advent calendar: days 13 - 19

day 13: "take your bookmarks to give to people at the seniors care home"

when we were kids, we always went up to the seniors homes with our school to sing carols or take crafts that we had made. i thought it would be a good experience of the giving season for ben to visit a care home as well. it hadn't occurred to me that i should be calling ahead but i'd made the plan with a friend to look after avery already. in the morning, i called the only care home that i knew of in abbotsford and the woman informed me that we needed to go through the volunteer coordinator because of the level of care these people needed and the coordinator wasn't in that day. because we were going to go to a friends' house for avery and then were supposed to play there afterwards, we went for a playdate instead. i should have followed up on this one and made it for another day.

day 14: "make christmas ornaments"

we used Crayola Model Magic which i'd heard about on pinterest as being easier to mold than playdough but dries nicely. it turned out to be more like rubbery foam - very light but a lot of work to roll out. this craft turned out to be more mommy than ben but we were making star ornaments with cookie cutters.

then we pushed a straw into the top so that it would dry with a hole in it for a ribbon. (ben liked putting the straw into all the dough as you can see by the blob with a straw in it in the background here.)

day 15: put up ben's own pretend christmas tree in ben's room

the felt christmas tree finally makes it debut! i would have liked to have this as one of the earlier days in the month but i left this project hanging for a little while when i hit the roadblock of how to attach the felt pieces together. i ended up using fabric glue but i think it's pretty toxic...you wouldn't want a kid to put it in their mouth or anything. but i made a large star and an angel so that ben could choose which one he'd like on the top of his tree. both grandparents have angels but we have a star on his. as you can see, the angel made the cut.

ben hasn't played as much with this tree as i would have liked. it could be because it's away in his room and he doesn't often play in there. maybe there will be more playing with it next year when avery is 1. :)

day 16: a bust.

buuut, we did continue to work on ben's ornaments. we painted them with gold glitter glue. then the following morning, we strung them with ribbon and wrapped them up to give away as gifts.

i asked ben who we should give an ornament to and he said that he wanted to give one to avery. since she wasn't grasping it when ben was putting it in her hand, i suggested we hang it on her ear. ben loved this, as you can see.
wrapping gifts is ben's favourite thing to do. he often wraps letters in washcloths while he's in the bathtub then sings happy birthday so he thought wrapping christmas presents was great.

day 17: go to kai's house for a christmas party

this was our third annual christmas dinner with this group of friends. the camera was barely out at the party so we don't have a picture of ben but we have this picture of avery by our friends' christmas tree. they put on an awesome spread for us

day 18: nothing in the calendar - we headed out to white rock to hang out with my parents and i hadn't had anything planned for the calendar. fun day nonetheless.

day 19: use stamps to make your own wrapping paper

i'd been saving ben's paintings in the last month and on this day, we flipped them over and sponged shapes on the backs to make wrapping paper. i cut some sponges into the shapes of a star, christmas tree, and a candy cane and ben stamped until his heart was content.

advent calendar posting burn-out

are you wondering what's been happening around here in the last 7 days? yikes! falling behind! we've been getting some advent activities in, ben's been waking up so early, and i've been going to bed much too late. not a good combo. a re-cap on the last 7 days (including my baby girl's 3-month birthday!) is coming soon. but tonight, i'm headed to bed by 9pm to prepare for ben's 5:30am wake up call.

advent calendar: day twelve

"read lots of Christmas books"

yes, this is veering away from the original list but we can't go big everyday. ;)

a quick favourite has been The Christmas Gift by Emily Arnold McCully. it actually has no words but it's a pretty cute book about a mouse family on Christmas day. each mouse gets a different present and ben likes to point at each one and say what it is. the other day, i asked ben what he thought uncle matt might like for christmas and he said, "a teddy bear." then i asked him what daddy would like for christmas. he said, "a trumpet." he was just going through the list of gifts from this book in his head. i definitely think we should get tim a trumpet for christmas.

aha! moment

the other day, i took ben to Strong Start (a drop-in program run by the school districts for ages 0 - 5 that is FREE and kind of prepares kids for preschool/kindergarten - and one of the locations is the school behind our house!) and all he wanted to play with was the wooden trains. SERIOUSLY, ben? we bought you a train table with track and trains! we gave you trains as a gift! my aunt mailed you track and trains from ontario! you never play with them! tim and i were just discussing if we should pack them up and store them for awhile until he's a bit older. but it's almost all he played with that morning at the school.

hmm...what is different about the trains at school and the trains at home? ours are on a table. at school, he played with them on the floor.

the next day, i brought all the track and trains out from his room into the kitchen. he sat and played trains off and on all morning. he loved it! he's just learning to put the tracks together himself and really can only build in a straight line so maybe the table was hindering that? also, the kitchen is central. he can play with me nearby AND i join in to play here and there if he's in the kitchen. since this discovery, he's played with his trains everyday. what a great discovery!

turns out, i love building these tracks and making them all connect. so yes, i did build this one.

advent calendar: days nine, ten, eleven

day nine - nothing was written in the calendar but we had a friend over to ice cookies AND we went to wendy's for supper AND looked at christmas lights. so definitely some advent events in there despite the lack of organization.

this place in abbotsford is amazing. this is just the one third of the lights display that i could fit into a photo. if you look carefully in the bottom centre of the picture is a little hut. there is a santa claus inside for kids to come see and get a candy cane! he was the realest santa i've seen in a long time too! we parked the car and walked along the sidewalk in front of the display while ben ate his candy cane. (yes, santa still gave him one even though ben wouldn't venture even CLOSE to santa!)

excited face (washed out by the flash! boo.) standing in front of some lights,

holding his candy cane! cute.

day 10: watch Charlie Brown Christmas movie

ben's favourite part...okay...it's also tim and my favourite part.

day eleven - another bust. oops. sorry, ben. mommy will be more on top of things next year when you care more. this is my practice year! however, we DID manage to make it to church for the first time in a month so that was great. avery went to the nursery for the first time. aand we got to go hang out at grandma and grandpa's house.

all sugar cookies are not equal

i made these sugar cookies with ben on day 2. they were reported to be the "best sugar cookies ever". she gives very specific directions in regards to the flour: "it's important to correctly measure your flour or you will end up with a dry, crumbly dough. Never, ever use your measuring cup to scoop up the flour. Use a regular sized spoon and spoon the flour into the cup and then level it off with a knife." i read this step, rolled my eyes at "bakers" and scooped my flour with the measuring cup. i had a dry, crumbly mess. it was so frustrating but i managed to get it rolled out and get some cookies out of it. sure, they were good cookies but i didn't feel they were worth that frustration. a sugar cookie is a sugar cookie, right?

not so.

today, i made a different sugar cookie recipe. it was fast and easy. the dough was perfect. i baked them up and right away i could see a difference. they were puffy and didn't hold their shape like the other ones. they were kind of a little tasteless and definitely in need of icing whereas the above cookies never got iced and we still ate them ALL very quickly. these are far inferior to the first recipe.

it looks like i will have to try the first recipe again and this time, i will follow the directions. and even if i still get a crumbly dough, i will know that the work to roll and re-roll is worth it.

advent calendar: day eight

"help mommy mail christmas cards"

put the photo in the envelope...

put the stamp on...

(and always keep your mandarin oranges close by while addressing christmas cards)

put the cards in the mailbox!

advent calendar: day seven

"make bookmarks to give away as gifts"

glitter glue dot

stick a jewel on the dot

and repeat.

add some stickers.

advent calendar: day six

"decorate cookies with elias"

"why would i put this candy on the cookie when i could eat it?" - ben

parental assistance necessary

ben's new face when you say, "smile!" yikes.

decorating paper trees with glitter glue and eating cookie time

advent calendar: day five

it was a bust. some days are harder than others.

advent calendar: day four

"after nap time, go to the Christmas tree lighting fair"

abbotsford has the "christmas tree lighting" every year for the last 20-something years hich is when they light up this giant evergreen tree that's right in the heart of old downtown. this year, it looked like they were making quite an event of it complete with booths, santa, and free hot chocolate and cookies! wedecided to try out this one instead of the one at central city that you read about in our list.

craft table but it was better suited for taller kids...

shut down the main street

liquid sugar...i mean, hot chocolate.

most of this got poured down the front of me when i was holding ben. yuck.

loving the musical entertainment. after every act, ben would say, "more!"

woohoo! it's more beautiful than ever this year!

the view from a block away!

advent calendar: day three

"decorate the christmas tree"

getting ready

hanging every ornament on one branch

"good one, ben." - avery

ta da!

since yesterday morning, the bottom half of the christmas tree has been decorated and re-decorated numerous times. only one ornament has been broken but the top half of the tree is pretty full with all our favourite/breakable ornaments. but ben's loving all things christmas and is very put out if ever turn off the tree lights.

sleeep

when avery is fighting sleep, her little arms wave around wildly. as she begins to succumb to sleep, her hand often rests on her face in this pose. it always makes me smile.

advent calendar: day two

"bake Christmas cookies and deliver them to our neighbours"

while waiting for the dough to chill, ben practiced his cookie cutting skills...

"playdough, mommy?"

ben's favourite cookie cutter was the angel but as you can see, it broke the easiest. when it was time to eat a cookie, ben picked the angel and it broke, so he picked another angel and IT broke. at this point, i was like, "sorry but it tastes just as good broken." and didn't let him break another.

what these sweet photos don't show is the total and utter frustration i had with that dough being way too dry and ridiculously hard to roll out THEN the playdough was SO sticky and gross. two extremes. after working so hard to roll the dough to get these few cookies, i forgot to buy parchment and my cookie sheets are awful. i could barely get a cookie off the sheet in one piece. during all this time mixing dough, rolling dough, helping unstick playdough from the table, i'd left avery on her own forever (not sleeping like she should have been), so she was screaming and needing to be held. all of a sudden it was nap time for ben and we hadn't even had lunch but i'm holding a sleeping baby whom i didn't want to wake but had to so that ben could get down for HIS nap. then ben cried and screamed for over an hour in his crib because i think i missed the nap window. total gong show. delivering our cookies to the neighbours seemed much too difficult so instead we stayed home and ate them. what a day. but hey! we've got the happy pictures so the bad time we had post-cookie making will be magically erased from our memories 10 years from now. ;)

advent calendar: day one

"set up ben's new nativity scene and read the Christmas story"

playing while eating breakfast

his favourite one - the angel

showing avery how it makes music

park attempt

other kids are dressed in little parkas...my kid is just in a hoodie. sorry, ben. mommy tends to underdress for the weather...

too bad avery wouldn't sleep in her stroller - made things super difficult. at one point, i was holding avery in one arm and trying to reef ben out of the swing with the other arm. it didn't work. i'm sure the other parents were watching me and thinking, "oh dear. that woman doesn't put a coat on her kid and then doesn't know that she'll have to put that baby down before she can pull a 2 year old out of a swing..." haha. after that moment, i told ben, "we need to go home." being the good little boy that he is, he came with me and didn't start to cry until he was in his car seat. i cried too, i felt so frustrated - the poor kid needs to get out and having a baby with us who can't put herself to sleep makes us stay in. oh well. we will try again another day.

hey momma!

the other evening, i was driving (with no kids!) to michaels to pick up a few last supplies for my felt christmas tree craft and i was wearing old, black lulus, hiking shoes, and my husband's fleece which is currently the only jacket that fits me. i thought to myself, "if stacy and clinton could see me right now, they'd say, 'it looks like you've given up!'." but some days, i have given up. really, how cute do i need to look to raise my babies at home? i find that when i put the effort in, wear some of the tiny handful of clothes that actually fit me, and do my hair, i wind up feeling more terrible about myself because i'm not the size or shape or look that i want to be. so i'm trying to remember that this is just a short period of my life in the grand scheme of things. it's okay if i'm thinking more about christmas activities for ben than doing something with my hair other than a ponytail.

that being said...i do usually wear jeans when i leave the house. and my hiking shoes were just the closest pair of shoes that night. ;)

i read this blog called the anderson crew for the first time today - it was a good day for it. apparently, it's a weekly thing (?) called, "embrace the camera". "it's not always easy to get in front of the camera", she says and i agree. but i'm linking up today and i'm remembering to embrace myself in the role that i'm currently in.

linking up here: