The Best Season of All 2013- 1st week of December

It's this time of year again!
This year we are continuing our tradition of activities-filled advent calendar.

This year even though I planned making something really stylish and unusual for a calendar, I ended up drawing a tree by popular request from kids. Under each ball there is an activity written for us to do. This year instead of mostly crafts I went for "special moments", this way none of us will be worn out by the end of the month.

Day 1: We made our traditional window display, coffee filters colored with metallic watercolors. This time we cut out gigantic snowflakes.

Day 2: We put some lights on the bush outside our window

Day 3: Baking cookies together!We made also out long time favorite chocolate cookies recipe here
Day 4: Lego Christmas trees:

Day 5: T-shirt decoration, I bought some white cotton t-shirts in Michael's (adult size too :D) and some fabric paint. We did our best painting some holiday pictures on them, kids had lots of fun and now wear these tees to bed and around the house.

Day 6: We attended Polar Express Story Time in local bookstore

Day 7: We made an attempt to create a snow jar. I was inspired by this pinhowever, kids didn't want to use any of their small animals and by the time they made up their minds it was too late to go hunt for new ones :) So D. just made a penguin out of playdough (weird color is due to the fact that all black dough was gone for some reason), a small fir was picked outside. Just add Epsom salt and here we have a snow jar (rather a candidate for "nailed it" meme I think) that kids pronounced "weird, but Christmassy"

Day 8: Snow!, so much snow outside! Kids are looking forward to rolling in it and cleaning the sidewalk. We are supposed to attend a concert today too, but I'm no sure about driving so far away, so we might not go after all 
We ended up going to see Denver Young Artists Orchestra and we had a marvelous time! Harry Potter suite was wonderful and put us in a holiday spirit.

We are reading books from Holiday List I made last year. So far kids watched "Chronicles of Narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe" and Russian "Snow Queen" movie.

Happy Holiday Season to all!

the best season of all- days 8 and 9

We had another lovely day yesterday- our friends invited us to a roller skating lesson for kids- it was so much fun! It was a first time for D. and now he can't wait to go back for more.

We made our traditional Cranberry Muffins (they were gone before I could take a picture :D)

We read some more winter poetry in Russian yesterday.


Today D. was in co-op all day and afterward we went and got our tree! We decorated it more sparsely this year to leave room for some more hand made ornaments that will be created. Kids are naturally very excited and this year little C. could really help with decorating.

No baking today, thanks to my friend who brought us a cheesecake :)

We read  "Little tree" by E.E. Cummings from our Christmas book.

Kids are in bed now and I'm ready for my holiday movie. Today it will be :
You've got mail

the best season of all-day 5

After lazy week end we had an incredibly busy day today. We went to the Museum of Nature and Science (yay for free days!). What a great visit it was. We had fun at Space Odyssey exhibition and a free planetarium show. I was incredibly proud of my little boy, how he answered questions from the show guide, how carefully he planned and asked his own questions. He's so into space theme now, I love it! We watched a performance of an African drums band and strolled in "dinosaur land" for a while (C.'s love for dinosaurs and dragons is another delight for me, she love sword fights and dragon tales, she's such a brave little thing).
We got home pretty late and D. made couple of holiday cards. (Simple task, yay for pinterest inspired paint chips projects). It was made entirely by him without my help.

Our evening treat today was fried  apple rounds . It's basically apple rounds (skin peeled and cored) dipped in vanilla flavored pancake batter and fried in oil. We enjoyed it dusted with confectioner's sugar, with lots of whipped cream and hot tea.

We read a non-holiday book today, which my kids enjoyed very much :
Below by Nina Crews. It's a story of a boy and his favorite action figure, and their adventure together.





We also read some winter poems in Russian together.

Listening today : 
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Ric Larsen and Lisa Cunningham

Now it's quiet in the house, I'm ready for my book and my tea. It's so cold outside, I love it!

The best season of all- day 1

Easing into winter and first little door in our calendar is open. We woke up to a delightful gift from Mother Nature- snow, so much snow everywhere!

We did some school, and pulled out our coffee filters and window art paints and created this year's window display. It's getting dark so early in our parts (it's night by 5 pm) that I barely had time to take a picture :)

It was sort of "Breakfast for dinner" event today as well and we celebrated the beginning of winter by eating raspberry-chocolate filled aebelskivers. Recipe found here.

We read "One Snowy Night" by Nick Butterworth (I wrote about this lovely book in Sleepy books post recently)



Great day!
Today's soundtrack : 



Movie for me tonight :)

the best season of all ..."just keep swimming "(c)

Work, work, work, barely can find time to sleep. Hubby returns from his trip to Motherland tomorrow.Yay!

What we've been doing:
1. We made an ornament for our kitchen - craft sticks painted white, glued together and decorated with glitter = snowflake mobile :)

2. I finally got myself a present- oebelskiever pan. SO much fun and deliciousness, can't get enough of it.

                         
3. We finally saw "Tangled". Wow, what a great movie! Beautiful, cute, funny and smart. D. and I loved it.The music is great, we've been listening to the OST non-stop. Probably we'll see it again sometimes next week :)

In the meantime I'm trying to catch up on all the wonderful blogs that I'm reading, soooo behind on everything...