Advent Countdown - Day 2

Today's book was 'Eloise Decorates for Christmas' By Kay Thompsen and others

We're big Eloise fans! Tonight our accompanying craft was to make snowman decorations of our own, with photos to give to friends!

 

Advent Countdown 2015- Day 1

Yup, It's official, I'm a fair weather blogger. Actually, since I seem to only be blogging our holiday fun, I guess that makes me a crap-weather blogger. But I digress.... This year we're doing our advent countdown a little differently. We're SO busy with dance, play practice, shows, homework, etc. that we just don't have time to do an activity everyday. So, this year "the elves" are bringing a new book everyday until Christmas, and some of those days (when we have more time), there are activities to go with the book. I'm really excited for some of them, particularly "N.H.Elf Hockey" to go with the book "Z for Zamboni."

Day One: 'Santa is Coming to Vermont' By Steve Smallman

I was delightfully surprised by this. I know they make these for each state, so I thought it would be totally generic, but it wasn't. There were some amazing illustrations of some of our favorite spots throughout the state!

Her activity was to write a Christmas list for Santa, which I assumed we would mail, but she thought it would be better to just have the elves bring it back to Santa when they came to drop off her new book the next morning. Good thinking kid!

Advent Day 13: Rudolph Movie Night With Daddy!

The Viv and Daddy movie night has been a tradition since the beginning, and so this year was no exception (and afforded me the opportunity to go watch a Tracy/Hepburn movie and wrap gifts  in the other room). Such cuties!
I used the FREE site Print With My Pic to make the tickets!

Advent Day 12: Snowflake Paintings

Advent Day 10: Family Reindeer Hands and Reindeer Cards

 

Advent Day 9: DIY Snowglobes!

We've had these strange little jars (I have no idea where they came from) for a few years, and thought they might be cute to use for making our snowglabes. I had originally intended to use mason jars, but the figurines we found were on the small side.

To  make these, all you have to do is:
- Hot glue waterproof figurines to the lid of a glass jar (make sure you can put the lid on the jar!)
- Add glitter and water
- After putting the lid on the jar, seal by hot-gluing around the edge of the lid

 

Advent Day 8: Elf Bowl!

Quite the victory dance in that bottom photo! This was one of the activities she told me she hoped the Elves would have her do again this year, so I was pretty excited when I found out my husband had kept the whole set!

 

Advent Day 7: "I like warm hugs..." (and pancakes)

I was so exhausted when I typed the elf note for this that I didn't even register the awkward word spacing. Whoops. Errr... I mean, wow, those elves sure can't type! But I digress... since I knew we would have a bit of extra time this morning, I planned a Frozen themed breakfast for Viv and Nana J. Viv already told me that my Sven was not fantastic. Noted, I will work on my pancake artistry ;-)

Advent Day 6: A visit to Santa and surprise visitor

Today we took our annual vissit to Santa, but the real fun was that Nana J planned a last minute trip to come see Viv's show tonight!

(Santa photo by www.randileephotography.com)

Advent Day 3: Tree Day!

Advent Day 2: Snowman Slam! (Reindeer Games Part I.)

Today we played our first Reindeer Game of the year, "Snowman Slam"! This literally took 3 minutes to make and she played it for almost an hour after school!

Someone asked me where I made my photo layout from yesterday. I actually created it using a free design app called Canva. I created a template, so all I have to do is change the day number and drag in my (poorly taken, low quality iphone) photos. It takes about 2 minutes!

Mommy-and-Me Do Together Craft: Photo Frame/Art Display

My kiddo loves to paint, and I'm always trying to think of cool ways to display her art. I was at the dollar store scoping out frames for an office-redo project I'm working on, and had an idea to make some mother's day frames that for interchangeable artwork and photos.

While Viv got to work crating some masterpieces, I heated up the 'ol hot glue gun and started by cutting a few pages out of an old photo album.

Measure and mark on a paper instert exactly where you will want to glue onto the plastic... this will save you from having a crooked frame.

I covered by photo frame insert with felt and foam frames... remember not to glue the top of the insert and frame if you want to be able to change the photo!

Ready for artwork!

Fighting Cabin Fever

Totally needed, especially after all the chilly weather and being stuck inside sick all week! So I decide that before anyone went  all Jack Nicholson, it would be good for all of us to get outside for some Vitamin D. Mike got called into work early (I am dreaming of Spring when his schedule won't be so brutal and he can spend more time at home!) so Viv and I bundled up and headed out.
What a stunning day! We are so fortunate to live where we do! Today's weather reminded me that winter in Vermont isn't really all that bad :)

Action shot!

About 40 seconds later she bowled me over, which resulted in snow.down.my.pants. Boy was she amused by that!

More snow down my pants, but oh well ;-)

Kiddo Craft: "Magic" Message Painting

Is it spring yet? We spent this chilly afternoon doing some arts and crafts!

Using the clear crayon leftover from Easter egg dying (white crayons would work too, but our paper was slightly gray so I went with this) I created some pictures and messages for Viv to water color and discover what each one was. Easy-peasy and really fun for little ones! Viv  painted about 12 in all, but would have gone on all afternoon if I hadn't started running low on crayon :)