25 Days of Christmas: Days 1 thru 8

Day 1.  Advent Calendar and Wreath

Last year we started a little Advent Calendar to help the boys with how many days until Christmas and it was a big hit, except that we only had one so they had to take turns.  And this year, thanks to Pinterest, I had a lot of cute ideas to chose from, so I made one for each boy! 

Finn’s Santa beard gets smaller each day as he cuts a layer off (while working on his scissor skillz)

 

And Riley’s gets bigger each day as he adds a cotton ball to fill in the beard!

 

And we have our Advent Wreath we got from church a few years back.  This thing is still a HUGE hit in our house.  The boys LOVE putting the candles on and singing happy birthday to Jesus.

Day 2.  Elf on a Shelf

We succumbed to the cuteness that is the Elf on a Shelf.  He magically appeared while we were eating dinner.  Even though we weren’t supposed to touch him, Riley picked him up right away before we could read the rules, er, I mean book to tell us so.  Finn was a bit skeptical right away but seemed to come around.

The boys love him and love finding him every morning.  We’re trying to keep things simple, just keeping it FUN and breezy.  (What?  I can totally be breezy.)  The boys decided to name him Mack, to go with our other Irish boy names.  I’ll do a separate post for all the FUN things Mack has been doing.

 

Day 3. Christmas Parade

We went to this parade for the 1st time last year and loved it so much we couldn’t miss it this year!  Bonus:  It wasn’t freeeeezing cold like last year!

 

Still standing in place, not wanting to believe the parade was over.  So.cute.

Day 4. Snowmen

The boys got these adorable snowmen towels from grandma and papa for Christmas. Adorable!

Day 5.  Gingerbread Cookies

If you will recall from the years past, we made a gingerbread train (wreck) and a gingerbread house….both with epically bad results.  I had promised I would never purchase one of those gingerbread kits again.  I stuck to my word with help from Finn, when he asked if we could make gingerbread cookies after we read The Gingerbread Man book.  Fabulous idea!  Even fabulouser (that is so a word) was the huge gingerbread mix display on the end aisle at the grocery store.  Less fabulous though was the many stores we went to in search of a gingerbread man cookie cutter.  But now we have lots of Christmas shapes!

 

Day 6:  Santa Hats & Jammies

Last year I mentioned how much the boys loved their Santa hats, this year is no exception.  They were really bummed when I pulled them out and only had one hat for the bigs and one for the baby, which meant one of the bigs was hatless.  So off we quickly went to buy another hat!  Happy Boys!

Day 7:  The Grinch

And so our daily viewings of the Grinch begin!  I love how they wouldn’t take their eyes off the TV to look at me for one picture!

Day 8:  Reindeer Craft & Hot Cocoa

This is my favorite tradition….The Reindeer Craft!  This is our third year making these hand/feet reindeer.  Feet for the head and hands for the antlers.  This year I let the boys color the noses (they both wanted help with the eyes but not the noses!).  And Kellen got lots of help!  :)

The finished product:  Finn, Kellen and Riley

Finn’s from all three years:

Riley’s from all three years:

And we drank hot cocoa too!

 

He looks so pained, but really he was saying cheese!

Cheerios

This video isn’t particularly interesting, but

1) I think he is cute,

2) He looks super chubby

3) I love to watch his arms and feet flail around when he gets excited

4) I love Riley half way through the video off to the side

 

He has gotten MUCH better just since last week when I took this video.  Now he can actually pick them up and eat them and scream for more!

Kellen’s Epic Weekend

Kellen had quite a weekend!

His first two teeth finally popped through!

He is now officially crawling on his hands and knees!

 

Just last week he was still doing this, army and bear crawl!

He is also pulling himself to standing!

And when I went to sign him into the infants room at church his name wasn’t on the list.  He has graduated to the creepers room.

He also got his second (home) haircut.  Yeah, I won’t be doing that ever again.  The results were….not so good.

Needless to say I spent most of the weekend crying.

And then I pulled out a bunch of toys from the basement!

 

The Bigs have been going crazy over the “new” toys.

And Kellen went for his first car ride!  Beep Beep!  Ohhh, he also rode in the car cart at Publix with Riley this week and I’m SOOOO sad I didn’t have my camera with me.  So. stinking.cute!

And I’ll add these cute pics of him playing with a pan.

Oh, and, evidently we should not be using the swing anymore….

Toddler Busy Bags

I love the internet.  I found this awesome idea for “Toddler Busy Bags” which are just small bags with activities in them for little ones.  They are portable and can be taken anywhere (think loooooooooong car rides, dr office, etc…..).  I really wanted to make them for our long drive to Disney, but ran out of time with the whole Halloween party/costumes/etc.  But I did manage to get a couple done before we left for Indiana for Thanksgiving!

Color Match Up (also good for fine motor skills with the clothespin!) 

Felt Boards – I plan to make more shapes with this eventually, but damn, cutting shapes freestyle was really hard (and a stupid idea), lol!

And the Button Snake – felt shapes with a slit in the middle and buttons on each end, also good for fine motor skills!

Oh, and we also have a finger puppet bag!  I don’t know why I never thought to bring our bag of finger puppets anywhere before!  We already have them in a little mesh bag with a zipper, so that one was easy! 

I plan to make more because the boys REALLY LOVE these!  woohoo!

Happy in “Burberry”

I LOVE this little coat I got Kellen!  And I LOVE his happy little face!