Advent Calendars

Advent Calendars 


Nothing starts the holiday season off more in my mind then when the advent calendar comes out. We have tried a variety of different styles over the past few years. Little A is always excited to see what we have come up with.


This year as each door is opened on her advent tree she not only finds her magnetic ornament but she has also found a family dinner question. I searched around the internet for family friendly dinner questions and put together a document with some holiday clip art. Each night we ask the question at hand and record each family members answers on the back of the tag. Each slip will be put away in our Christmas memory book with our annual holiday photo cards. That way we can look back on them later as LittleA grows. I have uploaded  the questions to scribd so feel free to download a copy for your family. The little tags can easily be folded and slipped into most advent calendars with doors...or just number th ebacks and put them in a jar or in envelopes that can be opened each night.

Advent Dinner Questions    

Additionally if you would like the santa beard cotton ball count down that I mentioned last year - I now have that up on scribd too.
Santa Advent Copy    


Do you have a fun advent calendar tradition? Please share it - I am always looking for new ideas!

Prepping

Lists and I are good buddies. We had one on our fridge all summer long with all the fun family things we hoped to accomplish. We got to nearly all of them and just this last week completed the last "Build A Nest". On a nice autumn day LittleA and I headed outside and with arms outstretched we flew around our yard and collected enough leaves to create a nest for the two of us to sit in and reflect upon on our summer and snuggle up for the fall.

I like to have a plan and know in advance what I need and want to do with my time. The ironic thing is that I am also a procrastinator. At the holiday times this can lead to me making wish lists in my head and feeling disappointed in the flurry of the holidays when I can not make things happen. 
Enter my new favorite free download....

Giver's Log is a great blog which posts a great variety of gift ideas. Currently the site is reviewing good co-worker ideas. While I was there I found a post about a Holiday Checklist. The check list begins 12 weeks before Christmas. Perhaps next year I will be ready to start Christmas planning 12 weeks out...but for this year I am going to be just thrilled that I have a plan and a very pretty list to look at! You can download a copy over at scribd - list filled in with tasks or blank version to fill in yourself. I printed off both versions. I went through the filled in version and used it to help me create my own filled in list from the blank template. Now the whole things hangs nicely on my fridge.


Week One (for me):
- scout out this years photo holiday cards
- make or order cards
- steam clean the carpets
- create gift budget
- create gift list
- pack away Halloween decoration

- decorate for Thanksgiving
- create a holiday gift receipt envelope
- prepare craft/studio space for homemade gift creating and wrapping
- collect clothing donations from around the house
- create invites and have friends over for a soup swap

- decorate dining room window (with leaf turkeys)- leave space for THANKFUL 4's (seen in Family Fun magazine)

The items in bold are what I still have yet to do here on Sunday at 7:20. I guess over scheduling will remain a problem for me. But as I type this I am also ordering my photo cards on snapfish. I also skipped ahead a little bit as I came up with a fun advent calendar idea. More on advent calendars coming up next!

Summer Wrapped Up

Summer Wrapped Up


The weather we had this summer left us with a scarce garden and few beach days. In spite of the cool summer weather we have eased into the fall and are awaiting the seasons to change yet again.

~ garlic is dried ~

~ pickles are packed ~

~ potatoes are dug ~

~ herbs are trimmed and ready ~

~ acorns await fall decorating and crafting ~

~ we are ready ~

Happy Halloween

Welcome to our version of the Great Pumpkin Patch and Happy Halloween to you!

Oh how we love the crayola window markers and the Lyra wax-o-glas crayons - seriously go order a set right now...they are a super fun stocking stuffer!

Not all pumpkins...some of those are super huge squash that took over our garden - and the best part is we never even planted them!

BOO

May your day be full of wonderful Tricks and Treats!

The Kissing Hand

The Kissing Hand

Here is a little project we made to go along with the book The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. After reading the book we talked about nocturnal animals and all the wee critters that would be attending the school with Chester the raccoon. We had an empty oatmeal container heading to recycling and thought we may be able to re purpose it. We decided to make the school in the tree and the make little cards for each student animal that we found in the book.

 We started by covering the entire container with construction paper that would serve as our sky.

Next LittleA worked on her scissors skills as I showed her how to make tiny close cuts to create grass. She is a hug fan of the glue stick!

While she created the grass I worked on the tree trunk and leaves. Once the grass was glued on we fluffed it up a bit to give it some dimension.

We got out some of my favorite free craft supplies - paint chip cards. We selected a few to use as cards for our animal students.

We did not have stickers that coordinated with every one of the animals that appear in the book - but we found a good amount of them. I labeled each card with the animal name so that LittleA could work on her letters or reading if she wants to.

There are certainly a number of activities that you can do when the project is complete. We enjoyed putting each animal through the slot in the lid and sending them off to school. We also picked animals from the group to read up on and look for in other books.