampled yesterday. I am feeling quite a bit better now, so here is yesterday's post!
It's day one and I am already changing my schedule! The plan was to go to the Christmas parade today. I looked at a calendar on a local website on Wednesday, and it said the parade was at 10 am today. But then I found out that was wrong, and the parade is actually on December 15 at 5:00 pm. They changed it this year to a Holiday Lights parade. So that might be cool, but chances are it is not going to be 60 degrees on December 15. Today would have been perfect parade watching weather!
So, I decided to swap December 1 and 15 of our advent activities, which means today's activity was: make Christmas cookies and deliver them to friends.
December 1 seems a little early for Christmas cookies, but I figured this would be a good time to give people goodies, before they have had a chance to be overwhelmed with the sweets of the season.
I made a plan, and then Audrey and I got to work! Audrey's help lasted for about 10 minutes, and then she was ready to do something else.
I have to say that my plans are always more ambitious than my abilities and motivation. About halfway into this day, I was starting to rethink this idea. But we kept going and all the cookies and sweets are now finished. Just don't ask me what my kitchen looks like right now. Or what I feel like right now.
Here's what we made:
Sugar Cookies
I used this recipe for the cookies and this recipe for the icing. I am pretty sure these are the recipes I used last year for sugar cookies, and I really thought that the dough was super easy to work with. Not so much today! The dough seemed really sticky. I finally got smart and put it in the freezer for a while. Then I just pulled out small chunks at a time to roll out and cut, and I left the rest of the dough in the freezer until I was ready for more. That ended up working okay, and I thought the cookies ended up tasting good.
I do love this icing recipe. It is more like a glaze than icing. It dries hard, so you can stack the cookies on top of each other. I just painted it on the cookie. I don't have a lot of patience for cookie decorating, so mine weren't anything too fancy. But it was quick and easy and tasty too!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fudge
I don't like fudge, so I'm not sure what made want to make this. The end result was super sweet, which I guess is the reason why I don't like fudge so much! I thought it tasted like chocolate chip cookie dough icing. I was not a big fan, and I almost didn't include it in our boxes of goodies to give away. But, I figured others might have a sweeter tooth than me, so I included it. I will have to survey everyone who we gave cookies to see if anyone enjoyed it or not!
Peanut Butter Pretzel Truffles
These were so good!! So good. I'm sad because the recipe only made 16, and I really should have doubled it!
White Chocolate Peppermint M&M Cookies
These tasted really good, but I had a hard time getting them exactly right. They were really big cookies, much bigger than I expected. (Though when I went back and read the recipe, she did say that they make large cookies. I should have read more closely I guess!). My first batch was not quite done, and they were too gooey. My second batch was better, but they were so big that they weren't holding together the greatest. If I make these again, I will make them a little smaller, and I think that will make them better.
That's all! It doesn't seem like so much written here, but it took ALL DAY to finish everything. Audrey helped me off and on throughout the day. She was most excited about delivering the cookies though.
I got these boxes from the Target dollar spot a while back, and they coordinated perfectly with this red/white polka dot parchment paper from World Market. I printed out a little tag for each box, and then Audrey decorated the tags by drawing pictures of all the people who would receive the cookies.
Audrey and Daniel drove around tonight and delivered the boxes of goodies. Audrey had so much fun taking the cookies to everyone; that was definitely the highlight for her! Daniel was supposed to take pictures of their cookie delivering adventure, but he forgot.
Whew, that's the end of our cookie making day. I think I might be done baking for a while!
It's day one and I am already changing my schedule! The plan was to go to the Christmas parade today. I looked at a calendar on a local website on Wednesday, and it said the parade was at 10 am today. But then I found out that was wrong, and the parade is actually on December 15 at 5:00 pm. They changed it this year to a Holiday Lights parade. So that might be cool, but chances are it is not going to be 60 degrees on December 15. Today would have been perfect parade watching weather!
So, I decided to swap December 1 and 15 of our advent activities, which means today's activity was: make Christmas cookies and deliver them to friends.
December 1 seems a little early for Christmas cookies, but I figured this would be a good time to give people goodies, before they have had a chance to be overwhelmed with the sweets of the season.
I made a plan, and then Audrey and I got to work! Audrey's help lasted for about 10 minutes, and then she was ready to do something else.
I have to say that my plans are always more ambitious than my abilities and motivation. About halfway into this day, I was starting to rethink this idea. But we kept going and all the cookies and sweets are now finished. Just don't ask me what my kitchen looks like right now. Or what I feel like right now.
Here's what we made:
Sugar Cookies
I do love this icing recipe. It is more like a glaze than icing. It dries hard, so you can stack the cookies on top of each other. I just painted it on the cookie. I don't have a lot of patience for cookie decorating, so mine weren't anything too fancy. But it was quick and easy and tasty too!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fudge
Peanut Butter Pretzel Truffles
White Chocolate Peppermint M&M Cookies
These tasted really good, but I had a hard time getting them exactly right. They were really big cookies, much bigger than I expected. (Though when I went back and read the recipe, she did say that they make large cookies. I should have read more closely I guess!). My first batch was not quite done, and they were too gooey. My second batch was better, but they were so big that they weren't holding together the greatest. If I make these again, I will make them a little smaller, and I think that will make them better.
That's all! It doesn't seem like so much written here, but it took ALL DAY to finish everything. Audrey helped me off and on throughout the day. She was most excited about delivering the cookies though.
I got these boxes from the Target dollar spot a while back, and they coordinated perfectly with this red/white polka dot parchment paper from World Market. I printed out a little tag for each box, and then Audrey decorated the tags by drawing pictures of all the people who would receive the cookies.
Audrey and Daniel drove around tonight and delivered the boxes of goodies. Audrey had so much fun taking the cookies to everyone; that was definitely the highlight for her! Daniel was supposed to take pictures of their cookie delivering adventure, but he forgot.
Whew, that's the end of our cookie making day. I think I might be done baking for a while!
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