Advent Wreaths and The Nutcracker

I remember getting all teary during Anna's first Christmas. We were at church and every Sunday a new family would go up front to light a candle on the advent wreath. I told Doug I couldn't wait for that to be our family. I don't know why the whole idea made me so emotional. Well, today we finally got to light candles. Doug and I had been talking to the girls about their "jobs" while we were up front. We could tell they were a little nervous as well by the way they were acting. Once we got up there, I began to read while Doug lit the candles. Anna and Lauren, although they started out shy and quiet, gained some confidence and began to circle the small table with the offering baskets...round and round and round they went. I was trying to read and get them to settle while Doug was trying to light the candles and get them to settle. As Doug said, it was a friendly audience and so everyone just chuckled. These girls....they go non-stop from the time they get up until the time they go to bed.


The girls and I attended "The Nutcracker" for the first time last year with our friends Julie, Stephen, and Olivia. Unfortunately, Doug was deployed at the time. The girls were pretty unfamiliar with the "Nutcracker" story but were enthralled and enjoyed the show all the same. This year, I picked up a book before hand so we could read the story several times. Since Doug is now home...yeah!, we were all able to go. At the performance, the girls had 8 million and two questions but it was a lot of fun to hear them pointing out people on stage. Doug jokingly had been calling Herr Drosselmeir by the name Dr. Doofledorpenshmacker and Lauren wanted to know which one he was. :) Anna kept asking about the Sugar Plum Fairy but by the time the Fairy finally had her big dance, both girls were a little antsy and were busy "hugging" each other...at least that's what they called it. To me it looked a little more like a stranglehold.

Gingerbread Houses

Finally! I've been wanting to make a gingerbread house with the girls for two years now. I thought it would be most special to make everything ourselves from scratch and because of that belief we never managed to get it done. I finally decided that maybe it made more sense to just buy the kit since it's our first attempt and they're still pretty young. So, I found a kit the other day at Target. It came with everything you could possibly need and the girls and I tackled it today. Our book of the day was "The Gingerbread Man" and so a gingerbread house seemed to fit the bill....although in retrospect I suppose the gingerbread man didn't really need a house since he spent so much time running around and then being eaten by the fox. Oh, well, at least the girls had a great time. I just had to repeatedly convince them that the candies needed to go on the house and not into their tummies!

It's in the mail.

Hurray! Hurray! The Christmas cards are away. We finally got everything mailed out today. Now comes the fun part. I love, love, love getting Christmas cards. To be honest, I'm a bit obsessed with mail. I think it all started when I was in the Air Force and stationed in England. I would check the mail 2-3 times a day for correspondence from home. As for the Christmas cards, I so enjoy catching up with friends and family we don't get to see often. I think it's especially fun to see how much everyone's kids have grown and I look forward to it every year.

Today's book was "Santa's Snow Cat". The girls weren't as crazy about this story although the illustrations are just beautiful. Instead of a second reading, Lauren went for the copy of "Frosty the Snowman" which was probably a good thing. She's been "singing" the Frosty song for a couple of days now but the only words she knows are "Frosty the Snowman..." and from there she just hums the rest. Don't try to sing the words to her....no sir! You're better off just letting her hum. Hopefully, with a few more readings of Frosty she'll pick it up on her own. My little Miss Independent Girl.

Our Advent activity today was popsicle glitter stars. Here's a picture of Anna's.

Do you believe?

Today's activity included a reading of "The Polar Express" and an actual ride on the Sacramento Train Museum's Polar Express! We tried to get tickets last year but the event sold out in October! We planned ahead this time and departed the train station at 3:00 in the afternoon. I made necklaces with a "sleigh bell" for both girls for the journey to the "North Pole". Both girls were so cute as they'd hold their bells up, shake them and say, "I believe in the spirit of Christmas. I believe." The train ride itself lasted about an hour and had music and characters from the book and movie. We got to meet the conductor, the hobo, the chefs, and of course, Santa himself. The story was read over the loudspeaker while we enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate and a cookie. Once Santa came aboard, he gave all the children a silver bell from his sleigh. The girls were so excited to see him and kept telling him how much they loved him and to have a great Christmas. It was a really fun afternoon and well worth the trip.

The waiters with the hot chocolate and cookies.

Hot chocolate quality check.....yep, it's good!

Some of the characters from the story....the hobo playing the herty gerty.

The conductor....Anna was disappointed that he only punched our ticket once and wondered where the words were.

The hobo...again? A different person this time around and trying to get everyone excited about Santa's arrival.

At the "North Pole" waiting for Santa to board.

Santa finally arrived much to the delight of the girls!

Now, let me ask you....do you believe in the spirit of Christmas?

Can you still hear the bell ring?

I can. :)

Petunia's Christmas

We read the cutest story today about a goose named Petunia. She meets a handsome gander and falls in love. To save him from being sold for Christmas dinner, she makes wreaths to sell to buy his freedom. The girls really liked the story and we made wreaths like Petunia this afternoon after their naps. You may be wondering why in the pictures Anna and Lauren are dressed alike and as if it's June instead of December. Well, Anna has this thing about dresses. If I've dressed her in pants for school, she immediately changes into a dress as soon as she gets home. She prefers everything sleeveless and is relentless in attempting to convince me to let her wear sleeveless clothing year round. As for Lauren, she's following big sister's lead and if Anna wants to be a "twin" then that's okay with her. I love that the older they get, the more they want to play together. It just melts my heart.

The finished product.

A Star for Christmas

Did you get to see the beautiful sky this week? The crescent moon flanked by Jupiter and Venus was something to behold. Our book today was called "A Star for Christmas" and although the "star" in the story was actually a young reindeer named "Little Star" it still seemed appropriate considering the special night sky.
We traced the girls' hands and feet to make our own little reindeer. They turned out pretty funny. We still have a reindeer we made from Anna's hand her first Christmas. It's just crazy to see how much she's grown in such a short time. Speaking of her first Christmas, the first time she saw the lights sparkling in the Christmas tree, she ran over and tried to blow them out.:) Kids are something else!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

everywhere you go...except that is for this blog!

Here at home, the trees are up and decorated,

and the stockings have been hung by the chimney with care.

But this darned blog will not seem to get into the spirit of Christmas. Shelly has such a cute blog layout and I wanted something festive as well. I tried using one of the premade layouts but it required a template change which cut all of my pictures and slideshows in half. As I did not want to go back and edit a ton of html, I tried to create my own layout. Did it work?? Uhh, not so much. Then I tried for some festive colors with an animated frame in place of the title. I finally decided the only answer to this dilemma was to say, "Fuh-get about it" and have some hot chocolate and peppermint candy. I'm a big enough woman (ha! ha! no pun intended but here at almost 35 weeks of pregnancy, that's a funny statement) to admit defeat and I do. A few months back, to avoid leaving toy stores with a ton of toys in hand, whenever the girls asked for a new toy, I just told them that Christmas was on its way and we should tell Santa what we wanted. Since that time, they've taken to speaking out loud to Santa anytime they see something they want. It usually goes like this, "Santa, can I have that for Christmas?" It appears that they're going to get most of what they've asked for in a few weeks time. Maybe I should give their tactic a try. So, here goes, "Santa, can I have some computer and blog savvy for Christmas?"

On a happier note, I'm so excited about Christmas. I really love this time of year. The girls and I put together a little matchbox advent calendar and I have books and activities planned for us each day leading up to Christmas.

For this first day of December, we read the story about "Snowflake Bentley", the first man to photograph a snowflake. He went through a lot to get that first picture. Snowflakes are so beautiful and cutting them out is terribly addictive. We all got into the swing of things and cut out several. We have two trees again this year (one in the dining room and one in the living room). The one in the living room is going to be our handmade tree. We've already added our snowflakes. Hopefully, with a month of craft activities, we'll fill the tree.





Otherwise we're steadily working on getting our Christmas cards and calendars together and out the door. Doug's been getting gifts purchased and I'm looking forward to just taking it easy, watching some Christmas movies and enjoying the season.