Then and Now

Yesterday's Advent Activity was inspired by a project that my Husband did in 1974 or 1975 during preschool

December 10 - Make Toilet Paper roll Santa's.

A few kids came over today to make the craft. I have to admit this was also a little more than a 3-4 year old can handle on their own so there was a lot of "helping". I hope that Sarah has her Santa as long as John has had his. Can you guess which one is Antique?

On Stage....

December 9th - Christmas Program at School -
It was time for Sarah's Christmas Program at School. She was so excited to "get up on stage" and sing her song. Each class performed 2 songs with props/movement etc. It was ADORABLE! Keep in mind each class is either a 3 or a 4 year old class so it is pretty impressive to see them "act". The entire sanctuary was FULL and it is a pretty big church. man those kids were brave! Sarah's class sang Little Drummer Boy and Looking for a King

She was SO proud and really serious about her bow.

Too many crafts

I am not sure that there is such a thing.. but I think over half of my Advent boxes are filled with crafts!

December 8th - Do a Christmas craft.. pretty vague, right?.. originally yesterday's was to decorate the tree.. but we did that earlier in the month and I had forgotten to put a new activity in yesterday's slot. While Sarah was eating breakfast, I slyly switched it to Christmas Craft. At that point I had no idea what we would do.. . I decided to go with the basics, some paper and cotton balls... a Santa in the making. This was Sarah's creation - don't you love the stray cotton ball on the one cheek? Sometimes 4 years olds are so easy to please (notice I said SOMETIMES!)

Daddy Daughter fun

John totally got ripped off on helping make the Gingerbread house but yesterday's activity was ALL a daddy-daughter deal:

December 7th - Hang Christmas Lights outside

We picked up one strand of LED lights to hang in our hibiscus outside as well as some snowflake stakes for the front yard area. John and Sarah unpacked the packages and got to work. The results are fun!

Good enough to eat

Yesterday Sarah was on the road to recovery.. but not well enough to go anywhere. So it was a PJ day and we had a great time just the same!

December 6th - Put together a Gingerbread House

A month or so ago I picked up a great Gingerbread House at Sams Club and Sarah has been so excited to break into the box. Yesterday was finally the day! I forgot how messy it is icing a Gingerbread house. It was a fun project. John was the official photographer since Sarah had her ideas of exactly how things needed to be. Fun Christmas memories

Yesterday I had to totally improvise what the Advent activity was. In the morning Sarah was still pretty lethargic and yucky so we stayed in the resort in our PJ's until it looked like she was feeling better. When we thought she had started to get better, we decided to head to Downtown Disney:

December 5th - Trip to downtown Disney

For a little while Sarah was fine.. enjoying "checking out the scenes"of the Lego Store, the Princess statues and the sites and sounds of the themed restaurants.

Around 1:30pm We were starved so we decided on Rainforest Cafe. Up to that point Sarah had only eaten 2 Ritz crackers all day. We got seated and Sarah went down hill quickly. All she wanted to do was go back to the hotel so we got up and left. She fell asleep on the 5 minute drive back and slept for 2 hours. When she woke up we drove back to Tampa. Our Disney weekend was a bust. Sarah was NOT happy when we went home. You gotta do what you gotta do to take care of your little ones :).

Flexibility is key

I am a planner.. if you know me you know that. I have all 25 days of the Advent box planned out, written on my calendar and in the Advent box. Then life throws you a curve ball.

December 4th - Pick out a new ornament for the tree -

I knew we were headed to Orlando for the weekend so I figured we would go to Downtown Disney last night and she could pick out an ornament. Things didn't work out that way. Sarah came down with a stomach bug our first evening there so no shopping was done.... Poor thing. Needless to say we are back in Tampa after a short but LONG 24 hour trip. No Disney for us this weekend (so more changes to the Advent calendar).

The Advent calendar activities for the rest of the weekend will be by the seat of our pants, based on how Sarah is feeling. Good thing I am flexible!

Sweet mice

December 3rd Advent - Candy Cane Mice craft at Diane's:

We went to a friend Diane's house to make Candy cane mice. Aren't they the cutest things? All the kids could think about was eating the candy canes :) It's okay though, I had a great time doing the craft!!!!!!! It took Sarah almost an hour to eat one candy cane! My niece Emma now she can down a candy cane in minutes. They enjoyed them down to the last lick!

More adventures and a giveaway

Our Advent Adventures continue. Yesterday's was especially fun for the whole family:


December 2nd: Decorate the Christmas Tree
Sarah was dying to decorate her pink tree in her room before John got home from work so she meticulously placed her mini-ornament on her mini tree (who doesn't LOVE mini anything!). Don't you LOVE how the pink tree is wrapped in beautiful sparkly plastic wrap stuff at the bottom (yea RIGHT). Anyways, she had a great time!

Once John got home we moved onto our regular tree... Years ago we switched to a artificial tree (much to John's dismay) because of destructive pets. Our pets aren't here anymore but I LOVE not having to water the tree and clean the dead needles. This year John's mom was gracious enough to give us her GORGEOUS tree from Ballard design that is prelit and has pine cones on it. I did not know how STRESS FREE putting up a tree could be. Usually I FIGHT with the lights and it always took forever to get them put on. Not this year.... Easy as PIE!!!!! LOVE IT!


I love unwrapping the ornaments every year and remembering who gave them to us or when they were made. My tree is adorned with beautiful Christopher Radko Ornaments that my Dad and Step mom have given us. On or around Thanksgiving every year, they give us a Christmas decoration, years ago the decoration changed into Christopher Radko ornaments. What a fun and generous tradition! Now that we have Sarah she LOVES seeing what ornament will be inside the box! Another favorite is all of the Ornament that John's Nana and Grandaddy had given him over the years. Nana always somehow put a date on the ornament so it is neat to look at them. Lots of other awesome handmade and photo ornaments hang from our tree.

I love our tree and all of the wonderful memories and holiday's past that it represents! I hope that you and your family have as much fun decorating your tree as we did ours!

CHEERS!

Also check out the giveaway on my sister's blog! FUN!

Life is good

What a tough year 2008 has been! Since my last post we lost John's dear Grandaddy. He was a very special and amazing man. We will miss him dearly - although we know that he and God are having a great time up there!

That said... life is good! We have been enjoying the beginning of the holiday season, thinking about all of the fun events we have coming up. Talented Kelly N. took AMAZING holiday photos of mine and my sister's family this weekend. Here are a few SILLY ones, I will post some not so silly ones another day:

Tonight I filled our Advent box with the Daily Holiday Activities.. Hey.. that just inspired me.. I will blog everyday with a report on our Advent fun! I don't have any pictures from today's event but I will try to take some for the upcoming days.

December 1st - Write Letters to Santa (CHARITY) - Jen, a friend of mine, hosted a Letters to Santa charity event today. Macy's is donating a $1 to the Make a Wish foundation for every letter that is written to Santa and placed in the mail box at Macy's. You can read more about the charity here. After the kids "wrote their letters", they cut out pictures of toys from catalogs and glued them to their picture "wish list". One of the things Sarah cut out was a Gumball machine - Um - yea NO. I don't think Santa will be bringing that - I will tell her that Gumballs were recalled for lead in the food coloring (LOL). Thanks Jen for a fun time, the kids enjoyed themselves!

It's good to be back in the blogging world!! I will see you tomorrow with an Advent Update!