Historic Stewart Farm Day 10 Countdown to Christmas

First off...let me tell you about our little Elfie this morning! He must really be missing the North Pole as he is starting to act out a little bit. This morning we awoke to find our tree covered in toilet paper!!! He was so reckless he almost knocked the star off of the top of the tree!

Elfie looks a little smug after toilet papering our tree!

Sierra was not impressed! She was quite concerned that Elfie would waste all that toilet paper and make a big mess. She did not like it on the tree and wanted to remove it right away so carefully we pulled it all of the tree making sure to not disturb Elfie as we surely didn't want him to fall and loose his magic.

When our tree was back to normal we opened our Countdown to Christmas match box which said we were going to Historic Stewart Farm. Today was their open house and admission was by donation. We arrived and took a tour through the farmhouse.

The parlor all ready for Christmas morning

Outside one of the bedrooms

 We got to have some fresh baked cookies but the apple cider wasn't quite ready and my kitchen photos didn't tun out at all.

Off to explore the barn

Holly

Then it was off to do some crafts. First the girls made gingerbread cookies.

And Christmas angels

 And even Pomander balls...daddy made one too...but they took a longggggg time!

Aayla making her pomander ball with the
remains of her cookie all over her face!

Sierra is very proud of her "pumpkin head pomander".
At one point he had legs as well as arms but they made him fall over so she took them off :)

Then we went to mom's for an early supper...she has all her decorations up too. Mom doesn't have a tree anymore as her apartment feels too crowded with one but you can always find the wonderful wreath my brother made for her one year...

A stinky sock wreath

His humorous note inside!

Ahhhh family memories of Christmas pasts :)

Countdown to Christmas Day 9

A fairly quiet day today. We awoke to Elfie visiting with our gnome up on one of the wreaths we made the other day (see THIS post if you want to know how we made the wreath).

This morning it was off to Sierra's school to make gingerbread houses in her class.

Daddy helps to get the roof to stick on

Just one lick of the icing...

Proud of her gingerbread house

Sierra with a couple of her school friends and their gingerbread houses

can you say Candyland???

Our countdown activity was a Christmas movie tonight and we watched 8 Below...I know not really a Christmas movie but it was full of snow, was on TV and Sierra wanted to watch it. We enjoyed it together none the less :)

Red, Green and White Day 8 and our elf on the shelf

Today's matchbox for our countdown to Christmas said it was Red, Green and White for dinner and nails.

We had green spaghetti (cook as normal and add green food colouring), with red sauce and a white cheese star on top and a little side of spinach and tomatoes.

Green milk with white whipped cream and a red cherry

Green and red pudding with white whipped cream and a red cheery for desert (again I used food colouring as I didn't think my girls would like pistachio pudding).

Then after dinner we painted nails with red, green and white nail polish.

Aayla wanted happy faces

Sierra wanted candy cane stripes with a pattern
of green on the top on every other finger???

I didn't take a picture but their toes are white with red hearts <3 

As for Elfie our Elf on the shelf...he had fun building snowmen last night...

Elfie our elf on the shelf builds snowmen

Handmade Christmas Cards and Gift Tags Day 7 countdown to Christmas

Our countdown to Christmas match box today said we were to make Christmas cards and gift tags. I hadn't thought about what to do when I made the activity list and after supper when we opened our matchbox (we usually open them in the morning and then I have all day to plan but we forgot this morning), I had a little panic attack as Sierra asked to use mommies rubber stamps for the cards. I wanted them to be more crafty then just stamps on the card so I am quite pleased with how they turned out since it was a last minute idea.

To make them we cut an 8 1/2" X 11" piece of cream cardstock in half and then folded each half piece in half to make a card.

I lightly drew a line across the card to divide the top from the bottom of the card (so light it's hard to see in the picture). Sierra then used red acrylic paint to put fingerprints on the top half of the card,

and then she painted lines on the bottom half with a paintbrush.

When she had about a dozen done we laid them all off to the side to dry.

While they were drying I used a Santa rubber stamp and black ink to print out Santas on cream cardstock. Then I used a 1 1/2" circle punch to punch out the Santas. I find these easiest to do by stamping the paper first, then turning the punch upside down so I can see the stamped image. This allows a more accurate Santa placement within the circle.

Next Sierra coloured the Santa suit in red with markers while I punched out red circles with a 2" circle punch. The coloured Santas were then glued onto the red circle.

Then we took a piece of ribbon and glue it across the dividing line.

Next we cut off the excess ribbon from the edges and glued the red/white/Santa circle to the right side of the card.

Voila! All done! We also made some snowmen gift tags in a few minutes flat. To make these we punched 2"circle out of white paper with a circle paper punch.

Then the girls drew on a carrot nose and button eyes and mouth.

We punched a small hole and added a ribbon to attach to a gift. On the back we wrote To: and Fr: and left them blank so they would be ready to use for our gift giving.

In other news we found Elfie on a Shelf this morning for the first time since he left his box. He didn't look very comfortable and I am sure he will be glad when we go to bed so he can move somewhere else.

Do you have an Elf on the Shelf? What has your been up to?

Create a Snowman bowling game from recyclables

Aren't these cute little snowmen?

Every week my girls go through these Danimals smoothies like crazy!

And every week they make their way to the recycling bin...but not this week! This week 10 of them turned into a sweet little snowmen bowling game.

Simple to do...just wash, dry and use permanent markers to add on the facial features, buttons, colour the top for the hat, add on arms or any way you want to decorate them.

When finished adding the snowman features, set all 10 up by placing one in the front, the next row has two, the third row has 3 and the last row has 4.

Now crumble a large piece of paper up to be the "snowball" bowling ball and toss away.

You can also try stacking them. A different way to play and a great way to build fine motor muscles and hand eye coordination.

Tired of bowling? Line them all up for a fun math activity.

Try one of these poems to work on Math skills.

10 Happy Snowmen (Tune 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed...original author unknown)

10 Happy snowmen riding on a sled,

1 fell off and bumped his head.

Frosty called the doctor and the doctor said,

"no more snowmen riding on the sled"!

(Continue down to 0)

No happy snowmen riding on a sled,

None fell off to bump their heads.

Frosty called the doctor and the doctor said,

"Put those snowmen back on the sled"!

10 Little Snowmen (tune Mary had a Little Lamb...original author unknown)

10 Little snowmen dancing all around, dancing all around, dancing all around,

10 Little snowmen dancing all around, then the sun came out and one melted to the ground.

Continue until all the snowmen have melted. Then if you want for the last line you can say, "don't worry...they'll all be back tomorrow".