RIP Britain

Sad news, our dog passed away. She actually died on Dec 13th but I didn't want to lump it all in with a bunch of advent posts. The girls were very sad and when we told Kate she cried for about 45 mins and then because she was crying, Sara started. We all miss her though and the house is strange without her, yes she was a dog and not a child but over the past 12 1/2 years she has become a member of the family and its like I have one less person to worry about each day. Some of the worry I won't miss like what do we do with the dog when we want to go away but its weird not having to check her water & food every morning and take her for walks and just having her on the rug at night or looking up and wagging her tail when we open the back door. She filled a gap when we struggled to have children and was a first friend for Kate and over the past year as she has struggled with her old age both girls have loved fussing over and help take care of her. Anyway, here's to our dog Britain, good pup.

Countdown to Christmas Day 24

Well this is it, the final countdown to Christmas post. Its been lots of fun keeping track of our activities.

It is hard to stand back and let the girls do everything when baking, it is against my perfectionistic tendencies but when I do allow them free reign there is so much satisfaction (and mess). Anyway, Sara measured all of the ingredients and made the sugar cookie dough.

Then she rolled the dough out, I told her to sprinkle a little flour on the counter and I'm sure there was about 1/2 cup of flour there.

Rolling was fun too, her first roll she pulverized the dough, we quickly gathered it and together we rolled it a little softer.

We made about 8 cookies and then I let her play with the rest of the dough, she loved it (literally as you can see her cuddling it to her face), rolling, cutting and smooshing it about.

Then we decorated, so fun for the girls, so messy and sorry Santa, there was a little double dipping but I'm sure you won't mind.

Then carrots, Kate with her love of animals has to put out some carrots, she wanted to peel a carrot for each reindeer but I told her she had to snap each carrot into several pieces.

Merry Christmas, hope you all have a wonderful holidays.
(PS if you didn't get a card we probably don't have your address so if you want to be added to the list just zip me your address)

Countdown to Christmas Day 23

Easy, simple, cute.

Countdown to Christmas Day 22

Today we created a mess with all of the crafty things to create these:


The girls love creating, I even made Eric get in on the action.

Idea from here.

Countdown to Christmas Day 21

Snow globe broke and spilled all over the table this morning so this got a little wet, today was sew a felt ornament. I was really excited for this, I knew it would require a lot of patience but the girls LOVED it and I feel like sewing is a simple skill that they should acquire and what better way to start. They already want to sew something else, maybe we'll do snowmen in January, hearts for valentines.... anyway, felt Christmas trees, idea from here

Sew

Stuff

Decorate

Display, oh and a word to the wise, size matters here, I originally cut large trees but could foresee frustration creeping in quickly so figured smaller would be better.

Christmas countdown day 20

I got my idea for this here, a really good one for smaller children I think, the girls seemed to like it but beware, they split open real easy and I had even but Elmer's glue around the seal. Still fun though, this would have been a good one if you had a friend to share the craft with, you can buy the little pieces in packages but I only needed 2 out of each. Must go sweep plastic filler pellets off the floor!

Christmas countdown day 19

For their Christmas treat the girls picked gingerbread men.

As always I think Kate likes the process more than the cookie, and Sara licked the frosting off hers and didn't eat much cookie either. We also had these pine cone bird feeder kits we got from candlelight Christmas that we made today.

Also it was the first day of Christmas break today, I used to think my girls needed routine but I realise that is is actually me that needs it and so to keep some kind of order I'm a bit of a task master, I have a list of things the girls need to get done before they can play electronics or watch TV, here is Sara doing her reading lesson from this book, the witches finger is a great idea for them to use to point to each word as they read and Kate is working on some math practice. I also make them write in their journals, read, Kate has to do flash cards and Sara is learning to tie shoelaces.

Christmas countdown day 18

This one didn't turn out quite as good as I had hoped, my trees dyed the water and after hot gluing the objects down they didn't hold very well. Oh well, it was a fun little project anyway and worth trying.

Christmas countdown day 16 & 17

Too tired to blog last night, but for day 16 here was the activity:

Temple square was fun as always, Sara ended up being really tired and we didn't last all that long. Kate really wanted to see the Christus, I'm not sure what she is doing in the picture, she kind of looked like she was being called to prayer. It was fun and glad we got to share it with John and Cathy.

Day 17:

We began with the train ride and I had the genius idea of picking up some See's lollipops this afternoon, those things last for ages and at only 60 calories they aren't bad. Then we went around and hit all of the spots, here are some of the highlights.

The girls added their names to the nice list

Heard the story of St Nicolas and how the tradition of stockings were started

Wrote letters to Santa and then threw them in the fire so the smoke would send them up to Santa.

And saw the reindeer.