Oh what a week it's been! It was a busy week with early mornings and late nights. Not that it hasn't been fun, but I'm glad it's over. We had lots of projects, crafts, and games all involving Christmas. Here are some of the highlights from this busy four day week:
Elizabeth had to try out the jumperoo.
Playing Snowball Toss.
The kids had a blast with this game! However, we did seem to have issues with throwing the rest of the week after this game...
Every kid loves stickers!
Salt dough snowflakes. Made the dough recipe (1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup water), used cookie cutters to cut out snowflakes, and then baked for 3 hours. After they cooled I had the kids paint them.
I mixed blue and white paint and added glitter so the kids could paint their snowflakes.
A great hand-eye coordination activity for kids: The younger kids sometimes have trouble getting the beads to stay on the pipe cleaners when we do these, so I bent the ends and stuck it in Play Doh. This kept the beads from falling off the end. When they were done, we shaped the pipe cleaners into candy canes.
Grinch hat snack.
Painted stockings.
Paint your own ornaments I got from Dollar Tree. The kids don't use the paints that come with them as they are not washable paints. I have them use Crayola washable paint.
Elizabeth painted her ornament. Which really means she paints everything BUT what she should be painting. This day, she painted her entire hand and arm and told me "oh so pretty."
Pom Pom painting.
The kid's pictures turned out really cool!
Watching big bro play a game on the Kindle.
Bird seed shapes. We used 4 cups bird seed, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup corn syrup. Mix together and you get a very sticky but moldable mixture. I took the kids on a walk first and talked to them about the colder weather and what the animals do for food, etc. I told them all about how we were going to help them out and make some pretty food for them. When we got back, I said "alright, lets go make the outside animals some food" to which the kids exclaimed "yay! Like hot dogs!" Sometimes I wonder why I even try....
The birdseed "wreaths" turned out great! All I did was make a ball out of the birdseed mixture, flatten it with my hand, cut a whole in the middle, and then let it dry out for about 8 hours. Then we attached ribbon.
I was very disappointed in how the birdseed cookie cutter shapes turned out. All of them fell apart but these two. For some reason they didn't stay together as well as the "wreaths." Go figure that the easier ones turned out better.
Harrison quietly sharing his turkey bacon with kitty Doc.
Paper plate Christmas wreaths.
The Christmas books we've read so far......the kids have LOVED reading these books. The last two weeks we've spent at least an hour a day reading book after book and re-reading favorites.
Ending our daycare week by reading "The Polar Express," doing exercises with their "Santa" bell they received after we read the book, snacking on popcorn and M&M's while watching "The Polar Express."
After working very long hours this week, the hubs surprised the boys by getting off of work early one evening and taking them Christmas tree shopping. Max has been insisting that we get a "real tree and not the one sitting in the basement" so we have a real Christmas tree for the first time ever!
Dad had lots of "help" while he adjusted and trimmed the tree.
Of all of the kids, little Elizabeth was most excited for our Christmas tree by clapping her hands, smiling, and giggling as soon as daddy came through the door with it. She loved decorating the tree too.....and she's enjoying re-decorating it ever two minutes.
Max wanted to make the Grinch Santa hats again.
Max made a Grinch man. Love this creative boy!
We attempted to get some pics of the minis in front of our tree.....
and this is about as good as it gets.
Our Christmas tree is all ready for presents from Santa!