I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

I am a northern girl transplanted in the south for the last 7 years.   The rest of the family is quite adjusted to it all but not me.  Don't get me wrong it is beautiful here and the people are wonderful, warm, and genuine.  I just miss the change of seasons and the snow in winter esp. at Christmas.  See this is the view out my back door today.

It is so brown and dreary and doesn't look much like Christmas at all.

And then there is this...

This is my parents house, the one I grew up in, and this is what Christmas should look like.

This is the view from their house. (big sigh!)

So today because we have no real snow (big sigh again) we made snow flakes.  There are the regular kind

and then there are some 3 dimensional ones

 

and then there is the mother of all snowflakes.

It is about 2 feet across.  I never meant for it to be that large but I had never made the 3 dimensional snow flakes before and so I thought each small part was supposed to be a full sheet of paper.  OOPS!  It is kind of neat though and Tyler is super impressed with it.

If you have never made the 3 dimensional ones before here are the instructions.  It is actually super easy but it is a little time consuming.

As I was sitting and looking at the snowflakes this evening it struck me that these would also look great in red as poinsettia.  Tomorrow we are reading the Legend of the Poinsettia and so I thought this might make a fun craft to go along with that.  I quick made one to see how it would look and I am very pleased.

I glued on some paper leaves and some green pom poms in the center and I really think it looks good.  This will be fun to make more tomorrow.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas and if you live somewhere where there is snow could you enjoy it for me too!  Thanks!

Enjoying Christmastime

Our day got off to a bit of a rough start as Tyler was grumpy and Christian got up way too early and Lucy decided she is going to try and dig her way to China from the backyard.  I quickly straightened out though and ended up being a pretty good day overall.
We started this morning with our Jesse tree.  We read the verses and hung up the ornament.  This our first year doing the Jesse tree and we are really enjoying it.  We are using the ornaments and verses from Tired, need sleep.
Here is a picture of our Jesse tree so far.

We are studying the names of Jesus instead of our regular Bible book right now.  I had bookmarked a beautiful garland craft with the names of Jesus that I wanted to do this Christmas to go with our study.  I decided to change it to ornaments however because I don't have enough ribbon for garland.  I hung them by our dining room window which is where we do school as a reminder of some of the names we are studying.

 

 

 

I am very pleased with how they turned out.  It was also another opportunity to use my new circle cutter. :)  Yes, I really am that geeky.

This afternoon I made peppermint playdough for Christian which turned out nicely but he wasn't interested in it today ( he got up  WAY too early).  We will try it tomorrow and I think because I have enough we will use some to make candy cane ornaments too.

This evening I made hot chocolate in my cocomotion.  I got it last year for Christmas from my hubby and I LOVE it.  It is so easy and makes awesome cocoa.

If you love hot chocolate you might want to check it out.  While I was having my hot chocolate we played To Bethlehem.  We got the game last year but I never has a chance to play it with the rest of the family because Christian was sick and I was busy taking care of him.  It is sooo much fun.  It has all kinds of cards with great discussions on different things about Christmas and you have to do crazy things like put a towel on your head or wear socks on your hands.  You also get to sing Christmas songs and it is just a fun family time.

Tyler won the game but we all had a great time playing.

Tomorrow I think we need to start some Christmas baking because everybody keeps asking about it.  Usually I have baked a ton by now but I just haven't been able to find a good block of time yet.  I think I will get everything ready tonight and maybe I can start tomorrow.

I need to go now and prepare for tomorrow.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays as much as we are here!

Peppermint Play Dough

Today, I am going to make peppermint play dough for Christian. I put red food coloring in half of the dough so we can make candy cane shapes with it. It smells really good too!

Peppermint Play Dough

Ingrediants:

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cup water
1 cup salt
1 tsp. vinegar
1/4 tsp. peppermint extract
food coloring

directions:

Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Slowly add water and vinegar and stir until stiff. Knead until desired consistency. Divide dough in half. Form a bowl shape with each half of the dough. In the first half drop in the peppermint extract and knead until dough is smooth. In the second half drop peppermint extract and red food coloring and need until color is spread throughout dough. You can add more food coloring until you get the red color you want. Store in a freezer bag or airtight container in the refrigerator. If should last at least a month if stored after each use. Bring the dough out of the refrigerator about 5 minutes before you wish to use it so that it is more pliable. You can also leave out a shape you have created to harden for at least 24 hours if you wish to keep it. Spraying it with varnish to preserve it after it is completely hardened is also a good idea.

* This recipe is not edible and young children should be supervised.

Christmas Neighbor Gift

We have been working on some handmade gifts for friends and family this week.  We made this cute gift for our neighbors out of things that we had already here at home.  It can be filled with cookies and candy and left hanging on their front door knob.

We made it with a leftover pie tin from Thanksgiving (all washed out of  course) and some scrapbook paper and stickets I had leftover from making Christian's Advent calender.

We cut out a circle of scrapbook paper that fit the inside of the tin and then glued it on.  Next we cut a half circle of cardstock and glued that to the edges of the pie tin to form a pocket.  Tyler decorated it with more scrapbook paper and some stickers.  I then punched two holes at the top of the tin and ran a ribbon through and tied a bow.    The last thing we did was cut a small circle of scrapbook paper to make the gift tag.  I punched another hole in the top of tin and attached the tag with a ribbon.

Now we just need to fill them with goodies and hang them on the doorknobs of our neighbors!

Just about finished

I am so excited I am just about finished with my Advent calender for Christian.  All I have left to do is attach the ribbon to hang it and put on the velcro that will hold the tins to the calender.  I am waiting for the clear velcro dots that I ordered to arrive and they should be here by Tuesday and then I can fill the tins and hang it.  I am very happy with how it turned out.  I really wish I had time to make more for gifts.  Well, anyways, here are the pictures.

Here is the calender without the tins.

Here it is with the tins set on.

This was so much fun to make.   Here is the blog post that inspired me to make this if you want all the directions.  Mine is a little different than the instructions but it is close.  If you have a half a day or so set aside you could create this still before December or give it as a gift.   I hope you enjoy it! 

supersized post ;)

I have been sooo busy around here trying to get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  This is my first year of blogging and so I guess I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to keep up with blogging during the holidays.  I apologize for not keeping up so well here lately.  I know I am also so far behind on reading the blogs I like to follow and on emailing people back.  I am going to try and catch up this weekend though!   

I have been working hard on making an advent calender for Christian.  I am trying to make one similar to one posted here.  So far I have the little tins completed.  Here is a picture.

It is A LOT of work but they are turning out really cute.  I printed out the labels that came with the tins using a template from Wilton and clipart from Word.  I cut out Christmas scrapbook paper circles and inserted them under the lids so they show up around the labels.  I also cut out strips of paper and glued them around the tins.  Here are a couple of closer pictures.

Sorry it's a little blurry!

Here is a picture of all the tins from the side.

This weekend I am hoping to work on the calender part where these all get attached to.  It is fun and I wish I had more time because I would love to make a few more of these for gifts.  Maybe I will work on some during the year so that I can give them next Christmas.

Besides the calender I also worked on ordering our Christmas cards.  This was a process I thought would only take a couple of minutes and ended up taking two hours!!!  We had received something in the mail from Compassion that said they were teamed up with Dayspring and that you could order cards with pictures of your Compassion child on the back of the card.  The link is here if you are interested.  I designed our card and uploaded all the pictures of our family and our Compassion child and went to order the cards and the website locked up.  I did this four more times and each time it did the same thing.  It didn't save any of it either so each time I had to start completely over.  I was so frustrated!  After four times I started to think maybe I would try bringing up the website on Internet Explorer instead of Firefox and Yippee it finally worked.  Of course by then I had done the whole thing five times.  I am just glad I got them ordered though and  I can't wait for them to arrive.  I am so excited to send one to our little Sulokyhoni in India so that she can see that she was on our Christmas cards too. 

Tim has been having some health issues and so he was at the doctor yesterday for bad headaches and a very red eye.  He didn't get any answers so I am sad for him about that.  His father died of a brain cancer so I always get a little scared when he has a lot of headaches.  He has also having a lot of pain in his foot and is at the podiatrist today for a second time this month.  He is double jointed and they believe he may have a nerve pinched in one of his joints.  It causes him a lot of pain.  Last time he was there they gave him a shot of steroids hoping to lesson some of swelling around the joint.  It didn't help him much and today he is supposed to be getting some insoles that hopefully will help some more.  I think it is eventually going to end up in surgery which he is not to thrilled about.  He is not one for being laid up in bed.

He will be attending a men's Bible study this Friday and Saturday at a friend's church.  I am excited for him to go because he doesn't get a lot of time with other christian men.  I think he will really enjoy it!

Tyler is doing well.  He is enjoying getting ready for the holidays.  He has spent a lot of time downloading Christmas music to his I-Pod.  He is so into music this year.  Thankfully it is all christian music.  He is doing well at school.  He has completed all 12 of his boxes every day this week which he has been struggling to do at times this year.  He has been listening to The Legend of Squanto from Focus on the Family this week which we have done for the last couple of years.  We have also been enjoying The book of Thanksgiving for several years.

It is a great book with recipes, great poems for copywork, and great ideas for Thanksgiving traditions but Tyler really likes  the Turkey Day Trivia.  Did you know the heaviest turkey was 75 pounds?  Can you imagine having to cook that? 

Christian is still a little under the weather with a cold and well to be honest quite cranky.  He has his sleep all messed up again too and the combination isn't too pretty.  He woke up early yesterday after having gone to sleep late.  He was so stuffy and cranky all day and then around 4 pm he just feel asleep on the ottoman. 

It is sort of dark because I didn't want to use the flash and wake him up.  He was so sweet though.  It just all caught up with him!

Sorry to write such a long post!  I haven't been able to find much time and today I had some so I thought I would get everyone caught up with what we are up to.  If you have made it this far down thanks for sticking with me!

Have a great day!

Thanksgiving Tees

Over the weekend I started working on Thanksgiving t-shirts for the boys.  I though it would be fun to do something where we could list the things that they are thankful for.  I am hoping to get a cute picture of them when the shirts are dry. 

I took one of my leaf cookie cutters and traced it with pencil several times on each shirt.  Then I took fabric paint and traced over the lines I had drawn.  In each leaf we wrote one thing that they are thankful for.  Tyler listed all of his and then I thought about what Christian would say if he could talk. 

This shirt is Tyler's and he is thankful for dad, mom, Christian, Lucy, friends, music, football, his I-pod, and the Macy's parade.

Tyler was chattering away to me while I was painting on what he was thankful so we ended up with one mistake.  Instead of a d in friends there is now a b.  Oops!  Fabric paint is very unforgiving!





Here is Christian's shirt.  His is still drying which is why the cardboard is still in the middle.  He is thankful for dad, mom, Tyler, the park, the beach, music, Veggie tales, Bojangles, and most of all big hugs!

I can't wait to see them on.  I think they are pretty cute.