Advent Calendar Dec. 7

Today's activity was "Make a present for the birds"

We made bird seed ornaments to hang on the trees outside.  I got the recipe from this blog. 

Both kids took turns dumping in the first ingredients (flour, water, corn syrup, and gelatin) and then got busy stirring. 


After mixing that, they took turns again dumping the birdseed in.  Annaliese wasn't too happy when we had to take the spoon away from her so I could thoroughly mix it. 



The kids each chose a cookie cutter and then started scooping and filling.
 

And finally, Ian did the poking of holes for string.

 They have to dry overnight. I'll post pictures of the final product later. 

Advent Calendar Dec. 6

Today's advent activity: "Make a Christmas Craft"

We made reindeer ornaments, which I found on Pinterest and it led to directions here. 

First step: shred the brown paper

 

Second step: Stuff the ornament with paper.  I was impressed with how well Annaliese did putting the paper in the ornament, but eventually she got tired of the one-piece-at-a-time method


 

Third step: Twist on the antlers (no pictures, it took all hands on deck to do that part).

Final step: paint on nose and eyes with fingers.  Annaliese just wanted to keep painting; wasn't too happy when I took the paint away. 
 


The final product: we'll paint some black on the eyes after the white dries.

Advent Calendar Dec. 5

"Write a letter to Santa" 

This year Ian did it all on his own.  We helped a bit- spelled out the words using the fridge magnets, but it was all him drawing and writing.  On his list: a camera that works, a fridge (for his firehouse), a drum, and a video game (added with encouragement from Daddy, because that's the one present we have for him; Disneyland Adventures for the XBOX. He can fly like Peter Pan, I'm pretty excited for him to try that!).  Annaliese got in on the list writing too, or at least the coloring. 

Advent Calendar Dec. 4

Today was "Watch a Christmas Movie" on our advent calendar.  After church we headed to Blockbuster to rent a movie.  We selected "A Merry Madagascar" which, apparently, is a very short movie at only 22 minutes, so it ended up being "Watch Christmas Movies" because we followed that up by watching the Christmas classic, "The Grinch." 

 

We did a lot of enjoying the winter wonderland this weekend.  Here's a view from our backyard looking over the neighborhood: 

 

Ian went sledding more these past two days than he did all of last year.  He just wanted to keep going and going; didn't matter if he got snow in his face or fell of the sled.  After Annaliese went down once, her immediate reaction was to ask to go inside. So after a bit of crying when she realized we weren't headed in, she went down another time with Darrin and Ian, and from then on, just kept saying, "More. More."  

 

 

And just a cute shot of my girl: 

Advent Calendar Dec. 3

Today was "Visit Santa" day when Ian flipped the number.  I was worried when I wrote it on there last night it may not happen because of the weather forecast. It was snowing lightly when we left, heavier on the way home, but totally worth it.  We had a couple of options for where to see Santa, but opted for Scheel's.  We had to stand out in the snow for a bit, but then we heard the jingle of bells and looked up to see Santa arriving with his reindeer. 

 

 

His elf checked the way down to make sure it was safe, and then Santa followed by rappelling his way down.  

 

 

Inside we waited in line to see Santa.  Just as we presumed, Annaliese wanted nothing to do with him and Ian was shy.  Ian did tell him he wanted a camera that worked.  Santa wanted to know where he went to school and if he was a good big brother.  Annaliese did get brave enough to accept a candy cane from Santa and give him a high-five.  

 

Along with seeing Santa, they were other festivities- coloring pages, a letter for Santa, balloon figures. We skipped those and headed straight to the Ferris wheel that's always there, only today was free.  Ian was a bit nervous in line, but he had a great time.  He and Darrin talked the whole time and he had a big smile on his face. 

 

The snow was really falling, so we skipped the other activities to head home.  Annaliese fell asleep on the way.  Ian again said, "This day was the best!" to which we had to give him a hard time because he called yesterday the best.  Darrin and I had fun, too, and we'll probably head back there next year.

Advent Calendar Dec. 2

There's a reason I'm writing on each tag before I go to bed at night- I wrote the first two days out and ended up having to cross today's out and write something different.  Marlena called last night and invited us to an open house at the photography studio where Noah works, so Darrin and I figured while we were downtown, we might as well take the kids to see the downtown lights and cross that off our list.  So that's what Ian found on the back of today's card, "Go see the downtown lights."

We started off with a tour of the studio and some appetizers, followed by dinner at Roja with Marlena, her mom Virginia, and Walter.  After that, we bundled and headed to look at the lights.  It was chilly, but Ian absolutely loved the walk by the water and going down the downtown slides.  

As we were climbing in the car, Ian said, "This is the best night ever!" I think he had a pretty good time.

Advent Calendar Dec. 1

I've been absent from the blog for almost a month, but I'm about to make up for it (I think).  As a last minute creation, mostly out of annoyance for answering Ian all the times he asks, "How many days until Christmas?" I created an advent calendar.  Took some ideas I saw on pinterest, some brainstorming, some googling of Omaha events, and came up with 24 ideas (because our family Christmas will be the 24th).  Ian walked down to the kitchen this morning to see this on the wall:

 

I'm annoyed I didn't have enough white tags on hand (they were made and hung after 10 last night), and had no idea when I was writing on the tags how they'd be arranged. I'll definitely do something different for presentation next year, like perhaps actually sew together the one my parents gave me before I had kids. 

Ian saw it this morning and said, "A calendar - in the shape of a tree - to countdown for Christmas?" (Imagine his voice raising at the end of each phrase.)  He knew exactly what it was for.  Each of the tags will eventually have a Christmas activity associated with it.  I have a list of options, and am only writing on a few tags at a time so that we can place activities according to our schedule.  

Ian flipped over today's tag and it said, "Go to the library and check-out a Christmas book."  Of course, the library was pretty much barren of Christmas books, but we did find one to bring home, though Ian was way more excited about the Curious George and Berenstein Bear books.  

 

Stay tuned for more updates on our Advent activities!