Our Elf on the Shelf Ginger Week 2

Ginger has been pretty busy this week!!!  Here is a peek at what she has been up to...

 Just relaxing on the window

Since we didn't decorate our tree yet Ginger thought she would help out

 Lifting a weights made out of a candy cane and two large marshmallows.  You need to work out when your main diet is sugar based!!

 The girls got a treat of some homemade mini doughnuts to start off their morning.

 The coffee was all set up for us on this chilly morning

 Ginger reminded us of the true meaning for the season and decided to join our Nativity Set

Ginger was just zip lining through our kitchen.  She even left the girls some candy canes and Clara a candy cane made out of a Baby Mum-Mum cracker.  Ginger is the best!!!

A Very Minted Christmas

Every year I get excited to see all the fun designs that are available for our family Christmas card, even though I get a stomach ache thinking about actually taking the picture.  Hopefully Clara will be the ham that she usually is and everything will go nice and smoothly.

This year as I was looking for ideas for our card I noticed that Minted had a really great selection of fun designs for their Photo Christmas Cards.

Here are just a few of the fun designs that caught my eye as I was browsing their site.  I am planning on a playful card this year the girls are excited to wear their Christmas Pajamas, so these seemed like they would go really well with our theme.

Be sure to stop by Minted to see all the other things that they offer!

They have an variety of stationary, prints and children's room decor items too.  These items would make great gifts for any occasion.

**Disclosure: I will receive money off my next Minted purchase for writing this post to participate in Minted's holiday card promotion however these are my own unbiased opinions.

Our Elf on the Shelf is BACK!!!!

Ginger, our The Elf on the Shelf made her first appearance right after Thanksgiving and the girls couldn't have been more excited.  She was waiting for them on top of the front door where Juliette spotted her the second we went downstairs for breakfast.

Throughout the day Juliette kept telling us that she cant wait to see where Ginger is tomorrow and I wonder what she is going to do tomorrow.  I love their excitement over her and the anticipation of what she will do next.

Do you have an Elf on the Shelf?  Where have you found your elf playing?

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stART ~ Three Little Christmas Trees (Fingerplay)

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART.  **This is a work in progress so if you have participated and would like to be added to the list, leave me a comment and let me know.

This week we did something a little different.  We have been working on this Christmas Tree Poem/Fingerplay so we made some cute Christmas Trees to go with it.

Three Little Christmas Trees

Three little Christmas trees standing all alone, (hold up three fingers)
Their heats were very sad (hands over heart, sad face) 'cause they hadn't found a home. (fingertips form pointed roof)
Then "CHOP" went the ax, (right hand chop left forearm) and down fell a tree, (palms together lean to side)
And off it went (bounce pointer finger from left to right) with a happy family. (smile with index fingers at corners of mouth)
Two little Christmas trees standing all alone, (hold up two fingers)
Their heats were very sad (hands over heart, sad face) 'cause they hadn't found a home. (fingertips form pointed roof)
Then "CHOP" went the ax, (right hand chop left forearm) and down fell a tree, (palms together lean to side)
And off it went (bounce pointer finger from left to right) with a happy family. (smile with index fingers at corners of mouth)
One little Christmas tree standing all alone, (hold up one finger)
It's heat was very sad (hands over heart, sad face) 'cause they hadn't found a home. (fingertips form pointed roof)
Then "CHOP" went the ax, (right hand chop left forearm) and down fell a tree, (palms together lean to side)
And off it went (bounce pointer finger from left to right) with a happy family. (smile with index fingers at corners of mouth)
No little Christmas trees standing all alone, (pointer finger and thumb make a zero)
Their hearts were very happy (hands over heart)
'Cause they all had found a home. (fingertips form pointed roof)

Paper Plate Christmas Trees

I cut a paper plate into 4 different sized pieces and then we glued them together to make a tree shape. The girls painted it with green paint.  Then they glued on sequins and spangles for the decorations and added a star at the top and a construction paper trunk.  They had a lot of fun decorating their trees and it was great fine motor practice too!

Juliette’s Christmas Tree

Emily’s Christmas Tree

stART ~ The Christmas Story

 

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART.  **This is a work in progress so if you have participated and would like to be added to the list, leave me a comment and let me know.

This week we have been talking a lot about Christmas.  Emily is very excited to be in the Christmas Pageant both at her school and at our church.  We have especially enjoyed The Christmas Story, retold by Jane Werner Watson.  This Little Golden Book has beautiful illustrations by Eloise Wilkon that help the story come to life.

I was thinking about a project to do for this book, when Emily came home with this perfect one from school.  I liked it so much that I want to do it with the children in my Sunday School class.

I ordered the Nativity Stickers from oriental trading back in October and was just going to have the kids put them on a piece of construction paper, but I loved the idea of using the plastic plate.  Emily loved it because it was something different than we would normally use she couldn’t wait to find a place to hang it when she got home from school.

There are more than 25 stickers so this could also be a fun Advent activity, where you add a different sticker to the picture each night.  Maybe next year :)

Now it is your turn!! Click below to link up a book you read and the project or activity that you did to go with it.

Wordless Wednesday ~ The Best Early Christmas Present EVER!

Every Christmas as we are putting up our Christmas decorations, I say that I want an outdoor Nativity scene.  To me this is the most important decoration, being that this is the true meaning of Christmas.  We never really put up that much, but this year, after 7 years I have my Nativity and I absolutely LOVE it!

Michael surprised me with it and when I drove up to see it I just about cried with JOY.  It was the best early Christmas present!  Emily and Juliette were just as excited, they got out of the car to see it and kept looking for Baby Jesus.  Won’t they be excited to wake up and find him on Christmas morning!

Merry Christmas 2010

May you have the gift of faith,
the blessing of hope
and the peace of His love
at Christmas and always.

Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Gingerbread Christmas Cards…

…almost good enough to eat!

This is the second year that we participated in the Kids Craft   Weekly Christmas Card Swap.  Emily enjoyed it so much last year I couldn’t wait for this years.  And while I was flipping through the latest issue of our Family Fun Magazine (December/January 2011) I saw these adorable gingerbread house cards and knew they were the perfect cards for Emily to make for the swap.

I printed the template from the Family Fun Website.  I traced the template onto brown construction paper and cut them out.

    Emily used green 3/4 inch dot stickers with hole punched centers for wreaths, white reinforcements cut in half for icing and 1/4 inch dot stickers for added decoration.

She also used a name badge label cut in half for the door and foam Christmas Stickers (gingerbread men, bows, and candy canes) for decorations inside the card too.  I printed a message on paper and cut it out with a decorative edge scissor to glue on the inside.

Muffin Tin Monday ~ Christmas

This week we continued with the Christmas Theme for Muffin Tin Monday.  Both Emily and Juliette were able to enjoy some Christmas shaped Blue Berry Pancakes with Fruit and Syrup for Breakfast.

Juliette had a Christmas Tree Pancake.  She dipped the whole thing into the syrup let it soak in and then ate it all up.

  Emily chose a Christmas Tree, Gingerbread boy and Candy Cane for her pancake shapes.

A Night in Bethlehem

We were fortunate enough to participate in A Night in Bethlehem a truly amazing Christmas event that was held at a local church. Our family was able to experience Bethlehem.  I was amazed at how much of an impression this made on Emily.  She talked about it for days telling everyone that she went to Bethlehem and saw Baby Jesus!

When we entered we told the census takers who we were, where we came from, how we travelled to Bethlehem (we did by donkey!) and how many camels and donkeys we owned.

Our names were written on scrolls with quills.

Emily helped make rope.

Emily and Juliette had sandals made.

They ground spices…

…and made mosaics.

There were tax collectors, beggars and even a real donkey.

          The most amazing part was walking up into the stable where Mary and Joseph were waiting with are real baby as Jesus.

You can find out more about this program and how you could create A Night in Bethlehem at your church by visiting their website

**I was not compensated by this company in any way, I just wanted to share this amazing outreach program with others so they could experience the same thing that we did!

stART ~ The Gingerbread Man

 

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

This week we have been enjoying The Gingerbread Man, retold by Jim Aylesworth.  After the first reading Emily had many of the parts memorized and chants them along with us as we read it.  On the back cover is a recipe for Gingerbread Men so of course we had to give them a try.  When I told Emily that we could make our own she was so excited and then she looked at me a little worried and said “But Mommy, I hope ours does not run away” and then “I know we can lock the door so it can’t get out!” So that is just what we did.

Emily helped me make the Gingerbread Dough.  She liked sifting the dry ingredients even though she needed my help.

We all rolled the dough and cut out the gingerbread men.  We were very excited to have Aunt Christina help us too!

Finally we got to decorate them!  We used all different yummy sweets, like sprinkles, M&M’s, good and plenty, gumdrops, snowcaps and raisins.

     Emily’s Gingerbread Man

He has a blue good and plenty hat, two snow cap eyes, an M&M nose and a good and plenty mouth.  His buttons are made of a green and red M&M and a green gumdrop.

stART ~ If You Take a Mouse to the Movies

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

This week we read If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, by Laura Numeroff.  We enjoy of of the “If You Take A…” books and this Christmas Themed one was perfect since we just went to get our Christmas Tree this past weekend and will be decorating it very soon.

To go along with this book we decorated our own paper trees.  Even Juliette got in on the fun with the help of Daddy!

I drew a Christmas Tree shape on a piece of paper then gave Emily and Juliette oil pastels, Do-a-Dot Markers, Glitter Glue' target=_blank>glitter glue,  sequins and pom-poms to decorate with. Juliette loved working with Daddy to make their tree.  Her favorite part was using the do-a-dot markers.  I think Daddy had a lot of fun too :)

Muffin Tin Monday

This weeks theme for Muffin Tin Monday is Christmas and I figured that we would focus on Christmas Trees since this weekend we cut down our Christmas Tree and I also had a really great silicone muffin tin that I wanted to use.

Top Row: Clementine Segments and Oreo Ball

Middle Row: Yogurt with Christmas Tree Sprinkles and more Clementine Segments

Bottom Row: Penne Pasta with Butter and Cheese

Emily was so excited to eat lunch in our new Muffin Tins, she especially enjoyed the Oreo Ball and sprinkles on her yogurt!

Hunting for the perfect Christmas Tree :)