Yearly Archives: 2011

Christmas Lights

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Today our family Advent activity read “Bring hot chocolate to see music Christmas house.”  Sounds silly, but the kids immediately knew what it was.  There is a house that is only a few blocks from us that puts on a Christmas lights display to music.  We go every year and the kiddos can’t wait.

The kiddos made a special card for the family who puts on the show every year.  We wanted to let them know that this is a Christmas tradition for our family and we appreciate all the effort they put into it.  I tried getting a picture of the kiddos putting it in their mail box, but felt a bit like a stalker.  So as hard as it was I walked away without a picture.

The lights alone are memorizing, but when you are listening to their radio station its magical!

 The kids watched the light show with the windows open on the van, radio blaring and drinking hot chocolate for quite a while.  They even sat down on their lawn for a bit.  Eventually the kids got cold and they moved into the van to listen to a few more songs.  So fun!  This is the first year that they had 3 houses all linked together.  I still like the original house the best, I think that it will always be my favorite.

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Hope you enjoy the Christmas lights show!

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Kids Advent

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My kids Advent tradition   It is something that we do every evening after supper.  If the truth be told, the kids actually do 2 different Advent calendars each night.  We start one Advent calendar on Dec 1st to count down the 25 days until Christmas.  This one is filled with fun family activities.  The kids look forward to reading it each night and finding out what we will be doing as a family.   Some of the kids favorite activities so far this year include a family hide and seek game in the dark, making gingerbread ornaments, and playing games as a family.  Simple I know, but I love these precious moments.

The other special Advent calendar is one that my parents gave the kids.  It is from DaySpring and counts down the12 days of Christmas.  Since we live far away from my parents, they make holidays extra special by sending little notes, jokes and activities that I put into each of the little boxes for the kids.  The kids love it and look forward to seeing what Grandpa and Grandma sent them each day.

This Advent comes with cute little tiles that are placed into each drawer.  The tiles have a little Bible verse on them that corresponds to the bible story for the day.

I love hearing the kids read the bible stories, and their cute answers to the question that are posed at the end of each story.  What does your family do for Advent?

Crocheted Snowflakes

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I love running to my mail box around Christmas, that is if I can make it there before the kids!  There is nothing better than getting Christmas cards, especially photo cards.  I LOVE them.  Today was especially great.  Along with all the special cards, I received one of the best gifts…crocheted snowflakes!

This sweet stack of handmade crocheted snowflakes was waiting for me when I peeked in my mail box.  Among all the cards, there was 2 separate cards/packages one from my Mom and one from my Grandmother.   I have admired the special snowflakes that my Mom and Grandmother crochet for a while.  I have no crocheting talent, and I am so excited that one of my trees will be covered in these special snowflakes.  My girls were almost as excited as I was.  I don’t think that I could have found anything else in my mail that would have brought me more joy!

Each crocheted snowflake is unique and made with love.  Thanks Mom and Grandma for blessing me with such wonderful treasure!  They are beautiful and I love them all!

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Gingerbread Ornaments

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Kid made Christmas Ornaments ~ Gingerbread Men

After our fun Gingerbread house making party (click on over for recipe), I had SO much gingerbread dough left over.  We decided to try making ornaments out of some of the dough.  The recipe that we used for the dough was not super sticky and allowed the kids to play with it almost like play dough.

Real Gingerbread Ornaments ~ Kid made Christmas Craft

Apple sauce and cinnamon ornaments are all over Pinterest, however they are super pricey to make.  We decided to make Gingerbread ornaments instead, made from our left over gingerbread.  So cheap and easy!

Real Gingerbread Ornaments ~ Kid made Christmas Craft

Roll out the gingerbread dough and cut out Christmas shapes with cookie cutters.

Real Gingerbread Ornaments ~ Kid made Christmas Craft

I love the kids extra touches of hats, buttons etc.  They were really excited that they would be able to keep their creations unlike regular play dough.

Real Gingerbread Ornaments ~ Kid made Christmas Craft

Before you bake the little ornaments make sure that you use a tooth pick to make a hole at the top so you can hang them on your tree.

Gingerbread Ornaments

We baked ours at 350 for 20 mins.

Real Gingerbread Ornaments ~ Kid made Christmas Craft

Once they come out of the oven, let the ornaments cool completely.  This will harden the gingerbread slightly, and make them more sturdy to hang on the tree.

Real Gingerbread Ornaments ~ Kid made Christmas Craft

We also painted ours with a 50/50 mixture of white glue and water.  The glue mixture helps to seal the gingerbread ornaments. I can’t wait to hang these on my tree fro years to come!

Real Gingerbread Ornaments ~ Kid made Christmas Craft

I was curious if once the dough was baked if all the little added hands, buttons etc would stay attached.  We did have to glue a few limbs back on, but for the most part the ornaments were pretty solid.

Real Gingerbread Ornaments ~ Kid made Christmas Craft

I love how these ornaments turned out.  What a special tree!  These would also be super cute on a present with a little ribbon.  These ornaments are relatively inexpensive, especially if you are already making gingerbread.  Just use all the left over scraps.  These gingerbread ornaments are way less expensive than the apple sauce and cinnamon ornaments that are everywhere.

*UPDATE* after 2 years these little gingerbread ornaments are holding up great!  I store them packed in tissue paper in a rubbermaid container along with all the rest of our ornaments.  They are some of my favorite ornaments to hang each year!

Gingerbread House Decorating Party

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We had another gingerbread house decorating party.  I love Christmas time!  Instead of making graham cracker houses, this time we made real gingerbread houses.  This is my fist attempt at creating gingerbread in mass quantities.  I was unsure how much gingerbread I needed to make, so I went a little overboard.

I love how it looks all stacked up. After all the houses were made I had 13 packets of gingerbread dough left over!  Oops!  The recipe that I used needed to be refrigerated over night.  Each recipe make enough dough to make about 2 houses.

I used a template that I printed off and traced onto a cereal box.  This made the tracing of each of the pieces much easier.  I also made a few extra of each piece in case we had problems in the construction of the houses.

Some of the gingerbread pieces were a bit wonky.  I traced the pattern out carefully, but I think that the when they were transferred to the baking sheet the gingerbread stretched and moved a bit.  We deemed them the “made with love houses.”  The original recipe uses a caramel syrup as the glue for the houses.  We used royal icing as our glue, but I think next time we will try the caramel syrup.  Our houses took a bit of time to set up and hold their form.

This little gingerbread house collapsed, and was reconstructed into this cute little skinny house.  I love the base of candy at the bottom of the house.

We had a friendly competition after everyone was finished.  We made up different categories, and everyone voted via secret ballet.  Some of our categories included technical merit, best use of candy, best use of icing, and roof pattern.  Thanks for an amazing day guys!  Our family had so much fun!  I think that chippy enjoyed it as well:)