U is for Unto Us a Child is Born, V is for Village

Since we were doing our gingerbread village today, we combined two letters. For U, we did Unto Us a Child is born. We listened to the song "For Unto Us a Child is Born" off of the Veggie Tales Christmas cd and read "Operation No More Tears" about Isaiah in the Jesus Storybook Bible.

And V was for village. In addition to making our gingerbread village, we read two books, which focused on helping lonely, older people in your community, Merry Christmas, Old Armadillo by Larry Dane Brimner,  and Angelina's Christmas by Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig.

3rd Annual Making of the Gingerbread Houses

Today we had our third annual family gingerbread house day. This is always a really fun creative project and I love to see what everyone comes up with. Mabel, with some assistance from me, made a giant snowman for her house.


Ella made a snowman too, but mainly focused on beautifying her yard.

When she finished, Mabel said, "Boy, Ella, your yard sure is full!" And that's just the front yard!
Of course, Brent and I got in on the fun too. He made a traditional two-story with candles in the window.
 
And I made a winter sleighride.

And if you're wondering what Beatrix was up to. She was eating her body weight in graham crackers. And she managed to steal one jelly wreath and pop the whole thing in her mouth. How she gummed that all down with one and a half teeth, I will never know, but she's gifted that way.
 
And the aftermath... 

T is for Tree

T is for Tree (or why you shouldn't plan overly-complicated projects the week before Christmas).

Excitement is extremely high at our house right now, and Daddy is home for vacation. Also Beatrix is teething and non-stop fussy. I had thought of this fun sewing project, and it seemed so good in theory. We would draw little trees with the fabric markers, and then sew on buttons for ornaments. Then either put them in embroidery hoops (couldn't find any) or stuff them.

This is how it turned out. The girls who can color 10 pictures in a row, suddenly couldn't finish coloring one tree. As things devolved, we quickly ditched sewing on the buttons and got out the glue gun.


Then we realized that any sewing at all was probably a bad idea, and had the girls cut out their trees and we glued some felt on the back. Ella quickly seized the tree for her felt board. So what began as a cute hand-sewn ornament became a felt-board tree, but they turned out pretty cute anyway. Mabel's is the first tree and Ella's is the second.
 
Brent read the girls Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry, The Christmas Tree Book by Carol North, and The Tale of Three Trees by Angela Elwell Hunt.

R is for Room, S is for Stable

 For our R and S day, we read Room for a Little One by Martin Waddell , This is the Stable by Cynthia Cotten,  and The Stable Where Jesus Was Born by Rhonda Gowler Greene.
We made up a batch of gingerbread play dough like last year, and got out our nativity candy molds. This year the girls gave up on the molds pretty quickly, but still had tons of fun with the play dough making families of worms, cars for princesses, and even a gingerbread mask.
And meanwhile, in other parts of the kitchen, someone was working on her own project...

P is for Peace, Q is for Quiet

 
Yes, on Mommy's wish list for Christmas: peace and quiet. We read one of our new favorite Christmas books: Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck . First, Pearl Buck was born in the same county in West Virginia as me. Second, the illustrations are just stunning. Third, the story is a beautiful tale of a boy who wakes up early to surprise his farmer father by doing his chores for him. Lovely. To go with the theme, we also read a Little House in the Big Woods picture book we have called Laura's Christmas.

For our craft, we made a nativity felt board. It was originally going to be a wall hanging, but the girls decided it would be more fun if they could move the figures around. We started with some felt nativity stickers from Hobby Lobby. I pulled off the paper backing, which was a little difficult, and we put them on a felt backing. The girls then cut the felt around them. Then we cut a piece of felt for the back, and Ella cut out a stable, and we were done.

Afterward, we pulled out the nativity match game we made last year and played a few rounds.

O is for Ornament

 
Today was O is for ornament. We read A Merry Bunny Christmas by Rosemary Wells, Clifford's First Christmas by Norman Bridwell, and I'll Be Home for Christmas by Holly Hobbie.

Then we made a set of nativity ornaments from a kit I picked up at Hobby Lobby. The girls are going to hang them on the trees they have in their room.

Beatrix at 10 months

I'm late getting up my post, but Beatrix turned 10 months a few weeks ago. Our friend Susannah says she almost always has an expression like, "Isn't this world just amazing and wonderful?" She does love to smile and laugh and usually makes other people smile too. She seems to share a lot of her Daddy's passions: dogs (She completely fell in love with my uncle and aunt's pug), Christmas decorations, and popcorn (which she eats with her one tooth).
 
We sometimes think of her as our puppy because she's always happy to see you and she's always pulling on your pants leg begging for food. Since she has one tooth, she is convinced that she can eat anything and gets quite offended when she doesn't get what everyone else is getting. The other day she was crawling around chasing the girls and howling, and Ella said, "Beatrix is roaring because we won't give her raisins." So I said, "Well, give her a raisin then," and sure enough she stopped. She can be a bit of a tyrant about a food. She demands her 10% of any food any person is eating in the house. She got very offended when she got a different breakfast while the rest of the family ate bagels. So she usually gets her bagel, and her eggnog, and her cookie. She, thankfully hasn't shown any food allergies yet.

She still loves standing and has now managed to stand by herself and to stand up without holding on to anything. She likes to show off this skill for no good reason other than she can. The other day, I gave her a cracker, and she was like, wait, let me stand up and eat this. Yes, that's better.

She also now likes to work on projects, especially putting things into and taking things out of containers. In the kitchen alone, she has four or five projects: taking the lids off of canisters, including the one with cheerios in it; taking oranges out of the box, sorting the gladware, taking ziploc bags out of their boxes, and opening the jelly cabinet.

As for fun, Ella says that she is "obsessed with peek-a-boo." She has now learned to pull the blanket down herself, which  makes for endless fun.

M is for Manger, N is for Nativity

We combined M and N  and did more fun printables from great teacher-moms out there. For stories, we read The Town that Forgot About Christmas by Susan Leigh, Christmas in a Manger by Nola Buck. Christmas Mouseling by Dori Chaconas, and The Nativity by Francesca Crespi.

We used free printables from the Nativity Preschool Pack by 1+1+1=1
and The Nativity pack from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Christmas with Susannah

We had a fun early Christmas visit with our friend Susannah. The girls had a ball running her ragged with puppet shows and preschool board games. We also baked cookies. We tried making pffernusse for the first time and they came out great.

L is for Light

For L day, we read Light of the World in the Jesus Storybook Bible and made foil luminaries from Family Fun.We used baby food jars and I cut the foil to size. The girls punched holes in the foil with toothpicks, which they really enjoyed. Then we taped the foil on and tied a little bow with twine. We used our battery operated tea-lights, which are such a great thing for kids.

We also watched a new video we have, Adventures in Odyssey Electric Christmas. The movie was neat because it talked about getting caught up in greed and excitement at Christmas, but then realizing the true meaning of Christmas. But it also talks about Angel Tree Ministries, which we had just taken part in at our church. So that night, the girls and Brent wrapped up the presents we had bought for Angel Tree.

I is for Inn, J is for Jesus, K is for King

My new memory card has had some difficulty with uploading so I don't have pictures, but we took advantage of a lot of free printables this week to go with our projects.

For I is for Inn, we read about the Innkeeper from some of our longer nativity storybooks, and made the Innkeeper craft from Bible Kids Fun Zone.

For J is for Jesus, we read The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg. I printed out the Candy Cane mini-book from Christian Preschool Printables and we read that too. We used a ton of great preschool printables for J is for Jesus from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I also had a pack of candy cane striped pipe cleaners, which we used to make J's. The girls had a lot of fun building all kinds of things with them afterward. Of course, we had candy canes for snack.

For K is for King, we read King of Kings from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones, and I printed out the K

H is for Hark the Herald

For H day, we read A Night the Stars Danced for Joy by Bob Hartman, a story of a family of shepherds and the healing they experience on Christmas night. It's one of my favorites.

For our art project, we made collages. I printed and cut out the shepherds from You Seriously Made That?. I also free-handed an angle shape and we traced around that with oil pastels and the girls used their fingers to blur the pastel. Then Ella wanted to trace a shape on to foil. So I cut the angels out of foil for them and we glued them on too. Above is Ella's, below is Mabel's.

G is for Gingerbread

The girls have gotten really into coloring lately, especially since I found a 64 pack of Crayola pipsqueak markers for them. For gingerbread day, we read two of our favorites: Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett and Mortimer's Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson. Jan Brett's website is loaded with free coloring pages, activities, and other fun printables. We played a gingerbread baby board game, and I printed out a whole coloring book of gingerbread friends for them. I thought the coloring pages would keep them busy for a few days and they sat down and colored them all (8-10 pgs) that morning. As a result their coloring is getting quite good. The top picture of gingerbread baby is done by Mabel who suddenly went from just scribbling to really coloring. And below is one of Ella's.

F is for Fair

We didn't do too much exciting for E is for Elizabeth, just read the story of Elizabeth from our Christmas books. So I will skip on to F is for Christmas Fair.

We took Oma (Brent's grandma) and Aunt Gici (Brent's great-aunt) to a Latvian Christmas Fair at the Latvian Lutheran church they used to attend in Connecticut. It was great to meet some of their old friends and there were lots of yummy Latvian foods like pirags (rolls stuffed with bacon) and Piparkukas (gingerbread Christmas cookies).

D is for Decorate

We decorated our tree last weekend and had a lot of fun.

Beatrix got to put on her first ornaments. She is crazy about Christmas decorations, but especially bells. We found this out when we took her to the Christmas aisles at Hobby Lobby and she began squealing with delight. Soon she made up her own baby sign where she shakes her hand like she is ringing a bell, which means "jingle" or "give me that shiny Christmas bauble" or can also mean "sing jingle bells".

Brent is the chief Christmas decorator in this house and he was excited to get a huge tree, even if we didn't make it to the Christmas tree farm this year.

Helping the girls put up the ornaments on top.


And a picture of our lovely tree before today's tragedy. I heard a crash and ran into to find that the tree had fallen on Ella and Mabel so that I couldn't even see them. There were vintage glass ornaments and broken pieces of glass all over the rug. I was carrying the baby and both girls were barefoot. What would you do first? I pulled the tree off the girls, got them out of the room safely, had Ella hold Beatrix while I tried to right the tree. The tree fell again. More shattering. Ella is wailing, "No more decorations! No more tree!" Then I finally sent them all up to their room so I could clean up the glass, left the tree on its side and we got it all set up again when Brent got home. And that is the story of the undecorating of our tree. Someday we'll laugh I'm sure. Now to redecorating.

C is for Christmas Cookies

 C is for Christmas Cookies. We read The Gift of the Christmas Cookie: Sharing the True Meaning of Jesus' Birth by Dandi Daley Mackall, and we made cookies. Last year, I came to the realization that making cut-out cookies with preschoolers is not my favorite thing, so much rerolling of dough and hard to pick up cut-outs. So this year, we will leave the cookie cutters to the adults and we made stamped cookies instead.
 
We have some special cookie stamps. So I roll the balls of dough and the girls stamp. But if you don't have stampers, you can use the bottom of a fancy crystal glass or little tin with a design on it.

Beatrix got to make her first Christmas cookie.

And eat her first Christmas Cookie. Goo!
 
 Last year's Christmas Cookies.
and 10 Rules of Baking Cookies with Children

B is for Baby Jesus

B is for Baby Jesus. We read The Christmas Baby by Marion Dane Bauer, One Tiny Baby by Mark A. Taylor and God made Christmas: The Story of Baby Jesus. Then we made these touch and feel Baby Jesus pictures from Bible Kids Fun Zone.

For more Advent ABCS check out our Birthday cake for Jesus from last year.

A is for Angel

This year we're doing our advent ABCS again. We started with A is for Angel and read Christmas Angels by Gwen Ellis.

We made these cute angel ornaments as our craft.
.  
For more angel activities, check out our previous angel crafts:
Playdough and Pasta angels
Angel collages
Clothespin angels

First Sunday of Advent

Advent is here and the whole family is very excited. To quote Ella, "Mommy, advent's almost here, you have to get your crafts together!"

We lit our first candle on Sunday and read one of our new Christmas books this year, Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd-Jones. She wrote the Jesus Storybook Bible and this is equally beautiful. It has beautiful illustrations of animals all over the world getting ready for Jesus coming.

It seemed only fitting to get out the nativity set Brent put together as a child. He was inspired by one of his favorite books The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas by Madeline L'Engle and began collecting and adding all kinds of different animals to the nativity from hippos to squirrels and aligators.


The girls loved it and immediately pulled up their chairs and started playing. Ella's narration was pretty funny, "And then the opossum went around the world telling the shepherds and kinds the true meaning of Christmas." After day 2, we had our first casualty, so we had to get out their Fisher Price Little People nativity for more unbreakable play.

Overheard at my birthday

 
 This year the girls have gotten a lot better at keeping birthday secrets. Not once did Ella have to say, "Mom pretend like you're not listening" like last year. They did try to throw me off the trail several times, though. First Ella kept insisting that they had gotten me a big rock. Then the day before my birthday, she announced that they had gotten me two dinosaurs and five pieces of carrion.

On my birthday, Ella whispered to Brent that she and Mabel had to go upstairs to their bedroom, sneak out the window and time travel back to get the two dinosaurs and the five pieces of carrion. Brent asked if he would need to make room in the fridge for the carrion, but Ella assured him that "Dinosaurs didn't use refrigeration. We can just keep it in the front yard or on the back steps."

I have to admit I was pretty disappointed when I didn't get the carrion. Just kidding. But I was thrilled with  the lovely pearl necklace and other accessories they picked out Ella insisted they get the one with three strands for the three girls.Oh, and also they got me a "lemonator" so I can stop using up all of our packing tape to badly laminate things. Woo hoo!

Brent also made me an awesome make-up Thanksgiving dinner since we were on the road, and a beautiful cake. Beatrix was sitting on my lap when the cake was cut and went to dive in with both hands. I said, "Beatrix." She looked at me, then picked up the fork and went for the cake. Excellent manners for a nine-month-old. She got her own piece of cake and pronounced it "goo," which is her highest compliment.

Fall Vaventures: West Virginia

We've been off to West Virginia for a little vacation. We really enjoyed our cabin in the woods with the big fireplace, and visiting with our deer friend who stopped to peek in our window.


We had lots of fun with Mamaw and Papaw too. The girls especially liked making Barbie clothes with Mamaw, who came armed with a big bag of stray socks and some scissors. It was a good thing because the girls realized when we got there that there Barbies were way underdressed for the chilly mornings. It turns out you can make a surprising number of clothes from socks, everything from skirts to ponchos to hats and belts. The girls are all set to make more clothes at Christmas.