Gingerbread Fun!

We got this Gingerbread House kit last year on clearance for $1.49 and had a great time putting it together this year!  I was so excited that it was still in perfect condition in the box and can’t wait to pick up some more this year. 

Our Muffin Tin helped keep all the candy organized!

 

Daddy assembled the house…

 

…with Emily’s help!

Juliette had a great time watching.

Emily went to work adding the candy right away.

The girls working on the gingerbread house.

Emily was very happy to eat some of the marshmallows that Daddy added for decorating.

 

Daddy added a graham cracker chimney and doggy dormer. 

I loved the coconut snow. 

Christmas 2009

All the presents ready for Christmas Morning!

Emily seeing all of the presents under the tree in the morning. I love her expression!

Juliette’s First Christmas

Emily helped Juliette open her presents.

After we opened our presents my family comes over and we all have Christmas Breakfast together. We started this 6 years ago and it is one of my favorite Christmas traditions.

Emily received so many wonderful presents, I can’t wait to play all of the games with her!

I was so excited for some wonderful new TOTSchool games, puzzles and activities :0)

My Favorite Christmas Tree Ornaments

We have had a real Christmas Tree since our First Christmas that we were married.  My parents kept a piece of the trunk of their first Christmas tree in our garage (it may actually still be there now!!)  That inspired me to make these very special ornaments for our tree. 

Michael cut a thin piece of the trunk of the tree right after we got it home.  Then he drilled a hole at the top and I decorated it with glitter paints.

Our First Christmas Tree

Emily’s First Christmas Tree

 Juliette’s First Christmas Tree

Now we will always have a piece of our first Christmas Tree, and the Girls will have a special memory of their first Christmas Tree!

Merry Christmas 2009!!!

Playing with snow…

…indoors!!!

We had about 2 feet of snow this weekend and Emily really wanted to play in it but I couldn’t take Juliette out in it.  So I brought it in to Emily!!

She had fun making her snowman.  I gave her wiggly eyes, pom poms and a foam hat and carrot nose to play with. 

TOTSchool

Our week in TOTSchool

Emily is 34 months old.

Emily and her friends made Shape Handprint Angels for our stART project.

The girls also did Hand Prints for the letter H

Emily had fun with her magnetic snowman book. She liked using the magnets to make the pictures in the book.

Emily and Juliette read our Christmas Little People Book. Emily was excited to show Juliette all the fun things in the book!

Emily loves taking pictures with Juliette!

Emily sorted snowflake beads.

Emily had fun with E at Art Group. They made Christmas Tree Magnets and Magic Tape Paintings.

I added some red sparkles to our peppermint play dough and Emily had fun making cookies with her new Candy Cane Play Dough.

Visiting Santa Claus

Our Family with Santa

Emily asking Santa for a green backpack.

After we saw Santa we went to see the little Christmas Display that they had set up. You walk through the different animated scenes and read a little story. Emily really enjoyed this part of our trip!

We had about 2 feet of snow and Emily had a great time playing in it (no pictures since Daddy took her out before I was up) and inside with it (Juliette and I were happy to stay warm!). She made a really cute mini snowman.

We painted with Green and Red for our Open Ended art too, it made the cutest wrapping paper!

Our favorite books from this week:

• Bear Gets Sick ~ Karma Wilson
• The Stable Where Jesus Was Born ~ Rhonda Gowler Greene
• Fisher Price Little People Christmastime Is Here!: Lift the Flap ~ Readers Digest
• Home Sweet Home (Busy Bugz Pop-Up Series) ~ Christine Tagg

Check out the great things that others are doing with their children by clicking the buttons on the top of this page!!

Friday Art Group

Popsicle Stick Christmas Tree Magnet and Red and Green Magic Tape Painting

Today it was just the two girls again, but we still had a great time working on our Christmas Themed Art Projects.

We started with Play Dough Free Play and cookie cutters.  The girls did a great job sharing some of the special tools too.

These Popsicle Stick Magnets came out really cute.  I have seen the popsicle stick Christmas Tree Ornaments on many different blogs.  But, while I was getting my supplies ready I saw clothespins in with the popsicle sticks.  I decided to use them as the base for the tree.  After we finished the project, I told my friend we could clip them onto the tree, or if we had magnets use them to hold papers.  So, I dug through my supplies and found some magnet strips.  We will be making a few more of these for Christmas Presents!!

I hot glued the popsicle sticks to the clothes pin before we started.

The girls used a sponge that was cut into smaller pieces to sponge on some green paint.

Next, they used glitter glue to decorate the tree and glue on sequins and spangles. 

We used ours to hold Emily’s other art project!

The girls were really excited to play so we got right to our next project.  I thought this would be a big hit, since they both love painting however after only a minute or two they were both ready to go into the other room and play. 

   The girls put pieces of painters tape onto white construction paper and then painted with red and green paint.  After it dried we pulled of the blue tape to see the design that was left!

Emily’s finished project.

stART ~ The Stable Where Jesus Was Born

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too! The linky will be open all week.

**I will not be posting a stART project next week since it will be Christmas Eve and I know we will all be busy getting ready for Christmas here. But, we will be back the following week!

This week we read The Stable Where Jesus Was Born, by Rhonda Gowler Greene. It is a cute cumulative, rhyming story tells the Nativity Story. It was fun to read and had beautiful illustrations.

We made Hand Print, Shape Angels for the Angel that spoke to Mary.

Emily glued the shapes onto the paper. A triangle for the body, circle for the head and oval for the halo.

Next, she made a hand print on each side of the triangle body.

Emily’s Hand Print Shape Angel!

Open Ended Art ~ Green and Red

This weeks Open Ended Art theme was Green and Red.  Daddy thought it would be fun to make some wrapping paper for our Play Group Secret Santa Gift so Emily had a great time painting with Red and Green Paint.  We also gave her a gingerbread cookie cutter to use to paint with.

 

I love how Juliette was so interested in Emily’s painting!  She loved watching her work.

Emily got the chair to help her reach all the way to the top

She decided to use the cookie cutter to make prints over her painting.

I love the way it looked!

Then she decided to do some more on the back of the easel!  She made two prints on top of each other and said they were hugging.  Kids say the cutest things :0)