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 16 through 22

Wow, what a week, we were so incredibly busy every single day I could hardly catch my breath.

We had some great activities and I learned one important thing- I simply planned too much for us to do :)
Anyway, here's a little round-up of what we've been up to the past few days.

D. loves to sew so much he asked to try out embroidery, his first piece is very simple of course, but in holiday spirit:

Saturday we went roller-skating again and D. met Santa (for the first time too, since I'm not a fan of mall Santas :)) It was also a day of surprise treasure hunt arranged by Daddy. The reward is a small chest with coins :)

Sunday: Baby C. turned three! (she insists she's "twenty-seven" though) D. selected a present for her (little pony) and it proved to be her favorite.

Monday: Daddy left to visit his parents  overseas and we had a quiet day watching snow fall. D. also made a little picture book of his own.

Tuesday: Fun with friends in the afternoon.


Today: I took D. to the movies, we watched Hugo, which we both enjoyed very much. In the evening kids made a bear den and stayed there, talking, snacking and reading.


We read
The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rummer Godden, lovely, magical story about Christmas wishes and need for love.


Now we have a glorious snow fall outside of our window, there's nothing better than waking up with skylights entirely covered with white blanket- looking forward to the morning now :)

the best season of all days 12,13,14 and 15

Busy days, fun with friends, awesome field trip, some crafts, learning about nature...

We talked some more about nature and made a bird feeder. We are still waiting for little guests to arrive, it's really warm outside so they aren't so hungry I guess, even a squirrel haven't visited for a few days.

We read "Who's Been Here" by Fran Hodgkins- a lovely book about our animal neighbors




We have a tradition- 10 days before Christmas we have little elves coming to our house, if children are especially kind to each other, they get small gifts from elves. D. made a special sock for little C. so elves can put some gifts for her. He already tried his hand in needle felting the other day when we made ornaments for the tree, this time it was his big project, he enjoyed it very much.

We read "The Twelve Days of Christmas" illustrated by Jan Brett



Yesterday was the most fun field trip with our co-op to The Little Shop of Physics in Fort Collins. D. had a great time trying all the experiments. They are having  an open house event in the end of February.

Today D. and I went for another roller skating lesson at Skate City, D. looooves these lessons.

We made a little pine cone elf to guard our tree and bookshelves. It was a bit challenging because pine cones that we found have tiny spikes on them, but it's a fun project. Inspired by this craft.

We read  Tiger's Adventures by Nick Butterworth- another favorite for my kids, especially little C. who's very much into tigers these days :)





My mom was in charge of yummies these past few days, tomorrow it's back to the oven I go, kids are begging for more cookies :)


We watched
While You Were Sleeping 

  

the best season of all- day 10 and 11

We had a lovely, quiet week end.

Children are very happy about having the tree up. Little C. keeps exclaiming "The tree came to visit!" and she touches ornaments all the time.
Yesterday we made our first ornaments of the season. We took out  thick felt sheets and sewn up couple of birds. It was D.'s first big sewing experience as well as needle felting. He loved every minute of it. His bird was an owl and now it guards our tree. He did most of the work himself :)

I made a little dove, C. helped by messing with my thread and picking our sequins :)

Yesterday we read
Toot &Puddle I'll be home for Christmas by Holly Hobbie- another delightful little story about piglets




Today was another quiet day.


We read  The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett.



I'm back to baking, made marble cookies using this recipe. 
The cookies are quite good, but too much work somehow mixing, and separating, and chilling the dough.

We watched Serendipity tonight, very nice:

the best season of all- days 6 and 7

Yesterday awe had a lovely, quiet day. I skipped baking on account of my mom's (we all live together) getting yummy treats from her student. So delicious!

We spent the day playing board games. D. loves playing chess with grandpa- such a special time for them both. D. made up his own, winter festivities inspired board game- rules are chaotic but we had fun racing from one site to another- castle, Santa's village and get away from aliens' ship too of course :D

We had such a warm autumn that yesterday was the first time we lit our fireplace- so nice and soothing!

Today we made some more holiday cards- this time for D.'s teachers from co-op.

I made Almond Crescent Cookies, which also became a tradition for us.

We read from The Book of Christmas edited by Neil Philip

I was buried in bed with books all of yesterday :) , today though I'm planning to watch:
Christmas In Connecticut (1945)  

the best season of all- day 4

Another quiet day, I ran some errands in the morning, D. did his schoolwork on his own and read his stories with grandma, so proud of him.

It's cold here, the snow stays (for now).

Narnia :)

Our activity today was cutting snowflakes. Now it's snowing on our fireplace :)

What I especially love December for is that I have a perfect excuse for baking every single day and not even feel guilty about having all these cookies in the house. We made our annual chocolate cookies.

We read Let it snow! by Holly Hobbie (we just adore Toot &Puddle series!), cute tale and awesome illustrations.

We listened to
French Christmas Songs: Chants de Noël - Hélène Baillargeon

Mom and I are going to watch   Meet Me In St. Louis  tonight.
Life is good.

the best season of all- day 2

Lovely, sunny day today. It still looks like winter outside, but all the nasty slippery ice from the road is gone. For me the best thing about winter evenings is the golden light of setting sun on top of white roofs. It's magic for me.

Our activity today was simple- decorating candles. We grabbed plain, unscented candles, mod podge, lots and lots of glitter and set to work. Kids had so much fun, and glitter is everywhere. D. picked up couple of pine cones and they also got some sparkly treatment.

The yummy treat for today : Crunchy cookies
Preheat oven to 385 F
2 cups of flour+pinch of salt -mix together, 125 g of softened butter +3/4 c of sugar +1 egg+1 tsp of vanilla -mix well. Add flour. Make a ball and let sit in a fridge for 45 min. Roll the dough, get cookie cutters out and bake for 15 min or until golden.

We read The Mitten by Jan Brett


Today's music :

Putumayo Celtic Christmas - Various Artists

The movie for me when kiddos are in bed  :
Sleepless In Seattle

 

Great movie

Disney Nature makes wonderful movies. We absolutely loved Oceans(I cried), the Earth is pretty amazing too, but today I wanted to mention another one.The first feature of Disneynature it is called The Crimson Wing:Mystery of the Flamingos . This movie talks about life cycle of flamingos and their amazing stay at the Tanzanian lake Natron. The cinematography absolutely breathtaking, the music by The Cinematic Orchestra  is amazing. There are, however, baby birds dying, so if your child is sensitive you might wanna prepare him or her, or even watch it by yourself beforehand to determine if your child can handle it. Mine could, I on the other hand bawled like a baby. :D

Music:

January -keep learning about Japan

D. and I keep learning about Japan this month.

Today we read the book My Japan by Etsuko Watanabe.

 

It's a great book for introducing kids to culture of Japan, it talks about food, holidays, clothing. In the end it talks a little bit about hieroglyphs which gave us an opportunity to practice these as well.

We painted Sakura tree an idea for which I found  here.

The other day we watched  "Little travelers:Japan" dvd which we took from the library. It was interesting for D. and he learned a lot.

We keep looking at the map and finding new cities, grandma visited Japan 20 years ago and she's eager to share her memories as well. I have lots of activities planned out I only hope we will be able to squeeze them all in :D