More Christmas

Most of our holidays and birthdays end up being pretty dragged out because we don't live particularly close to any of our family.  So now Matt's parents are visiting and we did Christmas kind of all over again.  Here's the present opening pics.

Merry Christmas!

I'm having a lot of trouble uploading pics to Blogger, so unfortunately, this is not as many of the great Christmas pictures I would like to share with you, but it's what I could get to work.  Enjoy!

Christmas Eve

We open our stockings on Christmas Eve.  Here's some pics.

This is what I got in my stocking.  

Piper brings the cute, I bring the sugar.

Daddy taught Cadence about the wonders of silly putty.

Not surprisingly, Cadence was the most excited about gifts.

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

First Snow!

Being born and raised in the unfortunately hot and seasonless state of Florida, I still get unreasonably excited about snow.  So waking up this morning and enjoying a few hours of pretty flurries was fun.  I don't really care that it didn't stick.

See the little bitty snow on the leaves?

Can't see the snow, huh?  The white haze?  That's it.

It was very cold and windy.  Also not pictured, me in my pajamas, rain boots, and winter coat.  Classy.

Piper likes snow.  Piper likes windows.

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

A Song for Advent, Week 2: Peace

This is one of my favorite new Christmas songs. The hymn "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus"  is woven into "What Child is This?"  Isn't that what Emmanuel, God with us, is all about?  The peace of trusting in Him.  

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

What? Who, me?

"Hey, mama.  I'm just a sweet little girl sitting here casually inspecting the red color on my thumb here...I know you're busy making dinner so don't worry about me at all or what I may have done with the red crayon I found..."

I'm very grateful she colored the stove and the kitchen floor (came right off with magic eraser) and not the walls!  Cadence and I are now on crayon high alert!

Advent Activity Calendar, pt. 2

It was fun, and also harder than I thought, to come up with activities for our advent calendar.  I started by looking at our calendar and filling in the events we already have on the schedule and I also filled in a few days with "read a Christmas book".  Here's the rest of the list:

• Set up manger scene
• Make a pom-pom pinecone tree, similar to these
• Have a "Jingle Bells" parade
• Make salt dough hand print ornaments
• Have lunch or a snack next to the Christmas tree
• Make gingerbread waffles or pancakes
• Go see Christmas lights on our road
• Make a Christmas tree hairbow, inspired by this one
• Go to kids' Christmas party with friends from Daddy's school
• Go to the big kids' Christmas performance
• Make time capsule ornaments, inspired by this one
• Call grandparents to sing a Christmas song
• Make white chocolate peppermint bark
• Watch the Charlie Brown Christmas show
• Make and decorate cookies
• Take cookies to women's shelter
• Make a Christmas song video (Cadence loves to star in her own videos)
• Do some of the Christmas activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler
• Do Christmas pattern block mats

I haven't included our family advent time, which will be on each Sunday and Christmas Eve.  We light the advent candles and have a short Bible reading, activity, and prayer time.  I think this year we'll focus on some of the players in the Christmas story - Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the angels, and Jesus.

Advent Activity Calendar

I just finished up an advent activity calendar for us!  It's important to me that the whole presents/Santa/stuff part of the holidays be very minimal in our house, so I try to put a lot of emphasis on the really important (for us, the story of Christ's birth and serving each other) and the fun (making cookies, decorating, etc.)  I thought it would be fun if we had an advent calendar with an activity for each day.  

I pretty much worked with what I had on hand.  My supplies were: a piece of scrap wood from the garage, white spray paint, cup hooks, and a cute paper tag pad from Target (I found these near the scrapbook paper - I was pleased that there were exactly 24 sheets in the pad).

cup hooks and tag pad

I screwed 24 cup hooks in the wood in a staggered pattern  - that got a lot easier when I started using Matt's drill to start the holes.   I screwed two more cup hooks in the top (I pinched the hook closed with pliers) so I could hang it on the wall.  Then I spray painted the whole deal. 

Conveniently, the tag pad has cute little cut-outs so I could just pop 'em up on the hooks.  I still have to write numbers on the front.  Our activities will be on the back on little post-it notes so I can move the activities around if I need to.  I got the post-it note idea from Simple Mom.

I hung it in our dining room so it will be convenient to check the activities everyday. Here's the list of our activities.

Linking up to: Sundae Scoop at I heart Naptime, Think Pink Sunday at Flamingo Toes, Made by You Monday at Skip to my lou, Take a Look Tuesday at Sugar Bee Crafts

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Chores

I've taken on a bit more than I could chew this fall - I've been tutoring 3 nights a week, babysitting (and delivering to school) a six year old several mornings a week, subbing as a dorm parent occasionally, doing a homework-heavy weekly Bible study, and doing all my usual mom stuff while Matt has worked the last 6 weekends in a row.  (Yeah.  6.  In a row.)  And of course, what's fallen by the wayside is chores.  Our house has been a disaster, which doesn't bother anyone except me, but it really bothers me. I'm changing my schedule to free up some time, but I also needed to implement some structure and accountability to my cleaning chores.

Enter this cute customizable chores printable from my3monsters, which I found via Pinterest.  I thought about what I wanted to get done each week and divided it for the weekdays.  My3monsters also has a chore chart with her chores on it, but it was CRAZY extensive.  Like washing the walls crazy extensive.  I don't have time for that - but my props to anyone who does.

I edited the blank chore chart in picmonkey, then printed it on photo paper, stuck it in frame from the Dollar Tree, and hung it up on my kitchen wall.  Accountability.

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

"Bup, Bup."

"Bup" is Piper-speak for book.

Theme of the Month: Helpers

We decided our next theme should be helpers, focused a lot on community helpers.  We're going to explore different helping occupations and also learn about fire safety.  The fire truck came to Cadie's preschool  week before last so we've got a jump start on that.

Cadence has been interested lately in how we can help others, so we're going to be helpers too!  I hope we can take some cookies to the fire station and some food to one of the local food pantries.

Books: When the Library Lights Go Out by McDonald (there's a teaching guide for this book here), Postal Workers Deliver our Mail by Greene, Trashy Town by Zimmerman, Community Helpers from A to Z by Kalman, and At the Fire Station (can't find a link for this one)

Bible Thought: "Help One Another." Galatians 5:13

Songs: The Wheels on the Firetruck (same as the bus, except sing about the siren, ladder, seat belts and hoses) and I'm a Firefighter 

Pretend Play: Duplo Fire Station set, Librarian (Cadence selects/recommends books and conducts storytime when we play this)

Extras: Fire Safety Tot Pack from Royal Baloo, watch Barney: Let's Go to the Firehouse



Linking up to:  I Can Teach My Child Show and Share Saturday Link-up

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

first day - November