Our first advent activities

For our first advent activity M&M "wrote" a letter to Santa. Since she can't really read or write I gave her some old toy magazines for her to cut out pictures of things she wants. This was a great activity for her because she loves to use scissors. It was also great because she did it all by herself for a good amount of time! It was sweet because she cut out pictures not just for herself, but for mommy, daddy, and Bubba. She made sure Santa knew what we wanted too. After she cut them all out I gave her a gluestick to glue the pictures onto paper. She's not actually getting the things that she cut out, but I don't think she'll remember what she glued on, she just wants anything to do with princesses.


Our next activity were these swirled paint ornaments. M&M liked squeezing the paint into the bulb and then shaking them around. I really liked how these turned out. I might have to make some more of my own.


M&M loved doing these Santa handprints because I painted her hands and she said that it tickled. Anything that allows her to get messy is always a hit. Mmm, I guess I forgot to put mouths on them. I used acrylic paint for both of these crafts.


I need to go to the store to get more supplies for our activities for the next two weeks. I'm really excited about doing them, I hope M&M has fun doing them as well.

Our Advent plans

I am very lucky to have gotten a very cute advent calendar from my mother-in-law the first year we were married. In each pocket is a little ornament to hang on the tree.


I've added something new this year though. I made out a list of Christmas crafts that M&M and I can do each day (red words) and also a list of fun family activities we can do after daddy gets home from work (green words). One from each pile will go into a pocket with an ornament.


I don't have 25 of either of these lists because we are going to Grandma's house for Christmas. We'll have plenty to do when we get there!

In no particular order, our Christmas crafts:

1. "Write" letter to Santa
2. Handprint Santas
3. Paint swirled ornaments
4. Visit Santa at the mall (we'll see if M&M will actually sit on his lap this year)
5. Make gift bags
6. Cinnamon dough ornaments
7. Pipe cleaner/bead ornaments
8. Star ornament
9. Hands and feet reindeer
10. Foam craft kits
11 Craft stick Christmas tree
12. Stained glass Christmas tree
13. Jingle bell jewelry
14. Make cookies for neighbors
15. Decorate gingerbread cookies
16. Paper activities

Family activities:
1. Eat popcorn and drink hot chocolate
2. Make Christmas cards for family
3. Couples Christmas party (if we can find a babysitter)
4. Make graham cracker gingerbread houses
5. Tell Nativity Story
6. Walmart tree gift giving
7. Take gift bags around
8. Deliver cookies to neighbors
9. Family Game night
10. Go to Santa's village
11. Sing Christmas carols
12. Take drive to see Christmas lights
13. Read Christmas books
14. Play with Christmas chimes (more on this later, you don't want to miss it! I might actually have my own tutorial to share on how to make them.)

Quiet book pages

The past two weeks have consisted of trying to make a quiet book. I found many blogs that had pictures of the quiet books they have made, but not a lot of them had patterns for the pages I wanted to do. So I first had to draw out all of the patterns myself before we (my mom and I) could even think about putting it together. That's why it's taken me so long. I read other blogs where they say they see a cute idea on a blog and then whip it up that night and post about it the next day. I've decided I am not one of those people that can do that, which is okay. It just takes me longer to get anything done. And well, the fact of the matter is the quiet book is far from being done, but it is done enough to post pictures because I just couldn't wait. I will have to finish it when I go home for Christmas in a few weeks. But here are some pictures of 6 of the pages.

Color matching balloons and button on flowers

Clothesline with mini clothespins and dress-up people

Noah's Ark zipper, shoelace tying, and buckleAs you can see I still have some minor details like a face for the little people and a shoelace for the shoe, but it's getting there. The animal finger puppets for the Noah's Ark came from IKEA.

If anyone wants to put one of these together sometime and needs patterns or help, just let me know because the patterns were the biggest headache and took the longest time.

Here are the links that I used to get ideas from:
http://craftingchicks.blogspot.com/2009/09/quiet-book-ii.html
http://craftingchicks.blogspot.com/2009/09/quiet-book-i.html
http://craftingchicks.blogspot.com/2009/09/tiffanys-quiet-books.html
http://www.quietbook.blogspot.com/
http://itybtyfrogcreations.blogspot.com/2008/02/some-more-quiet-book-pics.html
http://itybtyfrogcreations.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-quiet-book_25.html
http://itybtyfrogcreations.blogspot.com/2008/02/more-quiet-book-pics.html
http://naptimejournal.blogspot.com/2009/05/quiet-book-pagesyou-asked-for-them.html

I was featured!

I was featured on Someday Crafts! I'm so excited! This is my very first feature and what a great site to be featured on. Check it out here.

Playdough mats

I found these playdough mats on the Sparklebox website and thought they were really cute. M&M likes to play with playdough as much as the next child so I printed some out, laminated them and we made these creations. There are a lot of them on the website, but most of them use up a lot of ink. There are some black and white ones though. There are a lot of other printables on the site, but like I said they take up some colored ink.

A little R&R

So it´s been awhile since I last posted, but I have good reason...a vacation with my hubby to Mexico for a little rest and relaxation and rejuvenation. I will be back to the blogging world next week sometime to start blogging about the quiet book my mom and I will be making. Also M&M has had a lot of fun making a dollhouse with grandpa this past week. I haven´t seen it yet, but I´m really excited! Be back soon!

The Princess and the Puppy

So Halloween's been over for a few days, but I'm just barely getting this up. I am so proud of myself for making my kid's costumes this year for Halloween. I never thought I would be one of those mom's to do that, but then again I never knew how easy it was!

Bubba was a little puppy dog. Since he's only 10 months old I didn't go all out for his costume (that's what happens when the second kid comes around). I cut "spots" and ears out of light brown felt and stuck them on a brown zip-up jacket using pieces of double stick tape. He was so cute! The best part is he needed a jacket anyway and the spots were removable!

I've seen so many posts done about no-sew tutus and I knew I had to make one for M&M because, well, it was no-sew! I got the tulle spools from the wedding section of Joann's. I used three different colors: light purple, dark purple and light blue. I didn't use any particular tutorial, but I got ideas about how to make it from several websites. I can't link to the tutorials right now because I'm not on my home computer, sorry. I wrapped a satin ribbon around the waistband and tied it in a bow in front for extra cuteness. I found that idea here. I'm sure there's a tutorial around that website for a tutu. M&M liked it. I was trying to get her to say she was a ballerina, but she insisted that she was a princess. Oh well.