Countdown to Christmas 2013 ~ Days 2&3

Our second day of Countdown to Christmas found us making
stockings and gifts for our American Girl dolls.

Wrapping the present was Kam's favorite :)
{P.S., we made our dollies some pretty hair ties}

Though she liked sparkling up her stocking quite a bit.

~~~ ♥ ~~~ ♥ ~~~ ♥ ~~~ ♥ ~~~

Day 3 . . . We got our TREE!
You can't really imagine the excitement.
Us girls LOVE getting our tree.

Even Daddy gets a kick out of finding the "perfect" tree. 

Oh look at this short, chubby one. We'll call it a Mama tree. 

Real cute.

Finally, finally.
We decided on the perfect one.

And Miss Kam found the perfect shavings to make a wish on ;)

This tree . . . is huge.

And then we hauled it home!

 

Don't worry, the girls were tucked safely in the van ;)

The tree rode in the truck.

Then came the decorating. 
Poor Miss Kam waited, and waited, and waited while we strung the lights.
But in the end, it was worth the wait!
She decorated like it was going out of style!

So.
Today we are making snowflake decorations
{pretty appropriate as we woke up to 17* weather this morning.  BRR!}


What are you all up to?

Countdown to Christmas 2013 ~ Day 1

We've made it to December!!!
 Our Countdown to Christmas is underway, and the girls couldn't be more excited!

December 1st started with a welcome back to our elf, Holly.
She had planned an entire North Pole Breakfast for the girls.

Turns out snowflake pancakes are yummier than regular ol' pancakes :)

Our December 1st activity was to make a candy countdown chain.
To make your own you'll need:
 saran wrap {I like red},
24 candies,
26 pieces of ribbon,
and numbered tags.

Line up your candies, fold over the saran wrap, tie ribbon and tags between each piece,
and voila ~ advent calendar!

Today we are making Christmas accessories for our American Girl dolls ~ stockings, presents, and the like!

We're also counting down with Bible verses for each day.

December 1st : John 1: 1-5
December 2nd: Isaiah 9: 2-7

Do you have great countdown ideas?
Please share!

December 1

It's December! Can you believe it?! We started our Countdown to Christmas today, and I wanted to share in case anyone is looking for a fun and easy project to enjoy with the little ones.

Today's activity was:

These are such fun, and super easy!

You'll need:

Hershey's chocolates {or whatever treat you like!}

Saran Wrap

Yarn, Ribbon, or String

We cut a bunch of ribbon

Tore off a long strip of red saran wrap, and placed 24 chocolates in a row.

Then we tied a ribbon between each treat.

And voila! Our own advent calendar.

~~~~~~~~~

Don't forget to come back here tomorrow to link up your first week of Countdown to Christmas!

December 1st ~ Advent Calendars

The girls are finally in bed {I don't know why but it was a LOOONG day}, and I wanted to share a few pics from our Advent-Calendar-making-first-day-of-December! Hope you all had a fabulous day full of memories.

Countdown to Christmas Ideas

We are very much looking forward to Thanksgiving in TWO days {can you believe it?!}. This, of course, means that December is right around the corner. If you've been following along, you know that my plan this year is to have some sort of craft, activity, project, or outing scheduled every day in December leading up to Christmas. Our Countdown to Christmas. This may be something as simple as reading a Christmas story while sippin' on some hot cocoa, or baking Christmas cookies. One day will be devoted to picking out our tree and putting up decorations.

To start we made our Advent Calendar.

I plan to put a slip of paper revealing our activity for the day in each pocket.

This was super easy to make, if you're interested in one for yourself. I used flannel and fleece with felt as pockets, but if you used felt for the entire project, you could get away without any sewing! I was going to applique the numbers, but ran out of time . . . Tulip paint to the rescue!

------------------------------------

Our activity for December 1st will be making another advent calendar. My mother-in-law gave me the idea, last year, as a project for our Sunday school class. It was a hit! Want to make your own?

You'll need:

Saran Wrap {I use colored}

Yarn or string

Hershey's Kisses or some other small treat {24 of them}

24 small squares of paper, numbered 1-24, and hole punched

You may want:

A decorative topper

{We used craft foam last year. Cut out Christmas trees, "decorated" them with sequins and printed each child's name. Then attached a string to hang them.}

What to do:

Take the saran wrap. You'll need a long piece {The length is dependent on how much space you'll leave between each treat. 5 feet should be about right}. Place hershey's kisses in one long line down the center of the saran wrap, leaving an inch or so between each one. Carefully roll up the wrap, then tie pieces of yarn {with numbered square attached} between each treat. Each day, your child {or you!} can untie a string and enjoy some chocolatey goodness, while you count down to Christmas!

More ideas to come!!!