The Nutcracker

One of the girls' books of the day a couple of weeks ago was The Nutcracker.  The girls LOVE this book!


We started taking O(6) to see The Nutcracker ballet when she was 2, and she has danced in the ballet for the past 3 years (she was a mouse this year).  E(3) saw her first Nutcracker ballet at age 1, and she has been completely mesmerized every time she has seen it.  So, it's no surprise that they love the book!
For the go-along activity, they put together a paper Nutcracker (that I bought from Dollar General).  Coincidentally, my mom came to keep the girls on the day that they opened this book, and she had an AMAZING Nutcracker music box for them.


The girls LOVE this music box and have spent many hours staring at the dancers and then dancing to the music.  E(3) has started snuggling down under our tiny Christmas tree while hugging her Nutcracker doll...she loves to pretend to be Clara.  She also dances all around the room while holding and looking lovingly at her Nutcracker doll  She is so sweet.
E(3) gets pretty creative when she plays with her music box and playmobil figures!

Cutting Coffee Filter Snowflakes...Or Not!

The Christmas Alphabet was our book of the day one day last week, and both girls really like this book.


This page was the inspiration for our go-along activity which was folding and cutting coffee filters to make snowflakes.


I cut a snowflake to show the girls how to do it.  They oohed and ahhed and said it was beautiful.  Then they started working on their own coffee filter creations.
O(6) decided that she'd rather make a butterfly than a snowflake, so she got right to work painting her coffee filter.





E(3) colored her coffee filter with markers and then folded it in half and clipped a clothes pin to it.  It was a fan, and she was an Egyptian fan bearer.  Then E requested a peacock, and the girls worked on it for more than an hour.
Here is the peacock in progress.  LOTS of glue, duct tape, coffee filters, time, love, and persistence went into making this beautiful peacock!


After they finished the peacock, E requested a clamshell and described exactly how she wanted it made.  The 3 of us worked on it together, and she was very happy with it.  Unfortunately, I can't find it to take a picture.
Evidently, coffee filters make the perfect cozy bed for tiny toys!  Who knew that coffee filters could be so much fun???

Great Joy

We usually give the girls one or 2 new Christmas books each year to add to our collection, and this year they recieved Great Joy.  This is a sweet book that we have all enjoyed reading.


The go-along activity for this book was our felt board nativity scene.  E(3) LOVES nativity scences (she calls them "activity" scenes), so she was thrilled with this new "flat activity" scene :)


This nativity scene came from Activity Village.  It's printed on white cardstock. I glued a small piece of sandpaper to the back of each piece so that it would stick to the felt.     

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Personalized Paper Doll Ornaments

I try to make personalized ornaments for the girls each Christmas (haven't made any yet this year), and last year I made ornaments using their personalized Lily and Thistle paper dolls.  This was the simplest ornament ever...I just printed the paper doll along with a Christmas outfit, cut them out, dressed the doll (the clothes stick on with a sticky strip and are removeable), glued a ribbon to the back, and was done!  The girls and my niece love their ornaments!

E(3)


O(6)


M(8)


The girls had fun cutting out and playing with the free paper doll offered on the Lily and Thistle blog this week!

Crystallized Snowflakes

The girls, my niece, mom, and I had fun making crystallized snowflakes after reading the book, Snowflake Bentley.  We love this book, and the activity was fun and educational...a craft and science project all rolled into one!

To make crystallized snowflakes (and stars and initials), we made snowflakes using pipecleaners.  I dissolved   3 tablespoons of borax to 1 cup of boiling water (I made at least 6 batches of the solution) and poured the mixture over the pipe cleaner objects that we'd placed in glass pyrex containers.  After about 24 hours, we had crystals!  The girls were SO excited!

After the crystals grew for a while, we took them out of the borax solution and placed them on wax paper to dry.

We made these snowflakes a few years ago, but haven't done it again until now because I was afraid E(3) might put the crystals in her mouth, and they are dangerous.  Now that she is old enough to understand the danger and avoid it, we can do this project again!

Here's a link to the previous post from 2009.

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Our Gumdrop Tree

One of our favorite traditions is making our gumdrop tree each year.  The girls and I break toothpicks in half, stick them in a styrofoam tree form, and stick gumdrops on the toothpicks.  We always love this activity.


This is at least the 4th year that we've done this activity, and we've always used the same styrofoam tree form!  I thought that last year would be the last year for it, but it lasted one more year.  However, as we were building the tree, the top started to crumble.  So, the tree form will be going into the trash after Christmas this year.  I hate to use styrofoam, but using the same form for 4 years makes me feel a little less guilty about it :)


We were excited that the girls' cousin was visiting and helped us make our gumdrop tree!

Homemade Snow Globe

One of the girls' Christmas activities last week was to make snow globes (I have no idea which book this activity goes with...I can't keep track anymore!).  O(6) did not want to make a snowglobe, but E(3) and I had fun with it.


We hot glued the Santa toy onto the jar top.  We filled the jar with water, corn syrup, and glitter.


We put the top on the jar and turned it upside down and shook.  E(3) was proud!