the second week of Christmas

If you're interested in some new holiday music, check out this free link to a holiday album on iTunes. FREE! It's free for a week. found via lifehacker via stephmodo

I'd like to claim that my helpers were responsible for this mess, but I'm afrait they were fast asleep. This one is all me. HAD Katie been helping me, it would have been a much tidier job.

This week's activities have included making jingle-bell wreath ornaments - now I want a big one for my door! (Yes, that construction hat is permanently welded to Alex's head, but Cinderella only comes out about once a week now.)

Picnic in the living room - this ended up being even more bananas than I expected. Next time we do this (?) I'm going with hamburgers and fries.

Animal 'magic scratch' ornaments.
Pop-up tree - template found on Martha. (I reduced the tree by 70%). Why is cutting paper so much fun?

Paint Christmas nails - Alex went with sparkles, Katie now has two different shades of pink on her hands, and even mom has some colored nails.

Date night with mom or dad - this one is still being planned.

Camping in the bedroom - we'll see how long they last in the tent, and whether or not ANYONE gets any sleep!

Camping in the bedroom worked out better than I expected, in that ONE child acdtually made it in the tent through the night. Alex had a hard time staying put, so he ended up in his bed sometime around 11 pm.

Christmas countdown

Part of the problem with starting Christmas preparations really early is that I just end up adding more things onto my list. Seeing a picture of these trees on Kari's blog, coupled with a gift of some tiny ornaments from Mag from Ikea resulted in this project:
Please note Katie's decorating choices. She put different colored ornaments in each row, and where there were multiple hooks in a row she alternated matte and shiny. With no prompting from anyone, although that is probably how I would have arranged them myself. I guess that trait would be genetic. :)

For our Christmas countdown this year, we've put a different activity to do everyday in the pockets of the advent calendar. So far we've:

Made cinnamon/glue ornaments, complete with glitter. (1 C. cinnamon, 1 C. apple sauce, and 4 oz. glue - this made a ton.) I love how glitter jazzes up everything. I was in charge of glue, Katie and Alex do all their own glitter. This is a tough one to mess up, and man do they smell delicious!

Had a hot chocolate party. We had to switch to straws when the pouring to be a little more fun than the actual drinking.

Here's Alex's perfect cup of hot chocolate:

Made Christmas cards. I got this idea from Kid's Crafts weekly. I got to cut out the shapes, Katie and Alex got to run the glue, although I did cheat and help Alex olace one of his trunks. Now to determine the lucky recipients . . .

Cut out snowflakes. We need a little more practice with the scissors for these to resemble actual snowflakes, but 'cutting confetti' was just as fun with our crowd. And I busted out my 'Kirigami a day' calendar from 2008 and did a little cutting myself.

Max decided to add his own advent adventure: Let's see how many baths I can have in one day. Luckily he still fits nicely in the kitchen sink. So far we're at 2, but the day is only 1/2 over.

mr. freeze

Last night it snowed a bit and today the high is supposed to be a balmy 22 degrees.

Naturally, Alex had to go outside and ride his 'motorcycle' to celebrate.

post script: Yesterday, Alex asked again to go outside. As it was only 15 degrees, I voted no. Alex: But mom! I'm a motorcycle boy!

the tornado

Here are a few of Max's recent adventures:

He has moved on from eating dog food to filling up the dog's water dish with the dog food.

He DOES still enjoy eating dirt. Just picture that same little face with a ring of brown around the lips - the same face you'd get if you gave him an Oreo cookie. And for him, I can't tell yet if there's a taste difference.

He is very good with ladders. We put the Christmas lights up the day after Thanksgiving. I untangled lights, Roger put them up. At one point I turned around, and there was Max at the top of the ladder. I would have grabbed a picture, but figured that I was already pushing my luck regarding him taking a nose dive, since I wasn't entirely sure how long he'd been up there. I look forward to him figuring out the ladder on the bunk beds.

After telling him 'HANDS OFF' approximately 100,000 times, I finally learned my lesson and chose to keep the glass ornaments in the box. The tree this year is about 99% metal, which should prevent most of the damage Max could cause. And I moved the toy bench across the room, so his only access is by taking a leap off the back of the couch. More on that when he figures it out.