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 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 Days 4 & 5: Manger and Reindeer Games II.

This week is pretty light on activities because of play practices and performances. Between all of that and work and school, we had to choose things that were simple. 

We do this one every year, and Viv really loves it. She actually tried to get us to do this one about a week ago. This year we also read the book "Santa and the Christ Child" which is wonderful, and i highly recommend it.

Reindeer Games II: Holiday Memory game. She loved the Olaf!

Advent Day 3: Tree Day!

Advent Day 1: Christmas Peppermint Play Dough

Advent is here and we have so much planned! The schedule for Viv's Christmas play is a little more of a time committment than we anticipated, so several days this week will be fairly low-key in terms of activities.
Today we made peppermint-scented Christmas play dough (with glitter!). This only took about 10 minutes once we had all the ingredients together. Recipe and instructions below!

Ingredients (measurements are per color):

1. 1 Cup flour
2. 1/2 Cup salt
3. 1 Cup water
4. 2 Tablespoon vegetable oil
5. 1 Teaspoon cream of tarter

Mix ingredients together in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until it boils and becomes thick.  Cook an additional 30 seconds or until  the mixture pulls away from the pan.

Some prefer to kneed the food coloring in after it is removed from the stove, but I find that the color is more vibrant if added while the mixture is still in the warm liquid stage.

Advent 2013, Day 1

For the past few years, instead of doing an Elf on the Shelf, we've had a Magic Holiday Mailbox! Everyday, Santa's "elves" leave our daughter fun activities and treats to do with family and friends. This year is no different! The magic mailbox made it's return yesterday with a letter from Santa, a snowman chocolate, and the activity of going to buy toys for the local 'Toys for Kids.' I didn't feel it would be right to take pictures of the outing, but here is her getting her letter from Santa, which she LOVED!

The Santa Envelope template was from www.mrprintable.com

Low-Cost Valentine's Day

Or would that be LO-cost Valentine's Day? Hahahahahah..hahha..ha...mmm. Yes, I'm often a lot less funny out loud than i am in my head. ;-)
We're not huge into celebrating Valentine's day, although it's certainly fun to do crafts with Viv and all that! Here are the two little things Vivi and I made for Mike:
Photo Collage: This actually only took a few minutes to do each part! About 10 minutes to take the pictures, 10 minutes to edit them and add the text (we used Picasa), and about 3 minutes to print. Total cost: $3

Message in a Bottle:
I saw this idea on Pinterest, and when I came across the bottle at the dollar store, I decided it might be fun! I opted to remove the gaudy faux rose petals (Mike doesn't really dooo faux petals, and the pre-written (well what's the fun in that?) note. We replaced them with some M&Ms, a "Daddy and Me" picture Vivi drew, and large amount of stickers that all preschool-aged projects require. Total cost: $4

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful dads out there, especially my own dad and my husband! In honor of father's day, I bring you my Top Five Fave TV Dads of All Time! In no specific order...

Jake Morgandorffer
Helen:"Honestly, Jake, sometimes I wonder if you know even the most rudimentary facts about our girls. How old is Quinn?”
Jake: “Uh, eleven. . . ish? That was a guesstimate.”
Helen: “Jake, what's my middle name?”
Jake: “It's got a "K," right?”





Jason Seaver
Jason: "Boner, is your voice coming from your armpit?"
'Boner' Stabone: "Yes."










Red Forman

Red: "I didn't want to insult him by offering him some nothing job."
Kitty: "Oh Red, you insult him every day."
Red: "That's different, he thinks I'm kidding."











Cliff Huxtable
"Dad is great! Gives us chocolate cake!














Mitchell and Cameron
Cameron: "I got all medieval on the florists."
Mitchell: "Cam, I heard you on the phone, you said you were displeased, but that’s hardly going medieval."
Cameron: "Excuse me, I said very displeased and I used my cowboy voice."