Giveaway for the New Year

I hope you are in the midst of enjoying a quiet and relaxing week before the New Year begins, and that your holidays have been lovely so far. We've been watching lots of movies, drinking lots of hot chocolate, and doing a few projects here and there. More to come on that. But, in the meantime, All Modern Baby, an awesome online store (with sister stores that sell home goods and online toys), kindly offered to do a giveaway on our blog. The winner will receive $70 to spend as they choose --and there is a lot of goodness to choose from!

So, leave a comment and we will randomly choose the winner on January 2 with the random number generator. Good luck!

christmas merriment

Today we will have a little tour of our life in our house during Christmas vacation. I cleaned this table off just for this picture, so I hope you fully enjoy it.



I like making these sugar scenes each year, but as I look at this picture I realize it looks like one of the dwarves is attacking the other with a shovel. Merry Christmas!



This year we made it all the way to December 22 before the advent calendar was stripped of the delicious jelly wreaths. I think last year they were all gone by the 16th - could it be that my children are learning self-control?



I love how my 8 year old little boy wraps with binder paper. For some reason that just really warms my heart. Also, the 6 year old has been wrapping all kinds of books from our family bookshelves and who knows what else. She reminds me a lot of Aunt Edna from Christmas Vacation. I'm wondering if on Christmas morning we might find the dead, wrapped carcass of our neighbor's guinea pig.



This is the kind of thing that happens around here when the kids are not entertained by their school teachers at school: animal torture. Poor Calvin. So humiliating. Those are ballerina skirts. And a tiara (which you can't see from this angle).



Graham cracker frosting houses. It doesn't really get any fancier than that around here.







Time to make treats for friends and neighbors... these apple hand pies were fun to make. My leg went numb while I was making them. Who am I kidding, my leg is numb all the time now (final weeks of pregnancy fun).

Have a wonderful holiday! Stay safe and warm!

more gorgeousness from 3three

Oh my! More gorgeousness from my cousin Allyson's 3Threes Etsy shop... might be just the right dress for the new year. (I love those collars!)

fun with chalkboard paint

This week I feel like the Christmas Season can really begin in our house, since last Monday I got a root canal and the week was spent mostly with me moaning around the house, clutching my cheek, practicing labor breathing for pain management since you can't take a lot of painkillers when you are pregnant (labor breathing in this situation, by the way, very ineffective, at least the way I was doing it).

But now, let the fun begin! One thing on our to-do list is to come up with a great service project for our kids to be involved with before Christmas. Donating money is important, but they are getting old enough that I want to do something that will involve them, and give them a memory that might help to better define the real meaning of Christmas, you know? Any great ideas?

nativity

This weekend we took pictures for a photo nativity slideshow with our little primary. Our family does this every year, either with neighbors or church friends or just family. It's one of my favorite traditions because it's so hilarious to see the old slideshows each year, and kids are just so sweet dressed up in angel costumes and sneakers. I usually use music from Peter Breinholt's Noel Album.











(we feel strongly that every nativity have a giraffe and chicken.)