December

December has flown by and I still can't believe it is almost 2010. Even though I blogged very little this past month we were still busy bees. Here are a few things that we were up to this month that I didn't get a chance to blog about.

Making gumball balls:

Went on a field trip to a local grocery store bakery where they let the girls decorate cupcakes.

Had a birthday party for Jesus at a friends house. The girls had so much fun dancing, singing, reading books, decorating cupcakes, and doing crafts with the occasional fit thrown in about this and that:)

It was a busy fun month but I am looking forward to getting back on track with school and just chilling out a little!

Happy Birthday Emily!!!!

I can't believe my sweet baby girl is 2 today! Time is passing by so fast which is such a great reminder to stop and enjoy my time with my girls. There will always be dishes and chores but they are not always going to want to sit and play with me! Emily, you are so smart and funny and say the cutest things. I love it when you say "How I look?" when you get dressed and my favorite "I loves you"! It is so cute the way you tilt your head onto your shoulders and grin really big when you are doing something you are not supposed too. I love to watch you play with your big sister and I especially love the way you snuggle into my shoulder at night while I sing songs to you at bedtime! You are so funny and smart and I love you so much!!!!!!

Christmas Light Express

Remember the idea I found here about looking at Christmas lights? Well we finally went the other night. Both girls are sick right now and we didn't want them going to bed too late but we didn't want to stray from our plan of letting them think they are going to bed but instead going to look at lights so we did the only thing that makes sense........set all of the clocks forward an hour. I know, I know we are rotten but it really was a win win situation. The girls thought they got to stay up really late and we still got to have our down time after they went to bed:) I put a BIG golden ticket on Ellie's little sofa bed where we were all going to read books. Of course she wanted to know what it was and when she found out both girls started jumping up and down and we all quickly got on coats and shoes and headed off in our pj's. I had the girls each a baggie of popcorn, M&M's and Skittles in their car seat with hot chocolate to drink. It was so fun and we found some great lights!! Ellie spent today off and on looking for more golden tickets even though I told her there were no more!

Visiting Santa

We went to visit Santa last night and Ellie and Emily were so excited! I asked Emily if she was going to sit on Santa's lap and she said YES! When I asked her what she was going to ask for from Santa she said animals. While we were waiting in line she kept peeking around the corner and waving. She kept saying "I excited" but when it was our turn she preferred giving him a high five instead:) While we were standing in line Ellie was busy watching the other kids and informing us which kids were probably going to end up on Santa's naughty list. She was very serious and seemed very concerned for those children. It was hilarious. Once Ellie sat on Santa's lap he talked to her a little but never asked what she wanted and when she got off of his lap she turned around and said "Santa, I want a snow cone maker" but the way she said it was like I am not leaving here until you know what I want!! They keep us in stitches!!

Winter Wonderland

We have been so busy with the last few weeks that I haven't had a chance to blog and have been very slack taking pictures. I did remember to take a picture of the sensory tub that I keep rice, spoons, bowls etc. in that I changed into our winter wonderland sensory tub. I was inspired by this post. I added a lot of little figurines and snow covered trees so they could pretend the rice was snow. It was fun and they have already asked for it a few times today so that was a hit.

Gingerbread Play Dough

The girls and I made gingerbread play dough the other day. We used this recipe and then used buttons, stones, pom poms and google eyes to decorate our creations.

Advent Calendar

We started our advent calendar yesterday and I just wanted to share what we will be doing. Some of the ideas are ones I just came up with but most of them came from other blogs such as I Blame My Mother and Activity Mom. Here is the list in no particular order:

1. Give the girls a Veggie Tales Christmas CD
2. Make gingerbread playdoh
3. Go see the singing bears
4. Read new book The Night Before Christmas and do a matching craft
5. Read Christmas books by the tree with hot chocolate (to do with mom and dad)
6. Paint ornaments
7. Make a gingerbread house
8. Go to a Christmas play
9. Put on a family Christmas play (this will probably be one of Ellie's favorites)
10. Make a gumdrop tree
11. Give the girls peg doll necklaces I painted
12. Dinner picnic while watching a Christmas movie
13. Go see Santa
14. Go to the Live Nativity at church
15. Let the girls go shopping to get dad a Christmas present
16. Shop for our angel tree person
17. Christmas party
18. Make reindeer food
19. Make cookies for Santa
20. Camp out in front of the Christmas tree
21. Eat breakfast for dinner in our pj's
22. Make a birthday cake for Jesus to eat after Christmas dinner
23. Make Christmas cards for friends
24. Bake a Christmas treat

The idea that I am most excited about came from this blog!! I just love it and will be doing this every year! I am going to make tickets and put in the girls beds. We will put them to bed like normal but when they see the ticket we will tell them it is for the Christmas Light Express. I will have popcorn, hot chocolate and a little candy in their car seat and we will drive around in their pj's and look at the lights. I think they will just be overjoyed for so many reasons:) I just love love this idea!

Goodwill Finds

The girls and I were out running errands this afternoon and decided to swing into Goodwill. I walked in and the place was packed. It turned out to be senior citizen discount day, who knew?? Anyway, I wanted to walk back out because there were no buggies and Emily is darn heavy but Ellie wanted to do a quick sweep and boy am I glad we did. I found a little Melissa and Doug fold up kitchen set with accessories for $4.99. It looks new and still has the M&D sticker on it. It is going to go perfect with one of the girls Christmas presents I am making (I'll post about that later). I love the fact that it folds up like a suit case so they can take it to over night visits to Aunt Rhonda's:) I also found a cute little doll house to keep in the downstairs playroom for $4.99. It also looks practically new and will go great with all of the dollhouse furniture Ellie is getting for Christmas! Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE Goodwill!!!

Gearing up for Christmas

I am so excited this year about the Christmas season. I love the smells, the sounds (Christmas music) and just the excitement of it all. I really want to focus on the reason for the season with the girls this year. I have a lot of fun stuff planned such as crafts and outings but while we are doing these things I am looking forward to talking to the girls about Jesus and his birth. Recently I ordered this cute book I saw at the bookstore and I am looking forward to reading it to the girls each night.

Here is the description of the book from Amazon:Benjamin Bear is impatient for Christmas to come. To help the time pass quickly Mother Bear tells Benjamin that everyday he opens up a door on his advent calendar she will tell him a story. 24 stories in all about another bear and his long, arduous journey to Bethlehem. Little bear, lead by a glorious star, meets others on his journey. His journey filled with acts of heroism, kindness and small miracles show him the path to the Christ child. By the journey's end Benjamin Bear will understand and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.

Thanks and Giving

OK this will be my last Thanksgiving post. I promise! I think:) This year we decide to do a thankful tree and giving boxes. I cut out a tree from poster board and leaves from construction paper and after dinner we would all say what we were thankful for. I would write it on the leaves and let the girls stick them on the tree. I also made 9 little boxes and put something we could do for someone else in them. I had planned on making them really cute with stickers and such but that never happened!!I wasn't sure Ellie would love this idea because a few of them were not so fun like do a chore for someone because you love them. She was just as excited about the giving boxes as she has been about the advent calendar at Christmas. Every morning during breakfast she talks about what might be in it and how she can't wait to see. She has done everything in them with excitement!

Here are a few of the things they are thankful for:

Ellie: holidays, the world and family

Emily: the letter "e", butterflies and Julie :)

Here were some of the giving boxes ideas:

Call someone and tell them you love them

Make a card for someone

Do a chore for someone

Donate something

Shop for someone in need (we went and shopped for our Salvation Army stockings)

Cook a meal for someone

and that is all I can remember at the moment

I am pretty sure we will do this again next year since it was such a hit!

Muffin Tin Monday

I have been wanting to participate in Muffin Tin Monday but always seem to forget. Luckily I remembered yesterday and was excited to see the theme was Thanksgiving. We did decorate your own turkey. I took bagels and tried to make brown cream cheese but it turned out grey. The girls didn't seem to notice though. We used apples, carrots, broccoli, bananas, cheese and cucumbers.

Turkey Craft

I recently ordered some liquid water color from Discount School Supply and I couldn't wait to use it! We decided to make coffee filter turkeys and they turned out so cute. I just let the girls use droppers to put the paint on the filters and while those were drying we traced their footprint on construction paper, cut them out and added eyes, wattle, beak and feet. After the coffee filter was dry we glued their feet on the filters. Simple but fun!

Turkey Cookies

I saw these turkey cookies and knew that we had make them. The best part was that I made one to show Ellie how to do it and she was able to make the rest of them all by herself and I was able to help Emily. They turned out so cute!!!

Thanksgiving Activities

I finally made some Thanksgiving/Fall activities for the girls. I hope they enjoy them as much as I enjoy making them. Yes, I am fully aware that I am a dork! I made this felt turkey for the girls to practice with buttons. They have to button the feathers onto the turkey. I copied the idea from My Montessori Journey. I also made this felt scarecrow dice game. The first person to fully dress the scarecrow wins. I saw the idea on this awesome blog Let's Explore. She used a spinner but I decided to use dice. I also numbered some leaves that we have so Ellie could put them in order. The last thing I have is another dress the scarecrow activity. I printed this one from Kidssoup.com. I made something similar to this last year with a snowman and Ellie loved it so hopefully she will love this to.

Thanksgiving Books

I thought I would share some of our favorite books we are reading for Thanksgiving.

My New Obsession

I am trying to get Christmas presents made and on my to do list is peg people. I started making some a few weeks ago and now I can't stop. It is very addictive:) I can't get a good picture of them unfortunately but this will give you an idea what they look like.

I also made a really cute pirate one that I like but every picture of it looks like a big blur! I have made like 16 so far. Somebody stop me!!!!!

Getting organized

I don't have a lot of storage for our homeschool supplies except my homeschool shelf, which I love, but I need more! We have a closet in our bonus room/classroom but it is very small and there were no shelves until my very handy husband recently added some for me:) He took apart an old shipping pallet so the wood was free and if anybody knows me they know I love free!!!! I know this picture isn't very good but I organized the shelves and then painted the edge with chalkboard paint so I could write what is on the shelf. I tend to re-organize a lot so it will be nice just to erase and rewrite what is on the shelf. Getting shelves motivated me to organize some of my materials too. I had quite a few felt stories laying around so I stapled the stories into file folders and then attached the felt pieces on the back.

The last thing that I did was organize my file folder holder (wow, I made a rhyme:) ). I had a ton of loose activities in it and I categorized them into season, holiday, file folder games, felt stories etc. so I can quickly find everything.

Carving Pumpkins and Trick or Treating

Thought I would share some pictures of our pumpkin carving and trick or treating. For Halloween Ellie was a cupcake and Emily was a baker. We had so much fun!