Happy Solstice

Day #20

Gingerbread houses.

Advent Day #19

A couple of years ago I had seen a craft project in a magazine to make a keepsake ornament for your baby's first Christmas. I thought it looked like a cute idea and decided that we could modify it for the kids, seeing as they are definitely not babies.

I purchased four glass ornaments at a Michael's craft store. We made 3/8 inch-wide strips of paper and my daughter shared her fabulous gel pen collection.

Then we got to work.

HE used his ornament as a place to store memories from this past year, leaving room to add more over the next couple years.

I recorded things for which I am thankful,

along with wishes for the future. 

Erica placed her secrets inside her ornament.

And Aidan filled his ornament with paper shapes of various sizes and colors.

After writing our thoughts on the slips of paper, we wrapped the paper around the pen and slowly wound it through the neck of the ornament.

Many of the pieced Aidan used just slipped right into the ornament. The larger ones, he gently bent to fit.

 

 

A fun night of creativity.

Lunar Eclipse

Cool

Mornin'

For full disclosure, 

this photo was taken 

yesterday morning.

But apparently,

I had a lot more to say yesterday 

than just:

Good Morning!

Hope you have a

"wow" 

kind-of day!

Travels

So we spent a week over Thanksgiving visiting family and friends out east.

Maryland and DC to be precise.

It was wonderful to spend time with everyone.

We hiked Patapsco State Park which is a hop, skip and jump from my sister's place.

Various members of our family investigated ruins of the old St. Mary's College, now affectionately known as "Hell House". There's quite a bit of interesting history there.

The kids got along great and played outside quite a lot--carving canoes out of branches, dinking around with a trebuchet, building shelters and getting fine and wet in the creek.

While visiting with HE's sister in McLean Virginia we hiked Scott's Run Nature Preserve. It was beautiful with all of the brown leaves carpeting the forest floor.

Until we weren't quite sure we were actually on any kind of path....

In the end, we made it out alive with a few minutes of daylight left.

We ate incredibly well at my sister and brother-in-laws on Thanksgiving day. And everyone was dutifully stuffed.

Cooper, their adorable dog, was a delight as always.

We visited the new Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. Also known as the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

It held a wide variety of air things.

And space things.

Unfortunately we had tired (and I think somewhat bored) kids at this point so the visit wasn't as informative or enjoyable as I think it could have been.

Still, they know how to ham-it-up for the camera.

This little man had somehow found his way back into our house.

From wherever did he come?

It was a great trip. And good to get home again.

Advent

A few weeks ago I made this Advent calendar at a workshop.

The little squares are pieces of card stock folded into envelopes. They have stamped images and various embellishments. I wrote one activity for each day and slipped them inside the envelopes. HE made the frame from pieces of siding left-over from our home building. It should last a good number of years.

I realized, though, as we began using it this year, that we've never had an "activity" Advent. We've always had Advent calendars, but they were the kind that you open up the little windows and look at the pictures inside.

Or the kind with chocolate inside.

Bad chocolate.

Since it was for the kids and not for me, it didn't bother me too much.

Except when they insisted on eating it first thing in the morning.

Oh well.

It was only once.

A day.

For an entire month!

Chocolate for breakfast--sorta like Nutella, right?

Anyhoo.... it seems fitting to focus on activities. Much of them are things we do anyway (maybe that's cheating) but I like that we are placing stronger emphasis on them. And it keeps it interesting.

'Course, my kids have a difficult time letting go of things and so we still have three other advent calendars in the house. Two of them are collectibles of sorts and one is a non-descript flat piece of cardboard with uninteresting pictures to look at.

I'm surprised I was able to get rid of the old chocolate ones.

"Oh, remember! That was the little chocolate shaped like a train! I loved eating that!"

Chocolate advents aren't really that interesting the second year.

Of course if you save some of the chocolate, that could be interesting.

In a sciencey kinda way.

It's mostly wax, though, so probably not all that interesting.....

Anyhoo, with four Advent calendars lurking around our place, it only takes about an hour to get through our morning Advent calendar-opening ritual.

But with a pre-teen who has discovered a few things about Christmas and a nine-year-old who has dutifully remained innocent, (not for long, I am thinking) .....I will hang on to the magic for as long as I can.