Christmas Countdown: Days 18, 19, 20 & 21

Day 18: Pick out new ornament

Well, plans changed & we didn't do that. Instead, Logan & Aaron had a man date looking at motorcycles & 4 wheelers, while June & I painted our nails & watched Cinderella. 

Day 19: Picnic by the tree

We had one of our snacks by the tree (gingerbread), but the treat was quickly forgotten & wrestling, acrobatics, peekaboo, climbing, & gymnastics became the focus. As you can see we decorated only the top half of our tree, but Logan figured out that he could climb onto our loveseat & reach the ornaments. He's a determined little guy!

Day 20: Act out the Nativity

June: Mary

Logan: Joseph

Aaron: Shepard

Brit: Wise Man

June's stuffed kitty: Baby Jesus

June's other stuffed toys: Sheep & other animals

Day 21: Grandma Balholm's birthday: call her!

Happy Birthday to my mom!!! We got to talk to her & June sang her own version of happy birthday to her. Logan Just stared at the phone. We are so excited to see her in a couple days!!

Christmas Countdown: Days 13, 14, 15, 16, & 17

Day 13: Snowman Day

(I forgot to take a pic of the calendar)

This day we did many little snowman themed activities. We put up some snowman decorations, sang Once there was a Snowman (a lot), and "made" snowmen on starfall.com (a great educational site). I didn't take any pictures :( Oh well, it was lots of fun!

Day 14:

I didn't take pics of this on purpose.......

Day 15:

Day 16:

Day 17:

We let the kids sit up front with us since we were going less than 5 mph. They loved the lights , but the highlight for them was getting to take turns sitting with Aaron & steering the car. Logan especially loved it! He got jealous when it was June's turn.

Christmas Countdown: Days 9, 10, 11 & 12

Day 9:

I didn't get any pics this day, but we had fun singing lots of Christmas carols! And, we made a playlist of some of our favorite songs & danced to them. Here is a link to an awesome version of a classic song (my new #1 favorite song to listen to):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ1lldRFElc 

Day 10:

 Most of theses pics are at our dinner table, and are mostly of June being a ham! We made it through only part of the program, but the part I saw was great.

Day 11:

It snowed that day! I love the snow so much. Actually, we all (June, Logan, Aaron & I) love it. We played in it for a while on out way out to the car & Aaron & I had a mini snowball fight (nothing like the one on the last episode of The Office), & June thought it was so funny. Oh, those are Logan's hand prints in the snow. He did it all by himself & they turned out so perfectly that I had to get a pic! Anyway, the ice cream was really good even though it was cold out. 

Day 12:

Christmas Countdown: Days 7 & 8

Day 7:

I presented each of the kids with a new Christmasy coloring book. When June saw that hers was a Hello Kitty coloring book she wanted to put on her new Hello Kitty Christmas PJs, & Logan had almost as much fun coloring as he did eating the crayons!

Day 8:

Christmas Countdown: Days 5 & 6

Day 5:

I realized that we didn't have The Night Before Christmas book, so I turned to YouTube for help. I found a cute video of the story with simple animation & pretty music playing in the background. The kids cuddled with their favorite blankets & listened to the story intently.

Day 6:

We went to Barnes & Noble to see if we could find an elf. We got distracted along the way & read a lot of books! We did end up spotting one & Logan attacked him (June was too into the Disney princess books to really care).

It was when we got home that we realized that the elf followed us!

We told the kids that this is one of Santas special helpers that watches how our family behaves & at night when we're asleep he goes to the North Pole & reports to Santa. When he gets back a new spot to watch from. June is now very interested in him & named him Tristan.

Christmas Countdown: Day 4

Day 4: Movie Night

I wanted to get a Christmas movie for our movie night, but all of the ones I wanted had a wait on Netflix. SO, I had them send us Peter Pan again, as it is one of the kids favorites. We had holiday colored popcorn, dimmed the lights, got cozy on the couch & watched the show.....or at least all of us who had finished eating our dinner did.

You may have noticed that there is only one picture with Junie in it. Well, she has been refusing to eat at all lately, & we've been concerned about her calorie intake (I seriously don't know how she has the energy she does with how little she eats!). So, we told her that only those who've eaten their dinner got to watch the movie & have popcorn. We totally thought that'd do the trick. We thought wrong. She sat at the table while we made the popcorn & colored it, & through more than half of the movie (which she could hear, but not see) & had not taken one bite. We had been checking on her & tried to persuade & encourage her, but to no avail. By the way, it was grilled cheese & soup. GRILLED CHEESE & SOUP. What kid does not love that?! Luckily, I eventually found something that worked. I have an app on my phone where you can record your voice & ..........well:

June LOVES cats & she listened to the cat MUCH better than she did to us. She started eating right when he asked her to & did it happily. I (secretly) had to make a new video for almost every bite, so these are only a few. I will definitely be using this trick in the future! When June was done she put her  PJs on & got to watch the end of Peter Pan!

Christmas Countdown: Day 3

Day 3: Make a Video for Santa

Christmas Countdown: Day 2

Day 2: Snowflakes

June got her first pair of scissors for our activity today, & she loves them! She's probably cut paper all day long. I helped her make a few snowflakes, & I made a couple too. I forgot how much fun that is! Logan, spent his time picking up our scraps of paper & shoving them in between our couch cushions. I should have taken a picture of all of the paper scraps. It was a HUGE mess, but we had a great time making it!

Christmas Countdown: Day 1

I decided to start a new family tradition this year. We are doing "The 25 Days of Christmas!" I got us a countdown calendar, & every day (starting today) we get to open a little door & get a treat & a note telling us which special christmas activity to do.

Day 1

What good little helpers!

We were going to take some of the cookies to Aaron's work, but I slightly overdid the cookies & kind of botched the frosting! So we kept them in house. Luckily, the kids arn't too picky!