an early gift

According to our Advent Activity Calendar, day four directed the girls to open an early present.  I have to be honest.  This present was as much for me as it was for them.  I have wanted this for years.  

 I wanted a creche that was beautifully made, yet functional.  And functional for a three year old means she can play hard and it won't break.

We put the creche together by ourselves, which is a feat in itself as I have a terrible time following directions.  You know it's bad when your three year old is looking at the pieces and the picture and telling you what to do.

We like to read The Jesus Story Book Bible.

Abby liked using the both the pictures from the story and the characters during play.  There was a lot of singing about the beautiful baby.  She has just started to engage in imaginative play contently by herself.  As you can guess, hearing a three year old retell the Christmas story is pretty awesome.  My favorite part was Mary and Joseph using their cells phones to call their aunts and uncles with the good news.  :)

christmas tree saga 2011

                                           

every year i make our family buy a live tree.  except for one year when we bought the cheapest, ugliest artificial tree from craigslist.  we did that because josh seems to be allergic to Christmas trees.  for the first three years of our marriage, i didn't believe him.  i'm such a jerk.  the artificial tree was so depressing we went back to live trees  - even though josh has issues with it.  please don't be offended if you have an artificial tree - there are some beauties out there.  both of our parents have gorgeous trees.  

finding the *perfect* tree consisted of shaking two trees and asking abby which one she liked.

coco was made. 

i get a little uptight about placing the lights correctly.  josh knows his role at this point.

planning and plotting the light situation.  we had to go to home depot TWO times in ONE night for more lights and a bigger tree base.  yes, they must be color lights.  one little lady insists.

 drinking coco late at night was too much excitement.

ornaments were dumped in a frenzy.  even the glass ones.  and abby jumped on one splitting her toe open.  and that ended christmas tree hunting fun day very quickly.

and we were out of band-aids so josh made abby a much needed cast from paper towels and purple tape.  if it fell off in the night so awoke screaming, "I need my cast!"

one night later the blasted allergenic tree is up and decorated.  and all is well.  as well as it can be if you have a fake cast and an allergy to Christmas trees.

but really.  all is well.   

salt dough ornaments

Salt Dough Ornaments

• 4 cups flour
• 1 cup salt
• 1 1/2 cups warm water

Mix ingredients in a bowl.  

The more the merrier.  Knead until soft and smooth.

Roll the dough flat.

Cut out shapes.

Place on cookie sheet.  Poke holes with a pencil/pen.

Bake at 325 for an hour or so.

Hang out in your new Learning Tower just purchased from craigslist.

When cooled and you can get to it - paint away!  We used acrylic paint and glitter.  The unicorn is Abby's most precious possession!

Eleanor enjoyed putting her finger in and out of the hole in the ornament.  

Clean up made easy with the handy dandy Learning Tower.  Seriously, this thing has changed my life.

Glitter explosion.