Day 22: Jingle Bell Napkin Rings

I don't have any pictures of these, but it was a cute idea (also from Best Christmas Crafts Ever!) and worked pretty well.

All we did was string small jingle bells onto sparkly pipe cleaners (both from the dollar store) and twist them into rings. Then we used them as napkin rings for our Christmas Eve dinner, when family was coming to visit. Easy, cute, and cheap!

Day 18: Make a Santa Tissue Box

I got this idea from a craft book I took out from the library: Best Christmas Crafts Ever! by Kathy Ross. I'd actually like to get this book for our own library - lots of easy ideas, especially for kids slightly older than Amanda (early school-age).

This was fun and pretty easy. We did cut the facial circles a bit big, which made our Santa look like a muppet, but he was cute anyway!



(Amanda is making a crazy face in this photo...she has started making weird faces when we bring the camera out, so it's often hard to get a nice picture of her with a normal smile on her face!)

Day 8: Make Hand Wreaths

(Totally adorable Nativity Set by Little People - we also have the Little Drummer Boy and Little Shepherds sets.)

This is one of favourite crafts, and we've been doing it for the past three years. I'm proud to say I thought this one up on my own! Not that it's terribly original, and I've since seen it elsewhere, but the idea came off the top of my head. I love that this is quick, easy, very inexpensive, and uses supplies that even the craft-challenged such as myself are sure to have on hand. We also store the wreaths in the kids Christmas box* each year, so it's fun to compare how their hands grow from year to year.

All we do is trace hands onto red and green construction paper (this year I used a total of 10 hands for Amanda and 12 for Sam):


Sam was more interested in crumpling the paper than having his hand traced...I managed to get one tracing then used it as a template for the rest:


Then lay them out in a circle shape (it's important to do this before you start gluing to get the right shape), add a bit of glue, and - ta-da!


I also write their name and the year on the wreath with a Sharpie, but hadn't yet done this when the photo was taken. There you have it - lovely wreaths with which to decorate their bedroom doors!

* We have a big Christmas box that we use to store all the kids' Christmas stuff each year - Little People sets, decorations, books, hair elastics, etc. That way all those things seem new again when we pull out the box each year. Is this how other families do this? I've always been curious...

Day 7: Preschool Christmas Party

Yes, as you can see the plan was also to attend the Rogers Santa Claus Parade downtown. However, the night before, we realized that last year's parade didn't wrap up until almost 4 pm, and we needed to be back in Coquitlam for Amanda's preschool party by 4:30 pm. So reluctantly we decided to skip the parade this year. Hopefully we can make it next year, as we have enjoyed it in the past! It felt weird not to go this year.

Anyway, Sunday afternoon was the Christmas party for Amanda's preschool. In school they have been talking a lot about construction, so the teachers came up with the idea of having them "construct" gingerbread houses as a Christmas project. Although it would have been easy to just provide the kids with templates, each group was given the option to design the type of house they wanted to build, as well as any special design elements. The students visited a local high school and worked with Foods students to roll, cut, and bake the gingerbread pieces. Then at the party, they constructed and built the houses. Finally, on Monday morning they visited a local seniors centre to present the houses and enjoy a carol sing-along. I thought the whole thing was brilliant - the emphasis was not only on building the houses, but building relationships in the community.

Of course, our team of kids decided that an ordinary house was not for them - they wanted a chalet. (In the car on the way home from school the day they planned their houses, Amanda announced they'd decided on an "A-frame house". That kid knows more about houses than I do!). They also specified that it was to have an awning and paving stones. Hmm...OK. So we parents planned accordingly and waited to see what the kids would do with the decorations we provided.

The built house:


The crazily-decorated roof:


The completed house...check out the Pop-Tart and lollipop awning:


Sam was not terribly impressed:


Amanda posing:


We were totally impressed with the kids' decorating job (OK, the dads were mostly responsible for that awning). But the chalet-style house posed some huge challenges - the roof wasn't well-supported by the house walls, so it was a constant battle between armed-with-icing parents and the determined-to-slide-off roof. We thought we had won the battle, but the house had the last laugh, as it collapsed in the car on the way home. :( The kids were a bit sad, but not much so...after all, the fun was in the planning and building!

Day 1: Make Paper Snowflakes

I wanted to stick with something easy for Day 1, so we made paper snowflakes. This was my first time trying this with Amanda, and it was probably a bit too hard...maybe it would be better in another year or two. I hadn't thought ahead to realize that she wouldn't be able to cut through the folded paper safely, so I ended up doing all the cutting. She drew patterns on each snowflake for me to cut, but she had a bit of trouble keeping them on the fold, so I had to improvise a lot.

A finished snowflake:


(And yes, Jeff was sleeping on the couch behind her. He is sick, so he was allowed.)

Gone Fishin'

It's been awhile since we've posted...life's been crazy as always! I had to post about a cool idea Jeff came up with last weekend. Amanda has seemed very interested in fishing recently (her daycare must have some kind of fishing set)...she's always hanging off the back of the couch pretending to fish. Jeff looked at some fishing sets in the stores, but they weren't too great. So he figured out how to make our own!

He attached a ribbon with a magnet at the end to a fancy stick (actually a juggling stick) we had around the house. Then I found a couple dozen colourful pictures of fish and other sea creatures on the internet and printed them on card stock, and we attached washers with scotch tape (this was a good job for Amanda). And tada - her own fishing rod and fish!

For a 10 minute project that cost nothing, this has been an incredible source of endless amusement. Amanda catches each fish one at a time, then puts them in her Fisher Price Aquarium (her "fish bucket"). Once she's done, she dumps them all out and starts again. It's fun to watch how excited she gets - we have to stay close by because with every catch she yells it out and wants to show us ("Look Dad! I caught a shark! Wow!").

Check it out (more photos on Flickr):

Back of a fish, showing how the washer is attached:


Such a proud fisher!


Such concentration:


The day's catch:

Valentine's Fun

This was the first Valentine's Day that Amanda really seemed to "get"...they did a lot of special crafts and activities at daycare, and she was pretty excited by the time the big day finally arrived. Of course, the day before, she learned it was "only one more sleep"...when I got her up the next morning and said "Happy Valentine's Day", she told me it wasn't "Ballentine's Day" yet, that there was still one more sleep. So it's obvious she didn't QUITE get the whole time thing, but it was cute nonetheless.

The evening before, we made some heart-shaped Rice Krispie treats for her to take to her daycare friends. It was interesting...I used gel food colouring, which I haven't used much before, and I guess I used too much. I was anticipating a nice pretty pastel pink, but ended up with dayglo neon! Hopefully the other kids didn't have too much diaper fallout from all that food colouring!!

A few pictures of us making the treats:

I love how Jeff always takes kitchen pictures when the kitchen is a mess...




Jeff playing with the "macro" settings...looks kind of cool!

Muffin Mania

Last night we had a couple of mangy bananas lying around, so I figured we should whip up something to eat. Amanda put on her new apron (a Christmas gift from Grandma & Grandpa) and we set to work on some banana-chocolate chip muffins...because in my mind, bananas can only be redeemed by oodles of chocolatey goodness. She was a very good helper, dumping the dry ingredients into the bowl, whisking up liquid ingredients, and mushing bananas.

When Jeff pulled out the camera it became even more evident to us that she's become far too familiar with the thing. She takes directions like a pro...for example, this is what Jeff got when he told her to "put her hands on her cheeks like a flower" (what does that even mean?!?):

She also went through a succession of different faces on command - grouchy:


Surprised:


Thinking:


And just plain cute:


(The muffins were delicious, by the way!)

Day 20: Decorate Cookies for Daycare Friends

I knew cookie-making would be much more than a 1-evening project, so I pre-baked the gingerbread ladies and we just decorated them. Why gingerbread ladies? Both other kids at daycare are girls!



A completed cookie (the "hair" is sliced up gummy worms):

Day 17: Make Salt Dough Ornaments (Aka: The Day Jen Admits She is FAR From Being Supermom)

So, our weekend activities got a little messed up...as we get closer to Christmas, it's definitely getting harder to keep up with everything. Saturday's activity was supposed to be going to the Christmas Train/Bright Nights in Stanley Park; however, Friday's huge windstorm caused the event to be closed all weekend. Looks like we will have to do that sometime after Christmas...no big deal.

I thought I would move Sunday's activity to Saturday, but as it turned out, we spent the afternoon at Metrotown....IMHO, the place most closely resembling the fiery depths of hell than anywhere else in the city. But hey...on the plus side, they had a Gigantic Rocking Horse! What more could a person ask for?

Anyway, Sunday's activity was making salt dough ornaments.



Not so easy, as it turned out. Well, the dough part was fun and Amanda had a great time squishing it with her hands:


And they looked really cute when we cut them out:


However, due to a certain someone waking up seven bajillion times, including a stretch over the supposed oven removal time, they got a little bit overcooked. They're still OK, but they have tiny brown flecks in them (or maybe this was because we didn't mix the dough well enough?). Plus, when I opened the cupboard today, something fell out and directly onto one of the stockings, breaking it into three pieces. :( We still have to paint the survivors at some point...that may have to wait until the weekend.

Day 9: Make Wreaths for our Bedroom Doors

This is a really easy, quick craft and it turned out pretty cute. We just traced Amanda's hand onto red and green paper (we used about 5 or 6 of each, I think), then glued them together to create a wreath. The idea here was that we would also make one for our bedroom door, but we haven't gotten around to it yet.

Day 8: Eat Christmas Jello for Dessert

We knew this day would be very busy, since Jeff's work party was in the evening and Amanda was staying with her Lolo and Lola for the evening. So we planned something portable - finger jello! Finger jello was a big favourite of Mike's and mine when we were growing up. I made it up on Thursday night, then sent some to daycare to share, as well as a second batch to Lolo and Lola's to have after dinner. A huge hit!



Here is the recipe I use for finger jello. It's not the same one as on the jello package...this one is from Feed Me I'm Yours by Vicki Lansky. My mom used this book (the original edition!) when we were kids, and when she saw it had been re-released, she picked me up a copy. It's got tons of great stuff in it for food and craft ideas for kids of all ages.

Anyway, this jello isn't as strongly flavoured (because it's got the unflavoured gelatin in it), but it stands up a lot better than other finger jello - you can practically throw it around (not that I recommend that). I always mean to try it with some juice in there instead of plain water, since that would probably up the flavour. It still tastes great though!

2 envelopes unflavoured gelatin (like Knox)
2 1/2 cups water
1 6-oz pkg (or 2 3-oz pkgs) jello

Dissolve unflavoured gelatin in 1 cup cold water. Set aside.

In a saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a boil and add jello. Bring to a boil again, then remove from heat.

Add gelatin mixture. Stir and add 1/2 cup cold water. Pour into a lightly greased pan and refrigerate until firm (~2 hours).

This recipe makes 2 8" square pans for me (I usually use two 3-oz pkgs, in different flavours), but these are pretty thick. You could probably get 2 9x13" pans out of it if you wanted thinner jello - would definitely go further.

Enjoy!

Day 7: Make Doily Angels for the Tree

Today was an easy day...we made angels to put on our tree and to give away. We cut circles and triangles out of construction paper, then folded paper doilies in half to make the wings.

24 Days of Christmas

We're trying a new family tradition this year, inspired by an idea on Kiddley, and I'm really excited about it! We've created our own family "advent calendar", but with activities to do together instead of chocolates. (OK, so chocolates do have their place, but we thought it would be fun to try something different).

I bought an inexpensive foam mailbox from Michael's and decorated it with foam letters and decorations. Then I bought a pad of small-sized Christmas scrapbook pages and folded each into an envelope shape, with an activity written inside for us to do that day. Some of them are more involved and take some planning on our part, and others are just plain silly! I am keeping a master list of all the activities so I can be sure to have the right materials ready, and so that if something comes up on short notice I can always substitute an envelope.

I am so happy with the way it turned out, and total cost was only around $20-25. I figure we can keep the mailbox and re-use it each year, and it was only about $7 for the pad of paper. Amanda made a beeline for the mailbox as soon as she woke up this morning and wanted to know right away what it was. Once we were dressed we made an event out of opening it up and finding the right envelope (good for number recognition!), then opening the envelope and finding our activity for the day. Most of them will be things we do together in the evenings, so it gives us all something to look forward to all day.

We will share photos of our adventures each day, so stay tuned! (We also have a set on Flickr just for this activity, so be sure to check it out!).

Here are some pictures of our mailbox: