December 20-22

Our last weekend before Christmas had us with one more day of “real” school. AND seeing that Saturday was the first day of winter, a return of more snow and some cooler temperatures.

In our Gammie packages there was a craft kit so how better to end the last full week before Christmas than to get to work making Santas? And when we ran out of beards… elves.

More books of course.

We greatly enjoyed our read by Gammie story!

And then Ken and Nana executed Trinity and my idea of a box puppet house. Activity Village (link on right) put up a previous Advent’s printable Christmas people pages and so we printed those out and put them on popsicle sticks for our puppets. Supplemented by any finger puppets we found laying around.

Ken had registered the kids for a special Christmas Home Depot craft – snowmen made out of paving stones. VERY cute!!!

Sunday was the last scheduled Sunday School session until after the New Year. Miss Trinity wore last year’s finery and looked absolutely adorable. Our family and only a handful more kids were there but they had a blast. And came home with chocolate for all.

We rounded off our morning with cookie making and decorating! So many sweets in the house right now!

There was a reason for the last minute icing. Our afternoon/evening Sunday was our Novak/Reinsch-Johnson Christmas gathering over at the Novak’s. Talk about excitement and chaos… it was PERFECT! We had supper and snacks (oh the variety of snacks including our cookies) and games and visiting. Definitely an amazing way to spend Christmas with friends who are so much more than just friends. Chosen family!

We were there super late and drove home in somewhat nasty weather with kids who were full of Christmas cheer and exhaustion. Now enjoy the rest of the party pictures!!!

Christmas colouring

More present opening

Alex the musician

DINNER

Godson and I

Action hair

Fishing for words

Hanging out

A room of artists

The first 3 were made by me, I am not sure where Aidan’s is (I think he keeps it in his room) but I have cross stitched stockings for all the Novak boys.

WARNING TONS OF IMAGES!!

Let’s skip forward in time to today – our very special and relatively new tradition, going to the downtown Minneapolis Macy’s and seeing Santa. We had to alter this new tradition from last year and go without Baba who is on contract work until he leaves for his next big adventure – Roatan… but we managed.

Ready for Santa and the debut of the matching Christmas dresses!

We shot for around noon to miss the rush of potential school trips and the evening or weekend visitors. There was no line up to get in and a minimal line up at the actual wait for Santa.

Santaland entrance

There was lots to see… elves and singing trees… penguins and squirrels. Echo was crazy excited about it all and the kids (even though this is the same display as the year previous) still had eyes wide open spying things they had missed last year. The twins taking great joy in reading the signs and messages themselves.

I love the candlelight setting on my camera

Santa was AMAZING… his outfit was spectacular, his white gloves pristine. The kids all climbed up… well except Echo who was TOTALLY unsure about the whole thing. The pictures were varied and the expressions wild…

But we picked the one that was the most… well… them…

The official copy

After they chatted and covered all the main Santa related topics: behaviour, wishes, whether or not school was going well (they instantly answered YES!). It was time for buttons.

Once Echo got her buttons she was totally ready for Santa… she gave him a huge hug when he asked. It was ADORABLE. I am so glad I managed to snap a quick picture of that!

Echo and her after hug

After Santa we went over to the giftshop and wrote short letters for Santa.

I actually think is this is my favourite that Ken took of me

That left family photos…

I love the really candid ones

And a chance to snap pictures of some off the old fashioned Christmas card styled wall hangings on the way out.

We also took the ESCALATOR on the way down to the elevator to get us to our parking lot level. Trinity was able to get off solo but needed help getting on. The big surprise was Miss Echo being willing to STAND and ride on a couple escalators (there were like 4 or so).

After such a busy visit with Santa we went over to Calver’s for a delicious and absolutely filling lunch! Amazingly enough we came out with FIVE clean kids!! I am not sure how that happened. Nana took us on an amazing Christmas themed adventure. I am so glad I was able to get pictures through it all!!!

So Merry Almost Christmas!!! and enjoy the rest of the massive number of images!!!

With angel bear

Action hair shot!

Even elves go to school

Bitty chicks

Yes yes on the phone with Trinity doing a selfie

Mood lighting on the phone

Squirrel!

YAY TOGETHER

…and done!!!

December 7-8

With the Candy Cane unit being so short Friday turned into the perfect day to watch a family Christmas favourite – Polar Express! In fact, Emanuel sat through it TWICE! I found a great site with worksheets that I could print out for the kids to use. You can take at peek at those HERE. I love this movie and would totally suggest that EVERYONE make it a part of their Christmas celebrations!!

We HAD TO celebrate our completion of our candy cane unit of course! 

PROUD

Of course, if you are in need of ideas… head over to Activity Village… SERIOUSLY!

Emanuel and his Advent Calendar

Christmas themed!

I have to share some more Art for Kids inspired art! Seriously their instructions are inspired! I have a reindeer one to do this coming week… so be sure to check back for that!

Santa and his elf by Gavin

Oh and a snowman

We also strung together paper chains… such a simple but fun craft to do!

Paperchains

Oh and don’t forget the Lego Santa thanks to Emanuel!

From scratch

We also worked on our Christmas carols… it is so cute to watch them work together!

Sing along

Ken and I took some time in the evening and ran out to do some VERY necessary Christmas themed shopping… had to get some more yarn for projects and start finishing off the bits of shopping for the kids. Leaving the kids to hang with Nana, Baba and their cousins.

Kids at the table

If you are interested in Candy Cane resources HERE is one with some recipes and all. Activity Village has a selection of Candy Cane related crafts HERE.

Saturday went slowly, Echo had a rough night the night before and Trinity and Emanuel woke up with slight fevers… of course with a busy Sunday planned with the Novaks we wanted to take it as easy as possible. Though Trinity, Ken and I did run out to buy new shoes (dress) for Trinity and a new shirt (fancy) for me. Kohl’s with a nice sale going on.

That left the rest of the day to work on the gifts for Sunday…

Echo in the pilfered shoes