Christmas anticipation...

The Tree - ok, truthfully, my tree... as everyone who knows me knows... I am a little bit possessive of this one :)
The lights in our front window... mostly I was doing my best to illuminate the outside of the house (lights in the girls bedroom windows upstairs, and a lit up star in our bedroom window) so I can continue my oogling of the new siding... have I mentioned I am really happy with it so far? lol!

The girl's Christmas tree - solely theirs to decorate with all of their handmade ornaments and those made by friends - standing proudly in our "Home School" room... aka the room that houses the majority of our "learning supplies" :)

The gifts the girls prepared for the special people in their lives. Left - their secret spice... concocted on their own with "a bit of love, joy and giving mixed in too" (Aislinn)
Below - low calorie liver treats for our animal relatives. (Max, Bree, Tinker, Autumn, Diva, Rory and Rylee)

And finally, cookies and apple juice for Santa... (not beer as may appear in the picture...)

Wrapping up advent...

Dec. 14th - Family evening walk -community light display "Sparkles in the Park"

It was raining, so it was more of an evening drive, but Grammie and Grandad came along for the ride and the girls got a exclusive ride on the antique carousel as no one else was around.

Dec. 15th - Christmas window stickers

Dec. 16th - Christmas activity page printouts

Dec. 17th - oven roasted marshmallows and hot chocolate.

Dec. 18th - family game night (Zooreka, Crazy eights, The Secret Door, and the Shopping game)

Dec. 19th - ice lanterns

Dec. 20th - special drawer # 3 (kinder surprise Christmas tree)

Dec. 21st - feed the animals in the woods at our friends house.

Dec. 22nd - make a gingerbread house

Dec. 23rd - deliver Christmas cards to the neighbours

Dec. 24th - put out reindeer food (oats, sugar, cranberries, and bird seed -- here's hoping the reindeer will like it!) and cookies for Santa!

advent continuing

Dec 7th - Visit with Santa (and Mrs. Claus) at the toy store - he even did magic tricks and brought a bunny from the north pole!



Dec. 8th - Take food to the food bank (The girls went to the grocery store with friends and used their own money to make purchases. Then they went to the food bank and the volunteers there gave them a tour and let them see the back area where their food would be put. All in all a great experience to see how their small contribution would help others who have less than they do!)






Dec. 9th - make chocolate dipped pretzels... Yum! - I think I ate most of them :(


Dec. 10th - Christmas jokes

Dec. 11th - Watch a Christmas movie (The Polar Express)






Dec. 12th - Christmas pancakes (Jeff was in charge of pancake art!)
Dec. 13th - look in special drawer # 2 (Playmobil fairies)


Next weeks activities coming soon.

This week's advent

December 1st - Read Christmas stories by candle light

December 2nd - Make paper snowflakes.

(Also check out this link - the girls loved testing out their designs.)

December 3rd - Make and mail Christmas cards

December 4th - Chocolate Molten Christmas cakes

(single serving chocolate cakes cooked in and eaten from a mug with friends = high excitement (and energy levels!)

December 5th - Friends coming for a visit, and Christmas coloured nail polish for nail art.

And December 6th - Santa Claus and a Puppet Theatre playmobil set, found in "Special Drawer #1"

Stay tuned for week #2.

Swimming lessons

The girls have been in swimming lessons again this fall, and I have to say I love the opportunity to be part of the home school group daytime swims. The lessons are an hour long, and the girls - especially Aislinn - have improved with leaps and bounds. The top pic is Aislinn swimming her first length;
25 meters across the pool.
She has really worked hard this session and her endurance and stamina have come a long way.
Tara has been doing really well as well, this past week putting a lot of effort into her swimming although she still struggles with blowing the air out of her mouth. No surprise as she was the kid who would suck in when trying to blow her nose for years and years. She is a good swimmer though, and her kick is strong... easily propelling her half the width of the pool. (before she runs out of air!)

We will take a break again for the winter session mostly due to the longer drive, and return again in the spring. Now to turn our attention back to the skating season!
Both being such great exercise!






(sorry for the blurry pictures... yes camera complaints again! -- why can't it focus when the lighting is even the smallest bit off?)

Volunteering

After having said last year, that we would like to do more volunteering, we finally worked it into the schedule to go down to Feed the Children again and help out for a couple of hours.

It is such a perfect organization for the age the girls are at. The man in charge is so fabulous with the girls! He remembered them from last year, and again gave the girls a great explanation of how their work was going to help children and families in South America.

The girls were able to help out this time by consolidating a shipment of crocs into easier to ship boxes. We spent a couple of hours, and managed to empty 3 whole skids.

Afterwards the girls were invited into the lunchroom for drinks and Popsicles.

We all went home happy and dirty and with a greater sense of how we can help others even if it seems like a little job.

This year we will have to make more definite plans to return.

Advent Calendars

So here they are...

I did cut it down to the wire a bit, finishing them at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, but I am pretty happy with them.

Each drawer will contain a slip of paper with a family activity or instructions to open one of the 3 special drawers. The girls are loving it.

I managed to get the hardware containers on sale from Canadian tire for $15, and all supplies included, the project came to about $25 each. Not bad as I am hoping they will become a tradition and be pulled out for many more years.

I started by gluing the fabric around the metal frame using a heavy duty glue. I then lined each drawer with scrapbook paper, and painted the wooden stars. Once dry I placed a foam snowflake sticker (dollar store) over each one. After gluing ribbon to the edges and placing a card stock piece for the name plate, I wrote the numbers on the stars and attached them. To finish it off I found the Santa's at the dollar store... seemed to round them off nicely.

All in all, I managed to complete it in 2 evenings.... (and a few of the wee morning hours) :)

Crafting streak

Christmas is sneaking up on us, and the crafting bug has snuck up along with it!
Stay tuned for my advent calendar idea this year...

A new Cousin

This week the girls acquired a new cousin! After a long awaited arrival, and the difficult notion of picturing a baby in the expanding tummy of Aunt Jenn, the girls finally got to meet their new cousin. It is a pretty special event for them, as it raises their total # of cousins to 2!
It will be fun to see them interact with him as he grows. They have always been kind and inquiring about the babies they have met through friends, but have always had playmates their age who quickly turn their attention to something else. But being the only other kid in the family may make him slightly more exciting...

Welcome, Ryan!



And well, after seeing this cool idea, I had decided to give it a try... homemade gifts after all are kind of fun, and much more in our budget at the moment... BUT... I managed to mess it up! It doesn't look too bad in the picture, but all the background paper bubbled up on me... I realized my mistake as I was doing it, but it was too late.

I finished it off out of sheer stubbornness, and so I could blog about it... after all, not everything we try in our household is a success! So Jenn and Jay, my apologies on the lack of gift, and just maybe, I will give it another go someday... maybe for his first birthday!! :)
(there was even brown glitter on the clips... sigh)


(Edited to add - I think if I was to try this one again, I would make a few changes, continue the pattern along the bottom and reposition the word Boy to the right or left. Well, I probably would have fiddled some more had I expected the outcome to be gift worthy... I was thinking of making something similar for the girls rooms... maybe I will have another go at the technique.)

The House

BeforeDuring
After

And there is still more to be done, but it is starting to come together...

Visiting a local gallery

Last Thurs, we spent the afternoon exploring a small local gallery with friends. I would have loved to post pictures of the interior, as they had such a nice collection of pieces ranging in styles. A good portion was native inspired work, but with a variety of media. The girls really enjoyed moving from room to room and pointing out their favorite pieces to each other.
We also had great weather, and took the time to explore their beautiful grounds. They had a few sculptures placed around the gallery, and also a set of ponds which we happily explored. It was so nice to be out walking in the leaves with the mild weather and the early setting sun casting its shadows. The afternoon went by far too quickly.