Christmas countdown day 15

Inspiration for today's craft came from here via pinterest. It was a little harder than I thought and less hands on for the girls as it involved the hot glue gun, still they got to pick out the buttons they wanted and I added glue and they stuck them down, Kate is a little more nervous about getting the hot glue on her than Sara who touched it a few times and said "its not that bad" anyway, I think what they came up with turned out cute, Sara's is on the left and Kate's on the right.

And here is Cathy happily crafting away, she is here for a few days en route to Reno. Cathy is my friends mum and also a 2nd mother to me, she is from England as can be witnessed as you now open my pantry to tins of British chocolate, there is no better way to ring in the holidays:)

Christmas countdown day 14

Christmas countdown day 13

Kate got the book Russell's Christmas Magic, Sara got Merry Christmas, Splat. This was a fun excuse to add Christmas books to our library.

Christmas countdown day 12

This morning we each drew a name for who in our family we would buy a present for, the girls picked each other. I'm not 100% sure how secret these presents will stay. On a side note Kate wrote a Christmas card to my dad, she wrote "Dear Grandad, we also miss you to" it seemed a little incomplete to me so I told her to add another sentence, here is what she added "I know that you really like to smoke, Love Kate" Eric and I were in stitches.

Countdown to Christmas Day 10 & 11

Day 10

The girls had a blast. The first time around the ice with them was difficult to say the least but after that we got better each time, towards the end both Kate and Sara were trying all by themselves. Eric doesn't skate due to the fact that he has no feeling in one of his feet and so I would go around the ice with one of the girls and switch them out each time I passed Eric, it actually worked out pretty good and the girls are excited to go again.

Day 11

Kate was not excited at all about this activity but it turned out to be really good. These are the Utah Valley Handbell Ringers and this is part of their Holiday Concert Series. They were amazing and its all volunteer and so is free, all I had to do was go and pick up tickets a few weeks ago. Their performance was at the Springville Art Museum and they do quite a few concerts over the Christmas season. My pictures didn't turn out great and below is a video of them playing Sleigh ride with a short cameo of Sara, the video of them from the front is a traditional French Carol called Sing We Now of Christmas, my video's don't quite do them justice it was much better in person. My favorite was the Carol of the Bells that they played at the beginning. Afterwards I asked the girls if they liked it and Kate said "sort of I got a little tired" and Sara said "yeah, all you gotta do is listen". Q - which was your favorite? A - Kate "the last song" Sara "me too" Q - would you like to go and do that again? A - Kate "maybe I would" Sara "yeah". Tonight for prayers Kate thanked Heavenly Father that they could see the bell ringers so I think she did actually like it.

Countdown to Christmas Day 9

Last night I made the examples of two cards for the girls to copy, courtesy of pinterest, I had in mind to have a few different ones they could try but realised late last night that simpler would be better. Also a good craft because you can use up a lot of scraps of paper and ribbon.

The girls crafting away, and yes we are very messy crafters.

The finished products, I think they turned out awesome.

Countdown to Christmas Day 8

This activity was easy and fun, I got the idea here, I especially liked it because it gives me a keepsake for my tree and the grandparents.

Paint hand and then place ornament in painted hand. Grab the ornament, I found that I had to help kind of press their little fingers down so the whole print went on and not just the fingertips.

Decorate, I was being cheap and didn't want to splurge on colored sharpie markers, I have some scrap booking markers lying around but honestly I say splurge because Sara wanted colorful hats and the scrapbook markers didn't really show. BTW does Kate look tired or what? she kind of had a meltdown doing her homework, glad she had the craft to look forward to.

And voila, there you have it, cute tree decorations.