The Progressive Apron

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O and I painted these aprons when we painted the kitchen towels. Again she really liked making the handprint tree, but she was not interested in decorating the tree :) My plan for the aprons (each grandma gets one, we made one for me, and one for O) is to add another handprint decoration each year. I will write O's name and the year by each one. O and M (my niece) are both decorating my mom's apron. The aprons came from Hobby Lobby.

Christmas Sachets

O and I had so much fun making these sachets for our family and friends on Monday morning. The idea for these sachets came from here. Thanks, Theresa!

I traced around a salad plate and cut out 8 circles of fabric.

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O enjoyed trying to cut Rosemary for the sachets. This was difficult for her, but she got better at it as she kept trying.

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Putting the Rosemary on the fabric circle

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Putting dried orange peels on the fabric circles. O's favorite part of this project was cutting the ribbon. She was so excited to be able to easily achieve cutting success! (we need to do more cutting activities!)

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And they're done...8 small, sweet smelling handmade gifts! O was VERY proud!

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"Hand" Painted Kitchen Towels

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These towels are another of our handmade (well...handpainted, since I bought the towels) gifts. O enjoyed making the handprint, but she wasn't interested in decorating the tree. After weeks of trying to get her interested in decorating the tree, I finally did it myself :) I hope our family and friends like these special keepsake Christmas kitchen towels :)

Making Peppermint Playdough & Chocolate Letters

We decided to make peppermint playdough and chocolate letters for Sunday night's advent activities. We had a great time making the playdough, and it turned out perfectly.

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We added glitter to make it festive :)

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To make the chocolate letters, O and I put chocolate chips in the silicone alphabet ice trays. We chose letters of our family members' names, and we planned to share the letters with them.

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This project did not work as planned, and it was actually a disaster! I put the trays in the oven to melt the chocolate chips, but they never melted. Then they started burning! Our whole house was filled with smoke, and we had to turn on the fans and open the doors (and it was cold!). Oh, well. I should have followed Amy's instructions and melted the chocolate before pouring it in the trays :)

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More Advent Activities

I've gotten a little slack about blogging our daily advent activities, and I want to remember them for next year, so here they are:
Making a snow globe. Note to self: DON'T use hot glue. It doesn't work!

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Baking with Guh-guh

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More baking with Guh-guh

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Delivering the baked goods to our neighbors was the special activity for one day also. We also had a movie night and attended a couple of Christmas parties.
An unexpected highlight of one of the Christmas parties was a ride on this horse drawn buggy :)

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Doing all of these special activities has made this month so special and so much fun! I can't wait until next year :)

Christmas Traditions

One of my favorite Christmas traditions when I was a child was putting this puzzle together. I don't know why this was so special to me, but I remember being so excited about this puzzle. I remember this tradition far more clearly than I remember the toys I recieved :)

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Another Christmas tradition that we had was to use these Christmas glasses for the month of December. Everyone had a favorite number, and we were (and still are!) to use that glass for the whole month. I'm 8 Maids a Milking :) My mom bought each of us our own set of these glasses, so we have the tradition at our house, too. Although, we aren't quite as strict as my mom :)

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A new tradition that Elliott and I started last year (among many others!) is that on Christmas Eve (after leaving his parents' house), we get Japanese take-out for dinner. When we get home we have a picnic on the den floor while watching old home videos. I can't wait for O to see herself on video from the past 2 Christmases. She's going to LOVE it! We also plan to show her our wedding video and her birth video. After our picnic and the videos, she'll open a few presents from us.

DIY Keep it Steady Game

When I saw the review of this game on Z Recommends I thought that it looked like a lot of fun and VERY easy to make. Luckily, I was right!
To make this game you need a pack of dowels (12 inches long), a saw (I used a miter saw and box), paint, mod podge, sandpaper, a wooden curtain ring, and a block.
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To make this game, I sawed the dowels in half and sanded the ends. Of course, O had to help!

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Then I painted the ends using 6 different colors and painted the block using the same colors. I taped the edges of the block, so I'd have a neater paint job. Then I coated the block with a layer of mod podge to give it a sheen and to make it more durable. I planned to eventually paint the whole sticks instead of just the ends, but now I've decided that I like the look of just having the ends painted :)

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The game fits nicely in a pencil case :) I made 2 of these games at the same time. It was easy, fast, and fun! I hope O and M like them!

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Family and Friends Memory Game

I finished this game last night, and I am really pleased with how quickly it came together. I hope O is going to love it! To make the game, I printed pictures as thumbnails, placed a wooden disk on top of the picture, and cut around it. I then glued the picture to the disk with mod podge. The next day I coated them with another layer of mod podge. Fast and easy! I ran out of wooden disks long before I ran out of pictures, so this will be a work in progress :)

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These disks are pretty small, so you wouldn't want to make this game for a child who still puts objects in his or her mouth. This picture of me is goofy, but it's one of the 1st pics O ever took and I think she did a pretty good job :)

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I originally planned to make a drawstring bag to store the game in, but then I decided that this box would work nicely :) I like how the picture disks look all crowded in the box :)

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