Getting Ready For Christmas

Last year, we had this glass built in showcase thing where we put our advent calendar. Since we moved, I had to get creative. A trip to the dollar store, where I bought 2 spools of ribbon and a pack of clothespins and we were set. Then, I stayed up until midnight trying to get it all in the order I wanted and stuffing the bags full of candy. But, it's done and the kids are loving it!

(Munchkin helped me pin all the bags up multiple times as they kept falling!)

The kids wanted Christmas shirts again this year. Since I had to redeem myself from the reindeer craft fail of 2010, I went with reindeer again. The boy was surprisingly excited about it. Even begging to sew the button eyes on. However, since most of my crafting is done while my children sleep, his sewing career will have to start later.

(they all picked out their own ribbon for the bows and fabric for the bowtie)

I am in the Primary Presidency at church and this year we are doing a little program at the Ward Christmas dinner. The boy was chosen to be a wiseman. He asked me if I could make him a beard. I thought it would be so funny for the wisemen to have these beards, so I made three. I was kind of afraid to tell the Primary president for fear she wouldn't want the beards, but she found out and asked me to make one more for the innkeeper.

(Munchkin modeling the innkeeper beard)

The boy insisted on a black scraggly one. I had fun coming up with the shapes of the bottoms of the beards.

So far this December we have:

1. written letters to Santa on a cute printable--I had them write their top 5 wants

2. Made paper countdown chains

3. Cut out about a million snowflakes

4. Make a gingerbread man craft while eating gingerbread marshmallows

5. Watched a Rudolph movie while coloring Rudolph pictures

6. Had hot chocolate with marshmallows through red and white striped straws

7. Read a Christmas story and got 4 new Christmas books. One of them is a Mickey Mouse one but I guess it still counts.

In other news, I had my crown on my tooth replaced this week. I got it on our 5 year anniversary (5.5 years ago) and it has been hurting me for about 3 years. In the two days I have had the temp. crown, it feels so much better already! It's not cold sensitive anymore. Can I just say I love my dentist?! And I love that we have a Flex spending card to pay for it all with! This year a crown, next year Lasik for hubby.