Last Night's Advent Treat

Ever since December 1st, our kids have had the nightly ritual of opening an Advent calendar drawer. In order to tie in our family heritages (heriti?? herituses??), we started attributing the goodies in the drawers to the house nissen. (House nissen are the traditional protectors of a family farm/home and is credited for giving children gifts at Christmastime.) After the day's goodies are discovered, the kids make sure to thank the house nissen for the treat ... and then run off to relish in their new-found goodie.

Our kids take turns opening the Advent calendar drawers and then share the goodies inside. Last night, the house nissen left the kids stick-on mustaches. They were beyond a hit!! The package had enough for all of us to sport a fuzzy upper lip and, boy, did we get a case of the giggles wearing them.

We looked as if we were the love children between Magnum PI and Super Mario Bros!

(Please pardon the photo quality ... the room was dark and I only had my phone's camera handy.)

Keeping Busy

Kids have an amazing ability to keep themselves occupied in any situation. During a recent visit to the doctor for their flu vaccines, our kids decided to make use of the waiting room in a very clever—and entertaining— way.

Take a look!

A Quiet Moment

Conor was up bright and early Saturday morning ... just like every other morning. I took the early morning shift so Eric could get a bit more shut eye.

Soon after waking up and making the trek upstairs, Conor decided he wanted to watch a show. Considering I was still fairly blurry eyed and fuzzy brained, the plan sounded grand to me.

He snuggled up on the couch with his best buddies—Spot 1 and Spot 2—and promptly asked for some blankets. He also propped up his friends so they could watch the show, too.

It was such a precious moment that I simply had to whip out my phone and take a picture. Enjoy! :)

Conor and the two Spots catching up on their cartoons

Christmas Preparations: Finding a Tree

I had it in my head that the kids needed to see the reindeer and camel at a local nursery. It seemed the Christmas thing to do... and I really wanted to see the critters myself! We figured that we'd bundle everyone up, see the animals, buy a tree, stop at Dick's for burgers on our way home, and then get the tree set up. Great in theory... we didn't expect the nursery to have insanely expensive trees! So, we saw the reindeer, saw the camel, saw the tree prices, and promptly headed back to our car. We did get burgers ... and then drove straight to Lowes for a more affordable tree.

While at Lowes, Annika proclaimed that every tree she saw was "PERFECT!" I think if she had her way, we'd have an entire tree farm in our front room. While she was busy falling in love with each tree, Conor was busy giving me a heart attack; let me tell you how nerve wracking it is to have a two-foot-nothing two-year-old wandering around aisles and aisles of trees that have the uncanny ability to basically envelop him at every turn. I spent the majority of our tree shopping time shouting, "CONOR! WHERE ARE YOU????" His "Here I am, MAMA!" replies didn't really help because it was a little voice from amongst the branches and boughs.... stress, I tell ya!

Finally, we picked a tree, loaded it up, and headed home to make our house smell like Christmas.

At home, we rearranged our furniture to make room for our tree and got to work on stringing the lights on it. To keep the kids busy, I pulled out their little 12" artificial tree and let them decorate it with their "doesn't matter if they get dropped" ornaments. We basically spiraled the lights around the tree; I know my dad was trying to coach us from the great beyond, but it didn't really work with the time we allotted for the lights. My dad was a perfectionist when it came to stringing lights on our Christmas trees when I was a kid. Our kids will not say the same thing about us when they're grown. ;)

We got the tree up and decorated (stay tuned for pictures) and now it is busy sucking up cups of water each day and littering our carpet with countless pine needles. Our vacuum is probably cursing our choice not to get an artificial tree a few years ago. But that's OK.... we're not officially festive and have a place to put our wrapped presents (much to Conor's delight; he tried to open one of his as soon as he saw his name on the the tag).

Hey, look! A reindeer!

That's one tall camel!

Here he comes!

Not our tree ... the search continues

THE tree for us! 

Family Picture

This was recently snapped at a friend's birthday party ... just thought I'd share because we rarely have a picture that has all four of us.

Making Dough Ornaments

I have something startling to announce... I like doing crafts. I know, SHOCKER! ;)

This time of year is especially wonderful for crafters because there is an insane amount of crafts to be done... decorating and baking galore. This weekend, I decided the kids and I should make dough ornaments. They dove into the project with verve and had a wonderful time making their creations. We now have more ornaments than we'll ever know what to do with, but that's a good problem to have.

It wound up being a two-day project because of the baking/cooling factor, but the kids didn't seem to mind. They loved rolling out their dough (note to self, the kids could use some kid-size rolling pins) and choosing the cookie cutter shapes.... not to mention, making finger dents in their dough!

On day two, the kids got to paint their ornaments and had way too much fun doing it. Each got a paper plate of (washable) poster paints and went to town on their ornaments. Annika tended to keep her paint colors separate, while Conor decided mixing them all together was much more desirable.

All in all, they did a great job and now have their very own ornaments to hang on the tree (once I spray them with a clear coat, that is).

Annika cutting out her ornaments

Conor using an off-set spatula to leverage his dough.
I'm pretty sure the tongue thing is genetic... I do it, too!

Day 2: Painting!

Conor started out with a variety of colors, but wound up adopting a gray color  palette

Conor painting his ornament

Annika's beautiful ornaments

Conor's masterpieces

Concentration

Paint, paint, paint

Why stop at the ornaments when you can paint your face, too?

Conor see, Conor do!
He can't let Sister have all of the fun, now can he?

Dough Ornament Recipe

Mix 4 c flour, 1 c salt, 1 1/2 c water and combine until it forms a dough. Cut out ornaments and bake on a cookie sheet at 300 degrees for 45-60 minutes.

Baking Christmas Cookies

My co-workers have not-so-subtly been hinting that it has been too long since I last brought in homemade treats. That hinting combined with the fact it is the Christmas season meant it was time to bake this weekend!! I pulled out my handy-dandy (albeit slowly dying) Kitchen Aid yesterday and decided to whip up some Christmas-themed shortbread cookies.

The night before as I was in bed falling asleep, I wondered if it would work to make two colors of shortbread dough, layer them, roll them into a log, chill the log, and then slice the log and have swirled cookies. (Yes, that is what I think about as I fall asleep ... I think it is a sickness! Maybe should look into a local chapter of Bakers Anonymous ... I wonder if they'd let me bring homemade treats to the meetings!)

As soon as I pulled the mixer out of the cupboard, Conor was running through the kitchen shouting "I want to help! I want to help!!" (That boy is my little baking apprentice through and through!) So, the kids hauled chairs from the table over to my baking station and helped me whip up the dough. (Note to self, don't let them unwrap the butter and put it into the mixer bowl before checking for leftover paper.)

After the dough was done, the kids went back to playing, which worked out nicely for the coloring, layering, rolling aspects of the project. I was rather nervous about the cookies' final appearance; would baking negatively impact the colors? Happily, I learned that it didn't! The cookies are adorably Christmasy.

Conor wore the elf ears as ear plugs ... hey, he thinks it works, so we go with it

Watching the mixer do its thing; the kids know they have to keep their
hands back, so Annika holds the bowl handle while Conor covers his ears... I
guess the elf ears didn't work after all

Ready for baking!
(Note the holes in a few of the cookies ... that's where
I dug out the butter wrapper remnants)