Holiday Open House 2012

Before the party we had to set up the trains! (Advent chain day 14). The kids love this, pulling out the big train box and helping J get everything set up.

And finally the day of the party arrives and I get the kids decked out in their Christmas finery. I absolutely love argyle sweater vests and think RUS looks like such a little man in his! R is wearing a dollie+me dress we gave her for last Christmas--she calls it her candy cane dress.

 Isn't this a great shot of Grammie and Grampy with the kids before the party officially kicked off?

 Here's the big table with the cookies: I somehow missed taking a picture of our appetizer table (but I'll add some if Grammie happened to get a few on her camera).

 This year's food craft was a make-your-own snowperson station, with frosting to glue everything together, marshmallows for the body, hershey's kisses for hats, pretzels for arms, and mini chocolate chips and candy corn for eyes, mouth, and nose.

 Here's R's snowperson!

 and here's the one RUS made with Grammie before the party started.

And would you be shocked that this is all the pictures I managed to get of the party? It was a huge success, I thought, with lots of our friends and neighbors stopping by. I'll confess though that I always have a little bit of post-party letdown although it's really nice to still have Christmas itself to look forward to!!!

Today's Advent Chain link got by far the most enthusiastic response yet from the kids

What was it, you might be asking?  Why, drink hot chocolate and eat a (mini) candy cane, of course. Oh my gosh. You would have thought it was already Christmas morning from the way they squealed and shrieked with excitement when it was opened up. No pictures of this exciting activity but it was fun all around.

New Pajamas, Round 2!

Advent Chain 7-13

Day 7: The kids helped me bake candy cane cookies. It's great because I can give them their own balls of dough to roll into snakes and twist into canes while I do the "official" ones that we'll serve at our party. They had so much fun making their own candy canes to bake and eat.

Day 8: We went to see Santa at our favorite local orchard! The kids were so cute. We were a little late, so we ended up having to wait quite a long time, but several children the kids knew from both day care and kindergarten were there as well so we visited with them and had a nice time in line. When we got up to Santa, RUS whispered something that nobody could understand and R forgot what she wanted to ask for from Santa. Since the visit, however, RUS has said several times that he wants a phone for Christmas (like mine, an iPhone) and R has asked for an iPod.

Day 9: We went up to Longwood Gardens to see their annual Longwood Christmas and light show. It was GORGEOUS, although we timed our visit for after RUS's nap (he generally gets up around 3) and it was rainy and dark most of the time we were there. I'm terrible at figuring out my phone settings in the dark so I have very few photos from our time there but did take a few.

This hydrangea-decorated tree was one of my favorite things. There were four or five of them arranged together in one of the gardens' indoor buildings, and when I got up close, I realized they were LIVE HYDRANGEAS growing in special pots.

In this pic I tried to give you a view of the pot so you could see. According to a little placard on display, the trees are on a special metal frame that includes the pots and they had several varieties of these live-flower-decorated trees, including I think hyacinths and one other flower I'm forgetting now. I love hydrangeas so I thought these were breathtaking.

The theme of this year's Longwood Christmas was "stars" and here's their centerpiece tree, decorated with all kinds of stars, ostrich feathers, and hand-crafted ornaments. Stunning.

Day 10: J pulled out his Lego Winter Toy Shop and he and R and RUS had a lot of fun putting it together and playing with all the component pieces.

Day 11: We had a new Christmas book to read: Olive, the Other Reindeer. It's such a cute story and the kids loved it, especially because it's illustrated by J. Otto Seibold, who also illustrated Vunce Upon a Time, about a vegetarian vampire whose favorite thing is candy.

Day 12: I had a holiday party as part of a committee I am on at work, and it included family so the kids and I headed over there--J unfortunately was stuck giving a final exam. The kids had a blast! It helped that the kids there included two others from RUS's day care class and several children from R's previous day care class as well.

Day 13: We went to R's school's winter concert. It was so much fun!! As part of the grand finale, R's class performed the "So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Good Night" song from The Sound of Music. Grammie said it was the highlight of the whole performance! In the first pic it is just R's class performing; the second pic is the full school performing.

New Pajamas!

Advent Chain 1-6

We started our Advent Chain Christmas countdown on December 1, and so far it's kept us quite busy!

On the first day, we pulled out the nativity J painted and made for the kids last year, along with some of our plastic farm animals.

On the second day, we went to our local Christmas tree farm and picked up a fresh evergreen wreath

 

On day 3, we pulled out a family Christmas puzzle and started working on it.

On day 4, the kids had their last ice skating lessons--they're each signed up for another series but they don't start up again until after the holidays. Because the lessons go until 7:30 though we ended up not having time to do the chain activity (bake cookies).

On day 5, the kids watched the beginning of Elf, officially our favorite Christmas movie. "I like smiling. Smiling's my favorite!"

On day 6, R and RUS had a lot of fun helping J make snowflakes. J taught R how to cut her snowflake so that it would have Christmas shapes within the snowflake.

Christmas Lists 2012

We worked on Christmas lists the other day--we're off to see Santa tomorrow morning when he comes to our local orchard, so hopefully I'll have pictures from that soon. But here are the kids' lists for this year. R wrote her own, while RUS dictated his list to R.

The tree's up!!!!

There are so so many things I love about Christmas and the whole holiday season. Probably my favorite thing is our holiday party and the baking and prep that goes into that--it provides for me the perfect blend of hurry up, get everything done, so you can relax once the party is over! combination. But my second favorite thing is putting up our Christmas tree and getting to enjoy it for the entire month leading up to Christmas. For that reason, we put the tree up immediately after Thanksgiving--this year J's parents had a sleepover with the kids on Black Friday so J and I had a nice time leisurely browsing the mall and then when we came home, J put up the tree and I started putting decorations around the house.

Then, when the kids came back from Grammie and Grampy's house, it was time to decorate the tree. Pulling out all the ornaments is so much fun--from the ornaments we've received as gifts (including one we got last year from A & M with all four of our names on it) to the ornaments we've picked out for the kids to the themed ornaments the kids get from Grammie and Grampy (angels for R and snowmen for RUS) to the various crafts they've made over the last few years, it's just great. Our tree is a hodgepodge of clashing ornament styles and I couldn't love it more.

Baking Season is Underway!

I never feel like the baking season has really started until my sugar cookies are all done and frosted. I also always do these first because they're so labor- and time-intensive. The day after Thanksgiving I made the dough and then on Saturday we all frosted and decorated. The kids loved this part!!

 

Thus far in preparation for our holiday party we've made:

• vegan peanut butter and chocolate rice krispy treats
•  rice krispy treats
• french buttercream
• snickerdoodles
• peanut blossoms
• spritz
• chocolate crinkle cookies
• oatmeal cocoa chippers

and lots more still to come, with just over a week until our party!!