Our Elves are Back!

The girls were excited to see that our elves came back a few days ago!  Our elves aren't naughty or creative like a lot of elves out there in blog land.  They just like to hang out in high places around our house.

I'm not really keen on encouraging the girls to behave nicely just because they think someone is watching them and reporting back to Santa, so the elves are really more about the excitement of finding them each morning and then checking on them throughout the day to see if we can catch them blinking :)

O(6) recently wrote a note for the elves to take to Santa.  When she told me about it, I expected it to be a wish list, but she just told Santa that she loves him....so sweet.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Day 13

Our Christmas book of the day was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Both girls love this story, and I was able to haltingly read it despite my very sore throat....I had to whisper my way through a few pages...gotta love the flu :(

Our go-along activity was making a reindeer paper chain.  This reindeer paper chain craft pack came from Dollar General.  It was cute and easy to do.  We had fun making it, and it was the perfect simple activity for this sick mama to do with my girls.

The girls were proud to hang our reindeer paper chain on our wall.

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Making Moccasins

During Thanksgiving week, O(6) and I had a wonderful time making a pair of moccasins for her.  We took turns sewing the moccasins with O doing most of the work over the course of 3 nights.


 I bought the moccasin kit from Michael's, and they are much too big for her, but she doesn't mind at all.  She LOVED this activity, and I loved making this sweet memory with her :)

Flu

Despite my uneasiness about shots, next year we will all get flu shots.  On Monday, I saw homeschooling as a perk since E(3) had the flu, and O was able to "go" to school without me having to get E up and out of the house.  Today it is not seeming like that much of a perk, since I'm the one who woke up sick.  Now we'll see if school will happen when mama has the flu...

Dream Snow- Day 8

Dream Snow was the girls' Christmas book of the day on December 8.  We all love the book, and the girls LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the activity that went along with it!

Since we often dream of snow, but rarely get it, I decided that Insta-Snow would be the perfect thing to go along with the book, Dream Snow!  (I bought the Insta-Snow from Oriental Trading more than a year ago and promptly forgot about it, which worked out well :)




The girls took turns measuring the Insta-Snow powder and the water and then mixing it together.  It was fun to watch how quickly the powder turned into "snow."












We had fun trying to make snowballs, but they fell apart immediately.


We tried to build a mini snowman, but this was also unsuccessful.


They were trying to make mini snow angels with their hands...love it!


Insta-snow is supposed to last for about a month, so we are looking forward to many more days of fake snow fun!

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Christmas Card Puzzles

I made these Christmas card puzzles for O(6) several years ago, and we have fun with them every year.  I set them out on E(3)'s school shelf last week, and we have had fun doing this work together.


There are one or 2 squares cut from each card.  We spread the cards out and then match the squares to the appropriate cards.  Simple and fun!

The Polar Express- Day 3

The girls' Christmas book of the day for Dec. 3 was The Polar Express.  They love this book, so they were excited to see it!

 I was a little worried that giving them the playmobil advent calendar on the first day would make the other activities seem like a disappointment, but luckily that hasn't been the case :)  

I knew which book they girls were going to open, but I didn't know what the activity was going to be until right before they opened it....it was super simple, and they squealed with joy when I told them.  They read the book with their daddy, and then they got to listen to The Polar Express audiobook while they were going to sleep.  That's it.  They LOVED it.  Simple is good.  And our girls LOVE audiobooks!

Boxes for Costa Rica

The girls LOVED packing these boxes full of goodies for a family in Costa Rica.  O(6) and I had fun shopping for the family, and both girls were so proud to be helping make Christmas special for another family.


One afternoon when I asked her what she was thankful for, O said "I'm thankful for buying presents for the children in Costa Rica."  Thanks to my friend Rebecca for providing us with this opportunity and to my mom for joining us in "adopting" this family for Christmas!

Christmas Bow Transfer Work

Both girls have had fun with this Christmas bow transfer work that I put on their Montessori shelves this week.


The girls pick the bows up one at a time using tweezers and transfer them to the egg carton.


Fun times!

The Sweet Smell of Christmas- Day 2

The girls were so excited to open their 2nd Christmas book!

We all love The Sweet Smell of Christmas, and it reminds me of my childhood since it's a book that my mom read to me every Christmas.  Our activity to go along with this book was making a "humongo" gingerbread man!

They worked together to mix the ingredients to make the dough (we used a bag mix, so it was only 3 ingredients...I felt only slightly guilty at taking the easy way out and not making the cookie from scratch).


They had fun pressing the dough into the gingerbread shaped pan.


They loved decorating their gingerbread girl (they named her Sally) with green and red m & m's.

There was time for an impromptu ballet performance while Sally baked.

And she's done!

At first they said they couldn't bear to eat her, but they quickly changed their minds and had slice with a mug of hot chocolate!

I noticed E(3) watching me out of the corner of her eye, so I grabbed the camera and caught her licking her hot chocolate from her placemat :)

What a fun night!

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