Almost Christmas

It is getting so close to Christmas, the party's have started, presents are wrapped and so much family time.

Living in Oregon our Christmas weather is not quite as cold and snowy as others.  The kids were able to run outside with out coats (or shoes on some of them) and feed ducks during our family gathering.

 It has been a high light to my Christmas season.  There is something special about Aunts, Uncles, Great Aunts, Second cousins, Grandparents, cousins all getting together having fun. 

 Holidays are also a time for Christmas performances.  Our Pastor's wife, Sue, came up with some great, easy costume ideas.

 My favorite was mustaches on a stick for the wise men.  Along with a sparkly paper crown they were the perfect touch.

 Grandma Kelly has a whole box of Christmas books that only come out during the holidays.  So my girls were eager to find stories they hadn't read all year.

 It was a special treat for my girls to read on Grandma's bed.  Normally her room is off limits, but they were mesmerized by the decorations and calmly reading.

 During the holiday season it is important to teach kids about keeping a balanced budget.  Our budget is so small we simply balanced it on the table.

 Seriously though, our family tends to eat at different rates so having something to do while we wait for someone to finish can be nice.  And trying to stand a handful of change on end does the trick.

So another busy week is over, but with Christmas days away I think we will stay busy for a bit longer.

Christmas Cheer

We are working hard to make "happy childhood memories" this year.  And boy is it fun!

 We went to the mall to see all the decorations (my mom was with us so I get to be in the picture).

 We took a picture in front of the "coffee tree" at Starbucks with Grandma and Aunt Coral.

 Them on St Lucia day we had our traditional Scandinavian celebration (sadly no cookies).  This year my youngest was very excited that she is the one who fits the dress.  Merry found out balancing a wreath on your head is hard.  Charry was happy to have a star head band.

 This year we decided to include a few cousins, since we were at their house.  I learned the boys get to wear cool pointed hats with stars on them, ours were more party hat size instead of wizard hat size but they didn't mind too much and a bit of tape kept the hats from falling off while we took pictures and sang a few Christmas tunes.

 It is becoming a family tradition to be a bit late getting our tree up, all the other decorations have been out since we moved (right after Thanksgiving) but the tree has been missing.  So there was lots of excitement as the tree finally made its appearance (although it will probably be replaced be a real one before Christmas.)

 The tree is a hoot, the girls decorated it all themselves and you can tell.  They grouped ornaments from the same set together (like the fairies Charry receives each year from Grandma in on section and the star wars M&M figures we each got their Dad in another.)

 As an added holiday treat Grandma came over to try out our new-to-us oven.  And thankfully it works!

 Cookies were handed out to the workers when they finished the tree.

 I did my own version of baking, I frosted little leaves on Little Debbie cakes to turn them into "Yule Logs.

 I also made some sugar cookies for the girls to frost.

The hat makes the memories more festive.
I hope everyone else is taking time to make happy memories and spread holiday cheer.

Christmas Traditions

So this year is just like all the others, our Christmas is not quite normal.  Right after Thanksgiving we moved so we are setting up house and staying busy.  But I'm working hard on making Christmas memories for my daughters.

We are reading Christmas Fairy books at bed time.  The girls are loving that their dad inserts his own random comments into the story and does all kinds of voices (most don't quite fit like the little girls having deep voices.)

We are also making Jesse Trees.  It is a somewhat unique advent tradition that looks at the promises of God through out the old testament.  Because we are planing on celebrating the 12 days of Christmas leading up to Epiphany our Jesse tree will End with John the Baptist.  Then we will focus on the people involved with Christmas (Mary, Shepherds, etc.) I enjoy how hard the girls work on finding the promises as I read the scripture.  So far we are up to Abraham and his children blessing all nations.

A final Christmas tradition I am working on is fun.  Just having fun as a family.  It is easy to put the girls in front of a movie or have them play in their room, it is harder to take time to laugh and play with them.  It is work that is well worth it!

Birthday Field Trip

Today is my husbands birthday so we took a break.  We should have been cleaning, packing, unpacking and doing other productive things.  Instead we loaded up into the car and went to the "Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum."

A nice lady took our picture in front of the Spruce Goose, so you can see I was there too.

She was very nice and told us the tale of Charlie Brown, an American pilot who was helped by a German during the war.  The girls listened well, which was a relief for me, and Merry was fascinated by the patches and pins on the gal's vest.

We made sure to go look at the type of plane plane Brown was flying.

We then began exploring the many other displays. 

I did my best to get good photo opts.

  My favorites were definitely the lunar landing and simulated rocket launch. 

I feel the most patriotic when I hear of the brave men and women who were a part of the space race.  Probably because in school "Astronaut" was my #2 career choice (right behind being a mom.)  A little piece of me would love to see the world from the moon.

 Charry really liked the GPS maze.  It was something new I hadn't seen before

 and we learned about Geocaching.  I don't think we'll try the real thing any time soon but the mini maze experience was fun.

 Merry loved anything that was "hands on."

 I think she got a little tired of being told "don't touch."

Charry liked the "hands on stuff, too.   She tried not to worry about it being "educational."  No one wants to learn while on break.

Merry managed to grab a block, she was pretty proud of herself.

Jon spent most of the time showing and explaining just out of camera range.

Jon's favorite parts were the black bird and video game, he may be getting older but he hasn't grown up yet.

I think he had a good birthday.  Now back to packing, unpacking, cleaning, and Christmas Fun.

Fabulous Fifty Days of School

Last week (or so) we celebrated our 50th day of school!  This was a big deal for two reasons, first this is the first year I've kept track of how many days we did school.  And second it is our first major theme school day.  We have various theme days but always instead of school.  So for the fiftieth I had to balance school and fun.  Step one was to look the part.

I found a poodle printout which I had the girls cut out.  We then hot glued it to simple felt skirts.  The skirts were just slightly more than half circles no sewing involved, we kept them on with safety pins.

 Once the dogs were on the skirts they glued on cotton balls for fur, well actually I was out of cotton balls so they used torn batting but its close enough.

 While the glue dried we had some 50's themed worksheets from Teachers Pay Teachers

 We dreamed of life with 50... Merry picked pink poodles.

 Then we made records of life in the 50's.

 Charry was very focused and wanted to make sure she had her facts right.

 Then it was time to dress up fifties style, neck scarfs and pony tails.

 Charry managed to look extra grown up.

 Here are the complete sock-hop outfits minus the socks.

It was a fun day of learning and crafts now I have to start planning for 100 days.