Counting down to Jesus' birthday!

YAY, I love December!!  I love counting down to Jesus' birthday with my kiddos!  Everyday we do a different special activity!  My kiddos love picking out the tag from the stocking and seeing what the plan is for the day!


This is a list of our countdown activities:

1. Get a Christmas tree from the Scouts and decorate it while we listen to Christmas music.
2. Make a nativity
3. Read the story of Jesus' birth in the bible
4. Family Movie Night (we get a new Christmas movie to watch while we eat popcorn and snacks)
5. Make a popcorn garland
6. Cocoa bath night (thank you Vicki for this idea last year!)
7. Make a Christmas card for a friend
8. Decorate the windows w/ window markers and lights
9. Friend playdate
10. Open and read a new Christmas book
11. Go see Santa
12. Christmas craft
13. Family Game Night (we get a new game to add to our collection)
14. Gingerbread House Making party with friends
15. Donut breakfast @ the bakery
16. Ice Cream Night
17. Bake & decorate goodies
18. Deliver goodies to friends & family
19. Pick out a new ornament & go to Shore Acres
20. Christmas Caroling
21. Minivan Express
22. Snow Day
23. Make & decorate a birthday cake for Jesus
24. Open one Christmas present (pj's)
25. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!

Here's some fun pics of our activities so far:

Picking out a Christmas tree!

Our cardboard nativity



Our Elf on the Shelf, Jack!  Hangin with baby Jesus and the posse!



Jack colored a picture for Tatym...awww...



Hanging on the Christmas decorations!



Visiting with Santa




Baking some Chex party mix to give out to friends and family!



Family game night!





Our 2nd nativity craft...a little fancier!  :)

Clay Ornaments

My hubby made this family ornament for us this year!  He made one back in 2002 when our middle son was just a newborn so we needed an updated one with little Ms. Bitty on there!  I think it turned out cute!

I made these using white pearl sculpey clay and the blue is a pearl as well.  The red has glitter in it but is a different brand and the green & yellow are just plain colors.  I then used a sharpie marker to write on it after they had been baked and cooled.

My son, Keegan made this!  Such imagination!  It's a snowman throwing a snowball, standing behind a brick wall that has a splattered snowball on it and his pile of snowballs next to him!  LOVE IT!

He said the gingerbread man was Gingie from Shrek!  :)  And then he wanted to make a star ornament like mine!  So cute!

Christmas Ornament

While visiting with my hubby's grandparents last month, I saw a really cute Christmas ornament very similar to the one I made tonight.  I changed mine up a bit: I used bigger circle punches and used a white pen to make the border around each circle, added green & red ribbon for hanging up and viola...a cute, handmade Christmas ornament keepsake!  I made one for my mom-in-law and this one is for my grandma!  I may just have to make one for myself!  Super inexpensive and super fun!

C'mon Santa!

Alright, we're ready for Santa to arrive! :) We've been tracking his travels on noradsanta.org and my son & I set out a bowl of popcorn in the front yard (for the reindeer, of course), a plate of cookies and a glass of milk, along with a note from Keegan! We said our goodbyes to the Elves in our tree and the kids are all tucked into bed in their new Christmas Eve pj's!


We've had an exciting Christmas season filled with fun activities and lots of great memories! The elves came and did their nightly pooping and playing and Keegan enjoyed looking for them on the tree!

Here the whole family is on the hunt to try to spot an elf:



Gotta love the "poop" trails! Keegan cracked up that they pooped on his jacket!




Here are the kids in their new pj's! We only let them open one present from us on Christmas Eve and it's always new pj's. They don't have to be Christmas-y pj's but just new! Keegan was really stoked about his guitar pj's and Tatym seemed to really like her snowman pj's!


This year I gave away some Snowman Soup (so cute, simple and fun)! Here'a the note that was attached to the bags:

Here's the completed bag:

The package includes 1 packet of hot cocoa, a little baggie of mini marshmallows, a peppermint stick and 3 hershey's kisses:


I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! I'm sad that it's almost over but yet excited for a new year to begin! I've got lots of plans and hopes for the upcoming year but as we know, the Lord is in control and I'm all for that! If my plans don't fit His will then I'm ok with that! He knows far better than I do, what's best for me and my family! So Merry Christmas and bring on 2010!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I just wanted to take a minute and wish everyone out in Blogland, a VERY Merry CHRISTmas! I pray that everyone takes some time to reflect on why exactly we celebrate this amazing event...the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ! I pray for amazing time spent with family, love surrounding you and many amazing moments shared with those closest and most important to you! God bless you (although He's blessed us all more than we deserve with the freedom to just accept Jesus and be given the best gift of all...an eternity spent in Heaven rather than being condemned to spend eternity in Hell) today, tomorrow and in 2010!!

Our Minivan Express evening!

Well, long story short, my normally wonderful son, Keegan was a MAJOR B U T T tonight and really put a damper on the whole evening! It started out good and I'm not exactly why/what caused Keegan's evil twin to appear but alls I know is that I wish we could have a do-over! LOL! We started our day by making these cute reindeer cups.

Keegan didn't seem to into it at first but instead of having him start out doing one himself I just asked him to help me with mine. Then he got into it and made his own!

Next, we went to see Santa and that went great! Tatym didn't seem to mind sitting on his lap. Granted, she never smiled and she wouldn't take her eyes off of her daddy but hey, she didn't cry or try to get away from him so that I am thankful for! :)

I remember one year Keegan wouldn't sit on Santa's lap without us so that year was a family shot with Santa with me on Santa's lap, holding Keegan! LOL We came home and watched Polar Express and Keegan really liked it.

After the movie was over (and this is when I think things started to turn south) I said he could play video games. My hubby said he wanted to get the Express going so I had Keegan go get pj's on and I hid the tickets underneath the couch cushions he had been laying on, on the floor. I started popping popcorn and boiling water for hot chocolate or apple cider. When Keegan came out we asked him to clean up the living room and so he found the tickets.

His face lit up when he saw it but for some reason when we told him it was our version of the Polar Express and that we'd be getting in the van and going around looking at lights, his attitude just went to poop! He whined because he wanted to play video games and said he didn't want to go. I tried to keep my cool but after a minute of listening to his horrible attitude I yelled at him for being rude, caring more about stupid video games then spending time with his family. I told him that I put a lot of thought and prep into this and that he was being disrespectful and a spoiled brat. He got grounded from video games which set off his mouthiness. If it wasn't illegal I would have left him home alone and just taken my daughter out with us. I wanted to call it quits but really my hubby & I wanted to go so we went forward with our plans. I let Keegan pick which new mug he wanted (he chose the red) and he seemed to have a brief moment of happiness as we were getting ready to head out:

But it quickly changed again. I handed him his ticket and said the kids couldn't ride without their ticket and he refused to take it and said he didn't want to play. By the time we got in the van I was just fuming, my husband was frustrated and Keegan was in tears! What a fun event, right?! Uggghhhh... Tatym seemed pretty excited and was just chowing away on her popcorn and diggin on having her own big cup of juice!


Even before we got out of the driveway she was already saying, "WOW!" and "WHOA!". Every house we drove past she was all sorts of excited about which totally made things better considering how badly Keegan was behaving! He was ordered to keep his mouth shut unless he was going to change his attitude and treat us nicer so he was pretty quiet other than a few comments about some cool decoration or something. He never really perked up and wouldn't let us take a picture of him

Gotta love strong-willed, stubborn children...right?!?! LOL In the end I know he enjoyed looking at all the cool lights and he ate his popcorn and drank his juice, I think his stubborness is what held him back from coming out of the grumpiness and showing us he was actually happy to be out and doing this! We delivered goodies to friends and family around town and listend to Christmas music the whole time! Even with the rocky start it was a lot of fun and we saw some really decked out houses! I even took a picture of the front of our house with our few decorations. My hubby (love him to bits) is too cheap to really let us go too wild with the outside decorations. Our neighbors have the house lights plugged in at their house (we're in a duplex) so that's pretty much the only reason we have those up and my mom & stepdad made us the cross and it doesn't take much electricity so he allows me to have it up! LOL I'd love to have the whole yard and house and bushes decorated...maybe when we become independently wealthy! :)
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Santa's letter came today!

Keegan & his letter from Santa

When Keegan was 1 I paid like $5-$10 for a company to mail him a letter from Santa along with a sticker and something else (I must be getting old, my memory isn't what it used to be LOL) and I think I paid for one the next year as well. I then decided that it was pretty stupid to pay someone else to send him a letter when I could do the same exact thing! Every year since then I've always bought some Christmasy typing paper and envelopes and typed up a letter from Santa. Keegan had his letter to Santa done like 1.5 weeks ago and he mentioned a few times that he hoped Santa would remember to write him back. Oops...way to go slacker mom! LOL Night before last I typed up his letter and had to sneak it into the mailbox yesterday when we were out running errands! Today Keegan went out to get the mail but he never looks through it so he didn't see his letter. I pulled it out and the look on his face was priceless! I LOVE that he still believes in Santa, it adds so much more magic and fun to the holiday. Don't get me wrong, I know Santa is not the main part of Christmas and we do focus a lot on Jesus but the Santa stuff is fun to do because of all the surprises. This in no way means we don't love Jesus more than Santa, we're just having fun while the kids are little! Anyways, I had Keegan read me his letter and every other sentence he'd look up at me with this sparkle in his eye and a big smile would form on his face! I wish I video taped it! I didn't do a letter to Tatym just because she could care less about it but next year...yeah buddy, I'm all over it! LOL

Looking forward to tomorrow!

Every year in December my mom, my sister, Kimberly, my grandma & I all get together and do some major baking one day. We generally try to rotate who's house we do it at to make the driving fair and this year it's my turn! This year on the baking menu we have Buckeyes (chocolate covered PB balls), which I'll post the recipe tomorrow or the next day! These have got to be the biggest hit of all. I've already got some requests for these so I know I'm going to have to make a mother-load of them! :) We're also going to do sugar cookies, peanut butter blossoms, chocolate (white & milk) covered pretzels, muddy buddies, andes mint cookies, ritz cracker pb sandwiches dipped in chocolate (not sure if there's a shorter name for those), reeses pb bars, and most likely some pumpkin cupcakes! PHEW...it's going to be a long day! Now my kitchen is ITTY BITTY so cramming 4 of us in there and most likely my little Ms. Tatym will want to be in the mix, it's not an easy thing to do. I'm going to set up "work stations" with folding tables and pretty much take up the kitchen, dining room and living room areas! I'm really excited to spend some time with these ladies, we have a great time together doing this! I'll have plenty of pics and recipes to post tomorrow!

The Minivan Express

(Here are our tickets, ready and hiding in my craft cupboard!)
The other day my friend Denise let us in on a cool new tradition to start with our families! She saw this posting on Confessions of a Homeschooler about doing a Minivan Express...our version of The Polar Express! I've already printed off the golden tickets (printed on picture paper to give it more of a glossy look) and have talked to my hubby about it. We're going to rent The Polar Express movie and sit down for a family movie night. We're not going to tell Keegan (Tatym is too little to understand anyways) what's in store for him, we're just gonna let him think it's any ol' regular family movie night. After the movie we'll have him shower and get ready for bed. While he's in the shower I'll slip the golden ticket in his bed and get the van warmed up, popcorn popped and hot cocoa ready. I want to print out a map of our town and highlight the areas we're going to go check out so Keegan can mark them off or help be our tour guide! :) He always likes telling us how to get places, which roads to turn on and what not! Every year we go look at lights anyways but this will just be a more fun way to do it! I LOVE starting new traditions with my family and this will fit in perfectly!! I'm pretty sure we're doing all this Sunday night and definitely pictures will follow and a report on how it went!

Christmas Snowflakes

I finally got off my lazy bum and did some crafts with the kids today! I've been working at my out-of-the-home job more frequently this month and it's thrown me all off. I was introduced to a fantastic blog today:

Confessions of a Homeschooler
And that got the fire lit for me to bust out the supplies and work on some Christmas crafts! Since I have to work tonight I couldn't get started on anything that would take too much time so we opted to make snowflakes!

Keegan had made one in our homeschool co-op and proudly pulled it out for me to see and he had to help me re-learn how to even make one! Let me just say, thank goodness for the internet, they have how-to videos for everything! :)

Here are some of our snowflakes:


Even Tatym got in on the action more as an onlooker but still, she didn't seem to mind!


Here's Keegan proudly showing off his snowflake:


I decided to add glitter to mine (of course!)...you can't ever go wrong with glitter I mean geez! :) Keegan attempted to dress his snowflake up a bit and here is his end product! Glitter glue and googly eyes! LOL


Here are 2 of mine:


This one is my favorite! Keegan drew the star that pointed the way to baby Jesus, some chinese people "because I like karate" (LOL) and Santa on his sleigh with the reindeer!