Advent 2013 - Day 3

Advent 2013 - Day 3

Today's book - Frosty the Snowman.  Who doesn't love Frosty?  This made the kids appreciate yesterday's snow even more.  I wish the sun had come out for even a moment today so that they could have made a snowman.  They will have plenty of snow to play in after the next couple of days.  We are expecting 7-9" of snow in the next 48 hours.  Here's hoping for many, many snowman making days in the future.  We tried to sing the song, but couldn't remember all the words.  Yikes!  Time to break out the Frosty movies.

 Today's activity was to have a Winter Craft Day.  I have a few crafts planned out to do throughout Advent.  Today we made Christmas ornaments.  I had so much fun spending a little time with each child today.  It took a long time to get six ornaments made.  It is amazing how many interruptions there are in a day - like two sweet babies who seem to need something all the time.

 Brech Earl decided to go the easy route - yah for easy ornaments!

 Finished product!

I told each of the kids they could gift their ornament to someone special.  I'm not sure who he is leaning towards giving it to as there was a long list of possibilities.

 Gianna picked out the glitter Christmas light bulbs.  They weren't attached to anything so we used some gold thread I had and made our own little string of lights.  I was impressed that she decided to put one of each in a row and then, without me telling her, started the pattern over again.

 It was a three man job to get the lights into the ornament.  Mom holding the ornament (and camera), Brech holding the top of the string, and Gianna fitting them into the hole.

 The end result was a perfect example of how Christmas lights end up by the next year.

 Stephen started out with grand ideas.  They would have been amazing if it weren't for a trial run to see if the bells would make noise. They sure did - all the way through the ornament and onto the floor.  Our first casualty of the day - one glass ornament.

 He restarted his attempt, but left out the silver bells the second time.

 Rex used a couple of plastic snowflakes in the inside, along with some fake snow.  Then he dotted the outside with Modge Podge and dusted it with glitter (ok, so Mom dusted it with glitter).

 The result was amazing!  I love it!!

Cormac always dreams big.  "Mom, I want to do this," as he pointed to an example with a tree inside the ornament and a layer of fake snow.  Ummm, ok.  We tested every ornament until we found one with a big enough hole to fit a tree in.  Then I put it back in the case and thought about how I was going to accomplish this impossible task. 

 We did manage to get it to work.  A little hot glue on the bottom and a stick to pop the tree upright - TA DA!!  Add some lovely fake snow and a few fake snowballs and you have a cute winter scene.

 "What do you mean I have to have my picture taken?"

 "Mom!!!"

Inside of his ornament are three bells.  You will never find them.  They are surrounded by glitter, another type of glitter, and styrofoam snowball-looking things.

This is what the table looked like when we were finished.  Imagine my surprise when I turn around to find that Gianna had taken out all the puzzles while we were so diligently working on Christmas ornaments.  Sigh... She is a handful and then some.