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:.jpg)
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!
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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:
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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 . . ..jpg)
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.
9 comments:
I love all of you crafts! I wish you lived here so we could do them together.
You are a fun Mom. Would you save some crafty activities for me to join in on?
You win the fun mom award. Very cool ideas.
I'm with Alex on the perfect cup of hot chocolate. Plenty of marshmallows for every sip. Oh, and when are gingerbread houses again?
mag - we could do them together if you lived HERE too!
jules - i'm sure we have more crafty ones in the mix. we're always happy to do repeats of the fun ones while you're here! do you want in on the gingerbread houses too? no tom, i can't give you an exact day, but they are somewhere in the latter half of the month.
Gosh, I can't even remember the last time I did a Gingerbread house. I'm in! I saw one in a cool home store I was shopping in yesterday. Premixed dough (just add the wet stuff). Not the same as homemade! I haven't bought a ticket to DEN yet. Maybe 18th? Maybe 17th?
I love.love.love those trees you made. And I think that Katie's ornament hanging skills are right up my alley. (I organize mine by color before I hang to ensure equal distribution). I love the cinnamon ornaments to, smell delicious.
Fun. I want to live at your house
Holy crap, those trees are awesome!!! I can't believe you actually MADE them - tutorial please. I would never take that on free hand.
The advent you made us was the hit of December. From choosing the ornaments to go in the pockets to taking turns putting one on the tree each day to looking ahead to find out what the next ornament was, they loved it all. I thought about putting a thing-a-day in the pockets too for us to do but realized I just couldn't keep up. I couldn't plan that far ahead for family activities so we just did what we could.
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