I really was on top of it this last year especially at the end...but 2013 so far? ...not so much! The New Year's Resolution post hasn't been written yet and neither have any of my resolutions, so nothing is expected right?
Near the end of November, not only did we host out-of-town family, but I searched around pinterest and organized our family's 25 Days of Christmas...an activity each day along with a story to read.
I made these felt mittens to hold a slip of paper in each one for each day and loved how they turned out. The numbers are puffy paint and the mittens are sewn around the edges and then have a different colored strip sewn along the top. I printed out the list of activities and books and cut them into slips and folded them up and put them in each of the mittens. I glued a piece of twine between each pair to hang them along the ribbon on the wall. Katelyn looked forward to getting the slip of paper out each day.
Some of the weeks were in hotels traveling along with David for his job, so I even hauled all the supplies with us! I'm telling you, sometimes I really am on top of things!
December 1: Attend Ward Christmas party and check out christmas library books
Read: "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
We headed to the library and loaded up our library bag to full capacity and checked out 25 different Christmas books. I wrapped them up and numbered them and we opened and read one each night before bed. This was fun for the first few nights, but then along with any other part of our bedtime routine, Katelyn realized that unwrapping the book meant it was close to bed time. She doesn't ever want to go to bed, so she didn't always want to read the books. Next time we will probably read them in the morning or any time not realted to bedtime. She loves books, just not bedtime!
The Christmas party was fun. They had a yummy meal, some holiday minute to win it games, an awesome turnout, a video of all the kids explaining what they do in their family and what they like about Christmas, and then Santa made his appearance. Katelyn understood that if she sat with him, then she would get a candy cane as she watched the other kids, so she went for it. She and Davy sat with him and no tears were shed. A lady in the ward took a picture for me and it was adorable, but she still hasn't sent it to me. I have forgotten about it until now, so I bet she has too. I hope she still has it!
December 2: Decorate the Christmas tree
Read: "The Littlest Evergreen"
December 3: make popcicle stick nativity
Read: "The Spirit of Christmas"
This was a fun easy one that Katelyn was able to help with a little bit. I learned from this activity that if I want it to turn out like I want AND to let Katelyn be a part of the activity, then I need to plan to make one for her, and one for me to decorate. I like how it turned out, but I did almost all of it. She handed me the sticks and the markers while I cut, glued, and colored the whole thing. Not the involvement that I wanted out of these activities.
December 4: Paint Hand Print Christmas Trees
Read: "The Legend of the Candy Cane"
She sort of liked this one. She doesn't like her hands being dirty at all, so it took some convincing that it was fun to have paint on her hand. She got paint all over her and my clothes becasue she couldn't resist the urge to wipe her hands...so this activity needs to be done in our underwear next time so we don't ruin clothes :)
December 5: make white chocolate/peppermint spoons
Read: "The Christmas Bears"
These weren't too toddler friendly either. Katelyn did help (handing me spoons and smashing the candy canes), but I fell like I spent more time telling her not to touch the spoons, or the hot melted chocolate so they could harden up. They were yummy, but I definitely need more candy cane in my hot cocoa :)
December 6: Make Christmas Cards
Read: "Ella Bella Ballerina and the Nutcracker"
I planned on making cards out of the papers that we hand/foot printed the few days earlier, but it just didn't happen. But...I did make a tree skirt! I sewed the red star and burlap on a Dollar Store tree skirt one ring at a time. I just ruffled it as I sewed it by folding it as I fed it into the sewing machine. No Christmas cards this year, but we finally have a tree skirt!
December 7: Bake Pumpkin Rolls
Read: Froggy's Best Christmas
Image from VeryBestBaking.com
I made a few of these and they were so yummy! They were everyone's favorite!
I use the RECIPE from the Libby's Pumpkin puree can and it is fancy looking, but not too hard.
December 8: white elephant party
Read: Little golden book Christmas favorites.
We attended a white elephant party for a date night and it was a fun time. I went home with a putting green and hole that David is going to take to work just in case there happens to be some down time...and David picked up this intersting little giraffe. I told him to take this to work with him because this has to be the ideal saying that describes him and all the other auditors he works with :) He didn't think it was a good idea for some reason!
December 9: deliver goodies
Read: Little Whistle's Christmas
We made up plates with all of our treats and delivered them to our friends that live close to us. I really wanted to be brave and sing some Christmas Carols, but I was pretty sure I would be singing a solo, because Katelyn didn't know any songs, Davy was sleeping, and David probably didn't want to sing. Everyone enjoyed the treats and we made up some gingerbread cookies to fill up the plates too. Its always fun to give and recieve, and there was no way were going to be able to eat all those treats on our own.
December 10: Learn a Christmas Song
Read: Bartholomew's Blessing
I got our bells out and we sang and rang "Jingle Bells" all day long. Katelyn also sang "Happy Birthday" too, just because she is cute like that!
December 11: Make snowflakes
Read: "Our very own Christmas"
This was fun and I let Katelyn follow my lead with her own paper and scissors in hand. I didn't get a picture of her sliced up papers, but she was so proud of them and loves any chance to use her scissors.
December 12: Make a Wreath
Read: The Puppy who Wanted a Boy
This didn't happen on the 12th and this is where we started to lose steam with each day. We had LOTS of time together a few days before Christmas when we started potty training so we made up some of our missed activities. I cut a circle out of the middle of a paper plate and then we went to town painting away! This is one of the ones I just let her do her own thing as well and we are both much happier when it goes this way. She sees what I am doing and gets the idea of it and does her own! Excuse the undies only look...I did mention before that painting activities needed to be done in underwear! and...we have lots of carpet, so for the week of potty training I taped all the strips of vinyl I have to the floor and the vinyl caught many accidents! We used it for finger painting too and it was perfect to catch the mess!
December 13: Make Ornaments with dough
Read: Mary Engelbreit's A Merry Little Christmas : Celebrate from A to Z.
This was a fun one that we did with some of Katelyn's friends were were babysitting. We all played with the dough, cut out the shapes we wanted (Dollar Store had these Christmas cookie cutters...6 for a dollar!) baked them, and then painted them. These are breakable and we only have about half as many as we started with, but they were fun and simple. Katelyn painted most of them first and then I finished up whatever she started. We finished them off with some glittery paint.
December 14: Make felt mittens ornaments
Read: The Mitten (one of Katelyn's favorites since it is full of animals)
I made up these felt mittens and sewed around the edges. I let Katelyn go to town decorating them and then I glued everything on where she put it.
December 15: Make homemade donuts
Read: My Christmas collection : three favorite stories.
The original idea was to go out for donuts. I thought it would be fun to make our own. I found a recipe that said they were just like Krispy Kreme donuts...you know the light airy buttery glazed donuts? Mine turned out terribly and were nothing remotely close to being light and fluffy. They were about as fluffy as a pretzle stick. I wasn't too proud of these. They just wouldn't rise the second time and I cooked a couple anyway in hopes that a miracle would happen, but they were pretty bad. Pretlze dry brick donuts...coming right up! Next time we'll go out!...I actually tried just this weekend to make some donuts from another recipe and realized that my yeast is dead! We have had it for 4 years or so. Let's hope this is the reason...
December 16: Make a Snowman with marshmallows
Read: Snowman Magic
This activity never happened either. We read the story and it was one of our favorites. Katelyn got really excited when it snowed a week later as she learned from the story that we could go out and make a snowman. We made this on Christmas Eve and we both loved it! We made it right before bedtime so that meant that we needed flashlights to find the body parts. She loved our scavenger hunt and figuring out that flashlight.
Christmas morning came and our snowman wasn't doing so great. His eyes, mouth, nose, and buttons were falling off and Katelyn thought he was getting tired so we went with that idea. He kept leaning over a bit more each time we looked out at him and she wanted to go out and help him. She couldn't quite decide how to help and then she ate his baby carrot nose! Silly girl!
He wasn't in the mood to stand back up...just too tired :)
December 17: Watch "Elf"
Read: Santasaurus
This was an easy day. "Elf" is such a fun movie and we all enjoyed snuggling up for the movie.
December 18: make snowglobes
Read: Polar Express
This activity didn't happen either. I never got around to getting the supplies on the weekend and David took the car for the week to Pennsylvania for work, so I flaked out on this day and we watched Miracle on 34th Street. It is one of my favorite Christmas movies! We didn't even read the book until a couple days after Christmas!
December 19: make popcicle stick Christmas trees
Read: Ricky's Christmas Tree
These were simple enough. Katelyn and I painted away on one of our potty training days on our plastic "magic carpet" and they turned out cute! We now have our forest as a wintery decoration!
December 20: make shower curtain wreath ornaments
Read: A Perfect Day
These are simple too, but in order for it to look neat and symmetrical, I had to do my own and let Katelyn work on her own. All we did is wrap yarn around a plastic shower curtain ring and then glued a bow on the top and a string for hanging. Simple and cute!
December 21: make penguin light bulb ornaments
Read: Santa's on His Way : a changing-picture book
This activity didn't happen either. We were going to paint lightbulbs, but instead we painted nails! I painted Katelyn's and she painted mine! I can't find the picture of my nails, but I had nail polish all over my nails and knuckles. We worked hard at only getting it on my nails, but that is a lot of work! Katelyn wasn't too excited for her picture this time :)
December 22: Watch Christmas Story and have hot chocolate
Read: Snowed Under and Other Christmas Confusions
This day was for David. He always hopes I will let him watch this movie all day like he did with the marathon on ABC...do they still do that? It is an obnoxious movie to me and not my favorite, but he sure does like it and looked forward to it all month!
December 23: Go Look At Christmas Lights
Read: The Night Before the Night Before Christmas
We didn't end up making it to see the Christmas lights until a couple days after Christmas. It was beautiful and we even made it to the concert for the night. It was a trio playing jazzy Christmas music and Katelyn had to go potty every 5 minutes so I didn't hear the majority of the concert.
December 24: Prepare yummy Christmas breakfast
Song of the stars : A Christmas story
I prepped the sticky buns, and made some mini cheesecakes. I got side tracked with the new blanket of snow to bring in the Christmas Day and we went out and made the snowman that was pictured above. We finished off that night with hot chocolate...did I mention that before? We drank hot chocolate on way more days than was "planned" but it is something that shouldn't have a limit during winter!
December 25th: Skype with family
Read: One Starry Night
David and I thoroughly enjoyed opening presents at midnight on our own while the kids were in bed! It was great! We were able to see each other's reactions to the gifts we gave and it was fun to have some time to check them out together and we enjoyed some kid free time. Katelyn opened her presents and Davy's too in the morning and she had fun with the whole presents thing. We skyped with Peter and Rosie and then headed out for the day, while talking to David's dad who was sadly in the hospital for a terrible dog bite, to my brother's place to finish the day off with family. We did a big group skype and checked out pregnant bellies in the family, listened to Chad's wise words of wisdom, and make jokes about fuzzy faces. It was fun to "be surrounded" with family! We all dwindled off as Tracie couldn't stand to waste time sleeping when she could be chatting with her family back here in the states!
Katelyn and Liam went wild as always and then turned into zombies when we turned on Toy Story while we played a game of Settlers.
We scarfed down the sticky buns and managed to have a bit of Christmas dinner. We crock potted a roast and made up adobo chicken along with rolls and strangly slimy potatoes and gravy. Good food, good family, happy bellies, happy kids, and decent Christmas away from home...as good as it gets!
Here are the stockings I made for Christmas, after Christmas. Maybe we will get them used next year! Ruffles for the girls, pleats for the guys! It matches my tree skirt as I used the left over strips of fabric and burlap to whip these up.
That was our wonderful Christmas! I had a great plan and I say it was a success only because I did way more Christmas related activites than I ever have, and it was a great motivation. I didn't get to all of them, but it is fine by me. We will go for it again this year to get us in the mood and have some fun with it.
