Santa's Been Here!

He's eaten his cookies!

And left some toys!

Christmas is HERE!!

Christmas Crafts!

On Thursday we did our last Christmas craft by making our own Christmas Trees and decorating them with goodies!

I had lots of leftover Halloween candy and then threw in a bunch of baking decorations so the kids had lots of options. Thankfully we had the kids eat lunch BEFORE doing the craft so they didn't have a lunch of pure sugar.

Prior to starting the craft I hot glued the cones onto paper plates so they wouldn't move around everywhere.

I went ahead and made the frosting using powdered sugar, but I didn't realize I had so little. Kim had some frosting left over that she brought with her so we mixed that in. Unfortunately the frosting I started out with was runny because of my lack of powdered sugar. So I ended up adding a little corn starch and a ton of flour to thicken it up. You would think this would discourage the kids from eating the frosting, but it didn't. Which furthers my suspicion that young children really don't have taste buds!

Jack was a pro at spreading the frosting since he made a candy house earlier this month.

Andrew cheesin' for the camera!

I was going to put Ella down for her nap, but then figured I should let her have some fun too. She really enjoyed it...of course she ate more candy than she put on her tree. She must have really tuckered herself out though because she took a super nap that afternoon!

It was funny how the kids would cover one side with frosting and then say they were done not realizing there was a whole other side to the cone.

Us Mom's helped the kids get there cones completely covered in frosting so they could get to the fun part....candy!

Such pretty decorations!

The nice thing about my homemade frosting was it started to harden pretty fast so the ornaments weren't going anywhere.

Josiah didn't decorate a tree, but he had fun "taking pictures" of the festivities!

More Craft Projects!

My nieces aren't on FB yet and don't check my blog so I think I'm safe posting this. Since I made Camryn a purse for her birthday I asked my SIL if Paige, one of my other nieces would like a purse for birthday and she said she would.

The only specification she gave was that Paige doesn't really like bold colors so the red was out. I found this nice lighter blue at The Dollar Tree instead. Also this time around I used my friend Kim's die cut machine again and cut out these flowers using felt and secured them to the purse using an antique brad. I think it's gorgeous...I hope she likes it!

We draw names at Christmas time for Michael's side of the family. The adults draw names and the kids draw names. This year one of my kids drew Camryn's name. I bought her a bunch of hair accessories, but I wanted to add my own flare to them so I used some more of the felt flowers to make these attachments to her plain headbands. They are even removable so she can use them if she wants to or not!

Christmas Newsletter!

In lieu of cards again I just made a Christmas Newsletter (Click on the picture to see it in full) with a synopsis of our year. I must say it was really hard to just write one page! This was certainly a wonderful, crazy, FULL year!

Anxiety!

My last doctors appt was at the beginning of December and my next appt wasn't supposed to be until January 5th, but the more time past the more anxious I found myself getting. This Sunday I started really getting nervous. Nothing had changed in regards to my body to make me be nervous it was just me. On Monday I called to see if my doctor or the PA was in so I could just come in and hear the heartbeat. They were both out this week...surprise surprise, but they told me I could come in and see one of the nurses instead.

I think the main reasons I was starting to get nervous is because I'm at that awkward stage where I'm showing, but I'm still not really feeling the baby move yet. I know it's still early...I'm 16 weeks now, but I also know that once I start feeling the baby I'm going to get that reassurance on a more regular basis. I've also been concerned not only because of my past miscarriage history, but I have two other friends that lost their babies around this time in their pregnancy and it just freaks me out. When I was pregnant with Kyan he died around 10 weeks, but we didn't find out until I was supposed to be 13 weeks pregnant. During that time we celebrated Easter and had family pictures taken when we were at church....nothing professional, but still it was nice family pictures with my parents. When we found out that Kyan had died it made it so hard to look at those pictures knowing that at that moment I didn't know that my baby was already dead inside me. With Christmas coming up I really didn't want the chance of that sort of thing happening again so off to the doctors I went.

The staff are so nice at my OBGYN's and they completely understood my concerns and wanted to help calm my anxiety. The nurse took me back to the exam room and put the Doppler thing on my belly and then turned it on and right away we heard LOUD and clear...bump bump bump bump bump! She even said, "That was easy!" and then she checked my pulse to make sure it wasn't my heartbeat she was picking up because I was nervous. Nope it wasn't mine...that baby was front and center and ready to be found. The heart was beating away at 160 BPM. So thankful! PTL!!!

16 weeks!

Countdown To Christmas!

Last week I decided to make the kids these little countdown to Christmas candy holders. It's just Saran Wrap and ribbon...super easy. I of course needed to jazz them up a bit so I stamped a Christmas stamp and attached it to the top.

This morning was our first morning to cut down a piece of candy and officially start the countdown to Christmas day.

As you can see the kiddos were pretty excited about eating candy right after breakfast...usually a total no no at our house!

Even Ella ate her chocolate which is not her favorite candy choice.

This month has gone by SO fast...can't believe we are just a few short days away. If they get this excited about candy I can't wait to see there faces on Christmas morning!

Gone Fishin'!

This is an idea that I got off Pinterest. I gathered up a bunch of alphabet and number magnets and put them in the tub. Then attached magnets to the boys fishing poles and let them go fishing. We don't have a fishing pole for Ella so I just used a stick and some ribbon and called it good.

Some of the letters were hard to actually get out of the water since they would fill up with water and then the magnet wouldn't be strong enough to lift it out.

Once Owen realized that he needed to lift it out slowly he started getting more.

Another issue we ran into was that the boys need to stand back in order for the magnets to get to the letters or numbers, but then they weren't tall enough to see over the tub. I think next time I'll just fill their little plastic wading pool instead of the tub.

Ella wasn't really into the whole fishing part, but she like playing with the magnet.

In the end it was a bit more stressful than I thought it would be. I ended up having the boys take turns because they just kept getting their lines crossed and then their magnets would stick together. Let me tell you a twisted fishing line is an irritating thing!!!

Christmas Caroling!

Thought it would be fun to tape the kids singing Christmas songs.

Jack and Owen watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates A LOT so that's why he thinks Santa says, "Yo Ho Ho!"

I love that Ella loves to do motions with songs. She melts my heart!

This is priceless! I've actually found myself singing Jingle Bells Owen's way since he's started singing it by himself. I love it!

Ice Experiment

On Wednesday I let the boys pick out a few small toys and then we put them in a bowl, covered them with water and put them in the freezer. After a few hours we checked on the bowl and were able to see that the top was frozen, but underneath was still water. Then I had them choose a few more toys and we added those and then filled the bowl the rest of the way up with water.  

On Thursday night we took our frozen creations out of the freezer to check on them. It was funny seeing all there little toys frozen in ice.

Of course when we made these Ella was taking a nap and I didn't think to make one for her...in this picture she's pat her chest and saying "Mine?"

I dipped the frozen bowls in warm water so I could unmold them and then put them in the kitchen sink so the boys to try to get their toys out.

We tried a bunch of different tools such as Owen's toy pliers and a toy hammer, but when it came down to it the real screwdrivers worked the best.

When the kids had been hitting at them for a while I asked them if they wanted to pour some water over them. They went from looking all cloudy to nice and clear. I also had the boys pick up the ice to feel how smooth it was and they were able to see that the ice was dripping because their warm hands were melting it.

Ella was sitting on the countertop wanting to get in on the action.

Owen was the first one to get a toy free from the ice.

After Ella was getting irritated with me leaning over her to help Jack I decided to move her to the windowsill so she could have a prime view of everything.

Daddy ended up coming in and helping Owen get out the rest of his toys and I helped Jack. Then we turned the hot water on and watched how fast the ice chunks melted. I think it probably took about 20 minutes for our whole experiment. The boys were immediately asking if we could freeze more toys in water so I think they enjoyed it.

This One Turned Out Good!

So after the craft fail I knew I had to redeem myself so on a whim I decided it would be fun to draw a tree on some butcher paper and let the kids decorate it. I was trying to think of another way for them to decorate it without it involving markers or crayons. For some reason whenever those come into the picture whatever we are coloring just ends up a scribbled all over mess.

Then it hit me that I could use all my Stampin' Up punches to make "ornaments". When I started punching out the ovals it occurred to me that they looked like Christmas lights so I drew in the strands for them to "hang" off.

Then the kids got to get glue happy for a while.

Ella spent more time gluing herself than the actual paper ornaments.

When we were finished gluing I drew the truck and the tree stand and we hung it on the back of the front door. I think it turned out pretty cute and very colorful! It wasn't very messy either and that in my book is a perfect craft with kids!

Craft Fail!

Continuing with my goal of doing Christmas crafts with the kids I decided to make a Christmas Wreath using the kids hand prints. It sounded like a good idea.

First I traced the all the kids hands...except Owen's left since he wanted to trace it. It ended up looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dams hand, but I couldn't bring myself to ask him if I could trace it again after he did it all by himself.

Then I cut out all the hand prints.

At this point things were going well....then I glued them on a paper place with the center cut out of it and this is what I got.

It is SO ugly! Never mind the fact that there weren't enough hand prints to cover the plate all the way around...even if you envision it all filled up it would STILL be ugly. Oh well you win some you lose some!

This Bins Not Big Enough For The Two Of Us!

Excuse me Logan...

Squeezin' in together and...

Not very happy about it! (Love her pouty look!)

BUBBA!!!

Much better!!!!