Merry Christmas!

This year we decided to forego sending out Christmas cards and I just made a digital  using Picnik . Here are the two pictures I edited. I think they are the cutest little elves I've ever seen!

Ok....I'm a Slacker.....But At Least I Admit It!

So I remember way back (it feels way back anyways) at the beginning of December when I had this grand idea of doing our Advent Calendar for Christmas and taking pictures each day. Well we have been doing the calendar but I've been slacking with the pictures. Although, in my defense, some activities were things like "Look under the tree for a new Christmas book" and I didn't have my camera on  hand to get Alex's reaction. I just said to myself ,  "Ok next time I'll have my camera" and of course next time came and did I? That's a big fat no! Although I guess I do have a lot on my plate trying to take care of her and Camden, who is 9 months and into EVERYTHING! But then again I read blogs out there and the moms are definitely, or seem like, supermoms who can do it all!

So since I don't have pictures here are some of the things that we have done with our Advent Calendar:

Made Christmas Treats - Alex is a good  helper. I even taught her to crack an egg!
Went to see Santa - actually her dad took her to do that!
Made some homemade Christmas ornaments (salt dough and ball ornament)
Watched a Christmas movie with popcorn
She got a Rudolph Christmas puzzle (Love the dollar spot at Target!)
Went to Candy Lane in Hershey, PA

And there are a few more to come:
Drive around and look at Christmas lights (maybe we'll do that tonight)
Leave Cookies for Santa
Make Reindeer Food

I've also switched numbers around. I would always tell her to find a number but depending on our schedule I would re-arrange activities...hey she can't read yet because she's only 3 so I can get away with that! When she is 6 I'll have to be more consistent!

But anyways, at least she is having a fun time doing the activities. That is the whole point!

Muffin Tin Monday

It's Muffin Tin Monday! 

I wasn't sure that I was going to make a muffin tin lunch today because Alex asked me to make one around 12:00 and earlier that morning we had friends over to make gingerbread houses and I was positive she wouldn't be hungry since as she was  making the house she was eating candy too. But I made her one and she finished the whole thing! I was very surprised! Maybe it was that I gave her another Christmas themed lunch. Here is what she had today:


Top Left: Christmas lights (cherries and grapes), Reindeer food (Chex), North Pole Snow (a peppermint meringue cookie)

Bottom Left: Christmas Tree Quesadilla,  Rudolph's Nose (pepperoni), Gingerbread Man Quesadilla and of course Milk in her Santa cup!

And she ate every last bit! 

For more ideas go to Muffin Tin Mom

Where's Max Been Hiding?

Of course I keep forgetting to take pictures of Max in his "hiding" spots so I don't have pictures from every day but in the past few days we found Max:

In the pantry eating pretzels

In the kids' bathtub with Alex's shampoo and washcloth

On the bottom of Alex's bedroom stairs (and he put a tissue on each stair!)

In the bathroom with the toilet paper unraveled

Sitting on a shelf with my credit card

On my mixer with the cookie mix (I guess he wanted to bake Christmas cookies!)

Salt Dough Ornaments

Little Bug and  I made some salt dough ornaments the other day. They were so easy to do! Here is how you make them:

Ingredients: 

2 cups flour

2 cups salt 

1 cup water 

This amount of ingredients made about 25 total ornaments - some were regular sized and some were mini ornaments. 

So all you need to do is mix up the flour and salt and water in a mixer until it becomes a dough that you can roll out. I added a little extra flour to my dough after it was all mixed.

Next, roll it out - and cut out the shapes. Little Bug loved cutting out the ornaments but it was my job to put them on the cookie sheets because I did have to scrape a bit to get them off because I didn't put down enough flour. They don't spread out at all so you can get a bunch on a cookie sheet. 

Then bake at 250 until they are totally dried out - I cooked mine for about 4 hours and flipped them about halfway through the cooking.

After they cooled it was time to decorate. We just used tempera paint but you could use any kind - the ornaments are easy to paint and add glitter or whatever other embellishments you want. The painting was probably her favorite part (can you tell by the big orange/red blob on her shirt?) She probably decorated about 5 ornaments by the time I got 2 done. The girl loves to bake and paint so this project was definitely win win for her! 

Christmas Themed Lunch

Instead of doing a Muffin Tin Lunch today I decided to do a themed plate - Christmas! So I made Little Bug a Rudolph sandwich, some yogurt in a Christmas tree cookie cutter, Nilla wafer ornaments, and bell shaped cheese. This lunch was definitely a hit!

Days 1 and 2 of our Advent Calendar

On December 1 we started our Advent Calendar activity cards. Our number 1 card activity was to get out Little Bug's  Little People holiday set and Nativity Set to play with. She really enjoyed this activity because she hasn't seen this set since last Christmas since I put it away, so it felt like a brand new toy. She wanted to play with it on the carpet but with her little brother all over the place and getting into the pieces I suggested we play with it on the train table. We set up a Little People town and she is really having a good time with it.

On a side funny note: As I was setting up the Nativity scene I was talking to myself saying "Oh there's the three wise men, baby Jesus, a camel, Mary, etc" I couldn't find Joseph for the Nativity set and I said  to myself "But where's Joseph" and Little Bug thought I was talking to her and said "He's at home!!!" (She has a classmate named Joseph in her class at preschool). I just started laughing....

Then for our second activity we went to Christmas Candylane in Hershey

That Sneaky Max!

Our Elf Max has been doing some sneaky things lately! This past weekend we went up to Nana and Papa's and he made his way into our suitcase. I guess he really is everywhere! Then when we woke up on Saturday Little Bug found him under Nana's Christmas tree with her bears. I think he was really trying to hide himself in there so we couldn't find him. On Sunday we found him riding the rocking horse but he disappeared before I could snap a picture.  I guess tomorrow I'll have to be a bit quicker!