Days 22-24

I was doing so well with my posts but my cold got the better of me.  We finished up the advent, day 22 we took a carriage ride around the lights at Thanksgiving Point, I doped myself up on dayquil and glad I made it because it was fun, best pictures I could get from my phone.

 Day 23 was making some edible Christmas trees that are all over pintrest, Sara loved it, Kate had recently made them at activity days so was a little over it.

No pictures for day 24, we went to a friends for Christmas Eve dinner and all the kids acted out the nativity, it was cute, then we came home and watched this mormon message, opened our secret santa gifts to each other and went to bed.  Before I hit the hay though I put this breakfast casserole in the fridge for the morning, highly recommend it for a special occasion breakfast.

Day 21 - Make a pom pom ornament

I offered to watch my friends kids today so she could get out and do some Christmas shopping so I thought this craft would be fun, it worked out OK, only my Sara and her friend Rachel wanted to cover their whole balls, the others opted to make designs with the pom poms and then stop which worked out because I didn't have nearly enough pom poms for 8 kids.  Inspiration from here.  Maybe I'll post a picture of the finished ornament but right now I'm in bed at 6pm because my body is not co-operating with me and the 3,000 things I have to while I am finally of  work and exhibiting signs of a bad cold or the flu.

Day 20 - Make a bottle cap snowman

Spied these cute little guys on pintrest, easy and fun.

Day 19 - Go to dinner and shop at the Riverwoods for secret santa gifts

In a family of 4 this only works so well, especially when 2 of the four can't shop yet by themselves:)  This morning we each picked a name and then this evening we headed to The Riverwoods where we ate dinner at Malawi Pizza and then split up into 2's and bought a gift for the persons name we had chosen.  There is such a nice Christmassy ambience at The Riverwoods, full of lights and they had a guy playing the violin in the gazebo, it was amazing to listen to him play, if it wasn't 20 degrees out we may have stayed and listened longer.  I didn't have my camera so here are the few pics I got from my phone.

 Sister missionaries just singing some Christmas carols around a fire.

  Sara by the gazebo.

 The girls riding the horse at Blickenstaffs toy store.

Day 18 - Make jungle bells for your door

Wow, Martha really delivered for me this year, yet again another craft by Martha Stewart - cute little jungle bells for the girls to hang on their bedroom door.  Kate is kind of over the crafts and is only giving a 1/2 hearted attempt, Sara is loving them and Eric doesn't like anything too messy so paint, glue and glitter are not his favorite but he's awesome and helps me out anyway, I married a good man.

Day 17 - make an deliver candy snowmen to primary teachers

Sara helped by sewing the fleece to make the hats.

 They turned out super cute.

Technically the tutorial is for a Hershey Bar but I just couldn't do it, nestled inside is a bar of Trader Joe's milk chocolate truffle  - so grateful to finally have a Trader Joe's in Salt Lake, it may not be close but close enough to go up and stock up on all the things we love every once in a while.

 My sweet Kate, she is a lady of very few words!

Day 16 - go see the Utah Valley Handbell Ringers

The Utah Valley Handbell ringers put on a concert series each year, this is obviously their Christmas series, we went last year and enjoyed it so I thought we should do it again this year, once again it didn't disappoint.  As we were waiting for them to start Sara wanted some pictures of herself taken.

 Kate wasn't excited about it or getting her pictures taken:)  she was the same last year but ended up really enjoying it and once again she liked watching them make music with the bells.

 The concert was held at the Springville Art Museum, we wandered around a little after to look at some of the art work, this was one of my favorite things, the tree of life really jumping out of the pages of the Book of Mormon.

 And the crystal snowflakes we started earlier in the week are finally done, its hard to get a good picture of the crystals so hopefully you can at least make a out a few in the picture below, I'm sure I should add some kind of science lesson to this.

Day 15 - make a flowerpot reindeer

With lots of flowerpots left over from last year when I spied this craft on pintrest is was an easy go to craft.

 Kate chose the biggest nose for her reindeer:)

Sara invited her friend who lives next door to make the reindeer with her.

Day 14 - make a peppermint ornament

Another Martha Stewart inspired craft, easy and cute which is what I needed for tonight.

 We also finished up our salt dough ornaments.

Day 13 - make a crystal snowflake

Inspired by a Martha Stewart craft we are soaking pipe cleaners shaped like snowflakes in a borax solution, overnight crystals are supposed to accumulate on the pipe cleaners, I'll have to update on the progress tomorrow, its been a few hours and so far it doesn't look like much is happening at all.

Day 12-12-12 - unwrap a new Christmas book

I love Christmas books!  see Sara's face, she wanted the Bad Kitty book, by the end of the day though she was happy with her llama, llama book.

 Also tonight we sent up our letters to santa in the fire, they girls wrote their letters Monday and we wanted to do the fire that evening but it snowed and so we couldn't light the fire but tonight worked great.

Day 11 - Make a Christmas ornament

Todays isn't finished yet, the salt dough is baking then the girls will need to paint and I will need to put on a layer of clear coat, inspiration from here - via pintrest - and pics of the work in progress.  Kate only made 3 and kept saying she didn't feel so good, so I made a few extra for her, if they turn out I am thinking they will make cute teacher/grandparent gifts, Sara loved making them and made 8.