Thursday, November 18, 2010

What's yours?

First of all, let me share my girls awesome pedicures they did on each other.


Cute eh?


(I may or may not have been taking my time getting out of bed (sleeping) while they were discovering their new love.)

Who says nail polish can only go on your toes?


Next I need to tap into your brilliant minds. This year we are having Christmas here, just us. I'm excited but this means I actually need to get going on it. I want to make our own traditions with the kids, and make it special for just our "little" but big family. So what are some of your favorite Christmas traditions, or crafts that you have done with your kids?
I have a few ideas and things we have always done, such as pj's on Christmas eve, (my favorite) and some of what Dustin's family has done, but i'd love to hear what other people do, because I want to add new traditions as well.

So any help would be great!

I also have a few projects for Christmas decorations I want to make this week, i'll post them when i'm done! I actually finally finished a project that was supposed to go up LAST year. But we didn't even put a tree up since we were gone 3 weeks over Christmas, and I was so glad we went that route when we got home! So it was saved for this year, and I hope it looks good when it's all up.

Don't you love these faces? I sure do. (Except when they are screaming.) I need to pull out my earplugs real soon!

You can tell she is squeezing them so hard in this one.

Pure love right there.


5 comments:

TinaLaRae said...

We have the tradition of reading a Christmas story every night starting on December 1st and ending with the Nativity, right from the Bible, on Christmas Eve. I make sure I buy one hard coverd Christmas themed book every year, either from Costco or some book store or from the scholastic flyers the girls bring home. I even pack them with the Christmas decor so they last longer.

Lynn said...

I was totally going to say the same thing (almost) as TinaLaRae did. We always did the "count down" to Christmas by giving each of the kids ONE book a day to read from our "special for Christmas only books" that I bring out with our decor every year. They go back in the storage with the decorations when Christmas is over. Or if books are too much (although there are some really great deals on books right now) you can always print off a Christmas story from on-line and laminate it or page protect it and put in a special Christmas binder. Collect stories to add to your binder every year.

We also like to let the kids put up "THEIR" special ornament on the tree that marks the "official" tree lighting for the first FHE of the season. It could be their "Baby's First Christmas" ornament or whatever was special to them. But it has to be the same one put up each year.

Another great activity was making a paper chain of all 25 days in December. Hang it up and cut off one chain per day for another count down activity.

Making nativity puppets, and sugar cookies are other ideas. They loved to play with the dough, roll it, and cut out their own shapes... before baking and decorating. You could make this a party with other families. Then everybody takes home their own plate of cookies. Somewhat like a cookie exchange party.

Another fun idea we still do to this day is purchase a nativity set that has at least 12 pieces to it. We "Secret Santa" another family by delivering ONE piece of that nativity a day in their mailbox with a note regarding what they should expect (a surprise) for each day of the 12 days of Christmas. The last day being the delivery of the baby Jesus. If it's too much to drag the whole family out to do this.....why not have your own kids be "secret santa-ed". We've done this too. We left a secret package in the mailbox or on the door step each day for our own kids. (Hope they don't read this. LOL!)

Anyway.....those are just a few off the top of my head. If I think of any more, I will let you know. Can't wait to see what others say. IT's always fun to get different ideas too.

Tim and Ashlee said...

We go carolling every Christmas Eve. Well really we just sing "We wish you a merry Christmas" and deliver all our gifts to our extended family that way.

Also gotta act out the Nativity.

And the other one we do that the kids love is one afternoon my sister sends out invitations to all the kids (we have lots of cousins with kids) to bring their own gingerbread house and icing and come and decorate them all together. It's really fun. It's usually just us mom's with our kids and maybe a snack or two, but it's fun getting together and making the gingerbread houses. :)

Janas Bananas said...

We have a tradition of certain foods on Christmas eve,and we always do the "night before Christmas" and the CHristmas story right before bed of course. We don't have any really set in stone traditions, since the kids are still little we also sit and watch all the little chistmas cartoons too. I think whatever you do, it will be something your kids will always remember doing and love it even if it is just simple things.

P.s...love the nail polish art. lol

Ashley said...

Love the pics of your girls' pedicures! Bet they had fun!

As for Christmas traditions... we have a little program on Christmas eve where we open our Pjs, act out the Christmas story as my dad reads it, and my mom reads a Christmas story. My favorite one that she reads is "The forgotten Carols" but that one we have to start a few days in advance because it takes quite a while to read. The music that goes with it is beautiful.

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