More Advent Activities

Our first step in decorating our tree was the cranberry and popcorn garland.  I was surprised how well this went.  We did this for the first time last year and they seemed to really enjoy doing it again.  Here are the boys' with their contributions.  Elias apparently really liked the cranberries.

Concentrating so hard!

Here is the finished garland draped on the tree.  This was the first step in our decorating process.

Tyler decorated the outside of our house with lights too.  This is the first time we've ever gotten to do this so he was pretty excited.  You'll have to ask Tyler sometime how he got that strand way up on the top peak.

The next step in tree decorating is making the gingerbread men.

My gingerbread recipe makes a ton so we also made some cookies for the neighbors (as well as a gingerbread men garland).

The kids took turns picking the shapes and cutting them out.

Press!

One of our other activities was making cinnamon snowflakes.

They were super simple and super tasty.  Cut some pieces out of a tortilla, spread it with butter, sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar and bake it for a few minutes.  Voila!

Enjoying the fruits of her labor (although the rest of us enjoyed her fruits as well; we're such freeloaders!).

On another night, we decorated our gingerbread.

Spread, spread. Sprinkle, sprinkle.

They could have kept on decorating all night! Each of the bigger three were so into decorating; it was fun to watch.

A bucket of our finished masterpieces. In hindsight, offering the black sprinkles was probably not seasonally appropriate.  They seemed to be the favorite though. We'll chalk it up to artistic vision and general creativity.

Getting a Christmas Tree

One of our advent activities was going to cut down a Christmas tree. The day we decided to go was pretty chilly; we had a bundle up.

They weren't a ton of options really close but there were a few a little over an hour from us.  We decided to try out Clark's Christmas Conifers.  Here's the shed at Clark's.

Tromping out to pick out our tree.

Albert and I brought up the rear.

Which one, which one? 

Sizing this one up.  I think it's too tall for our living room.

We were a happy crew, even in all the cold and wind.

We have a winner!!

Sorry bird's nest, this is the end of the road for you.

Cut, cut, cut.

Follow that tree!

Shaking out the tree.  We have to make sure there are no loose needles (or squirrels).

The boys thought the shaking tree was HILARIOUS!

Tying it up.

A tied up nicely and ready for the long ride home.

Time for the traditional cookie on the way home.  All-in-all, it was a happy and successful outing.

Advent Activities

Like last year, I tried to have an activity for the kids and me (and sometimes Tyler) to participate in for each day of advent.  Some of them were crafty and some of them were just fun, like watching A Charlie Brown Christmas.  We kind of lost steam around Albert's birthday but here's some pictures from the first few activities.

Have you ever cloved oranges?  I hadn't either but it seemed festive and easy enough for all to be able to participate. 

You just poke a small hole in an orange and stick a whole clove in it.  You can do whatever design strikes your fancy and the end result smells pretty spectacular.

 He might have just eaten one of the cloves.

We used a couple different things to poke the holes.  Asher was using my digital food thermometer. It worked really well.

But we also just tried small nails and they worked just as well.

Look at that furrowed brow!  He was concentrating so hard.

Poke!

Our beautiful and ever so aromatic creations.

The next day we made an edible craft.  It involved marshmallows, sticks, sprinkles, and melted almond bark.  That sounds like a recipe for fun, right?

Albert's first marshmallow didn't make it to the almond bark.

 Dip.

 Sprinkle.

The end result were these marshmallow Christmas trees.  

More dipping.

These were cute and super fun to make.  They tasted just like a marshmallow peep.  I'm not a fan of peeps so I wasn't too thrilled but the kids thought they were great.  

After that, we made twig stars. We have an abundance of sticks in our yard so we gathered some thinner ones and made these.

I was originally going to tie them all with string but I tried it beforehand and it took quite a while.  So for the kids, we had them find sticks of matching lengths and then we hot glued them.  It was way easier and still cute.

Mostly Albert and a little Elias

I was getting ready to start a series of posts about our Christmas but found a bunch of pictures of the younger boys that needed to be posted.  Here is a bunch of the randomness that goes on in our house fairly regularly.

Albert likes to roam with his breakfast.  This is something I never would have allowed Addilyn (or probably Asher or Elias) to do, but haven't put up much of a fight with now that we're on number 4. At about 10;00 every morning, Albert will find what's left of his breakfast and finish it up.

Sometimes he'll share with his monkey.

Feeding the chameleon.

Hey look, it's Batman playing with some cars!

Be careful; he's got his eye on you!

Batman is flying!!

And he makes a graceful landing.

He risks reveling his secret identity for the sake of a clearer field of vision.  Bold, yet understandable.

Elias has a new favorite sandwich (aside from the ever-elusive pb and nutella sandwich).  This one is called "Ants on Kansas in a Dust Storm." Addilyn had a similar favorite sandwich at this age and I thought it was time to bring back the classic.

Nom, nom, nom.

I'm not sure what this face means but it implies mischief.

One day Albert fell asleep on the ottoman an hour before lunch.  That rarely happens now (he is sometimes hit or miss on his one afternoon nap) so I thought I should document it. I want to cuddle him.

A slimy, green monster decided to sit down and watch Dinosaur Train with Elias.

Elias was playing football in the backyard with Asher and mistakenly tackled the clothesline pole.  The pole definitely won.

That is one super sad two-year-old with his hat all askew.  I think someone should write a song about him.

Now that, that's finished...on to the Christmas posts!!