I've been so behind on our holiday posts this year. With Eli's birthday, visitors, and bronchitis/upper respiratory infections for all, it's been hard to keep up. This post will fill you in on holiday things we've done and I'll have to find the time to write a Christmas Day post soon.Here are some of the things we did this holiday season. Many of them were activities in our advent calendar that I had mentioned before. Each day we'd pick an activity from the advent calendar pockets and tape it to the wall.
The kids made Christmas trees using paint and forks. Who knew you could paint with fork tines? The kids had a blast doing this...I think mainly because they got to use forks.
The kids made Santa with their handprints and Rudolph with their hands and feet. (Can you tell that I'm a sucker for handprint/footprint crafts?) I especially liked the Rudolph ones because Eli learned to draw "real" eyes. Usually he just draws a quick dot as his eyes and they can be very difficult
to see because they are TINY. But this time I showed him how to make them look bigger and he did it really well. I was so proud of him! Elina made her reindeer eyes fancy because her's had eyeshadow on. Wow!This year Elina thought that making paper snowflakes was the coolest thing ever. With the help of this site, we managed to make lots of pretty snowflakes. Afterwards, Elina would color them...and, boy, did she color them! Look at the attention to detail!
The kids painted and decorated wooden Christmas trees from The Container Store (J's new place of employment...we LOVE her discount). Can you tell which one is Elina's? I know I previously said that Eli is getting better at crafts, but his attention span is still short. He will do a few things and then just walk away..."I done." Whereas, Elina will sit there until some sort of complex pattern is completely finished.
We made salt dough ornaments for the tree. The kids LOVED doing this....even Evie played with the dough. When it was time to paint the ornaments, somehow Eli's all ended up being the same color...a brownish-blackish hue. I think this is because he mixed all his paint up and didn't rinse his paintbrush in between, but he was still proud of his work. The funny thing is, these ornaments didn't even end up on the tree! I know, I'm so lame. But the kids didn't mind...I think the whole process was the fun part...rolling out the dough, using cookie cutters, and painting. Thank goodness they didn't mind my laziness.
Elina and I attended her class Christmas party at her friend's house. It was lots of fun. Last year KT and I hosted the party at my house, so I was glad to relax at this year's party. It's the biggest party of the year and a lot of work...but I have to admit that KT and I both loved doing it though. Santa made an appearance and Elina was a little giddy. She was so surprised when he walked through the door and when it was her turn to sit on his lap, she couldn't stop smiling. The teachers also gave each child their own dry erase board...Elina was in heaven!
We went to see Christmas lights 2 times this year. The first time wasn't as successful because we
drove around a neighborhood we didn't know as well. So we were just driving around aimlessly, which is always fun. So the second time we went to our usual spot at Windcrest. This year we went a little later in December and it was WAY better. More cars were out, but there were more lights than last year. The kids had a blast! I think the pajamas and hot cocoa make it extra exciting. Now whenever it gets dark, Eli always asks if we can go see lights, drink hot cocoa, and eat "marshmows." (In the picture to the right, you can see that Evie is already done with the lights...she was NOT a happy camper.)We made sugar cookies for Santa. I have to admit that I don't like it when the kids decorate the cookies for Santa. Because it means that we have to eat ALL THAT ICING! Eli just squeezed tons of icing on his cookies. And Elina wanted to use lots of icing to decorate. I kept suggesting simple sugar sprinkles or just a few dots of icing, but they could not be swayed. I know we don't HAVE to eat the cookies, but I can't just throw them away! Boy, were they sweet!
We made treats for friends. I saw a recipe for Cinnamon
Twists using frozen puff pastry as the base with a total prep time of 10 minutes--SOLD! I knew that this was the recipe for us this year! I had the kids help me (pre-bronchitis) and they especially loved brushing on the egg and sprinkling the cinnamon sugar. Even though the recipe was simple, the twists were delicious. Lots of people asked me for the recipe and I'm almost embarrassed to give it out because it was SO easy. Simple things can really taste better!
J painted Elina's toes and fingernails in a holiday pattern. Elina loved it! Then I let her paint my toenails the same way. She thought it was so much fun!We also had 2 dinner picnics by the Christmas tree. We would turn the lights low so that the Christmas lights were bright, setup a blanket picnic and eat next to the tree. The kids thought that this was awesome. Then we'd end the night with a special dessert and a Christmas show or movie. This year's favorites were Frosty the Snowman and some of the old (I mean, old) episodes of Mickey Christmas stuff. Their favorite was "On Ice" which had all the characters ice skating. Pluto fell a lot and it really made them crack up!
It's definitely been a busy month of activities...but it's been so much fun. Now that Eli is older, I love watching them both enjoy the holiday season. I was proud of us this year though because we had our Christmas tree and outdoor Christmas lights up the Sunday and Monday after Thanksgiving. That's unheard of for us. The kids had a blast decorating the tree...but as you can see, then most of the ornaments end up on the bottom part of the tree. I tried shifting things around, but honestly, the ornaments were changing spots every day. The kids constantly moved them around. And then Elina started hanging her play jewelry on the tree. In this picture,the kids are showing off their new ornaments for the tree this year. And here's a video of them telling me what they picked (I LOVE how Eli says Tyrannosaurus Rex!)--
No comments:
Post a Comment