Wordless Wednesday

Christmas Activity Day 6

I had a lunch date with some friends I used to work with on Thursday and Matthew spent the day at grandma and grandpa's house. Grandma Denise went and got an ornament to paint for Matthew, but he was not in the mood that day. Something tells me that her new-to-him selection of movies and the iPad were a distraction from craft time. But, once we got home, he was quite happy to strategize about what day painting this ornament could be our Christmas activity. Day 6 it is! We had a lot of fun with this one. First he chose background colors for each side and then used sponge stamps to do a different design on each. He likes the sponge "dotter" and so that was one side and the other was a star. He finished it off with glitter paint "so it would sparkle." We stopped by to take grandpa dinner and Matthew made sure that we got to take the ornament in the car so we could show it off when we got there.

Christmas Activity Day 5

Our tree has been up for a week or so, but we hadn't had an afternoon to devote to the ornaments yet. It's always one of my favorite days of the year. We are ornament collectors and often bring home one or two from vacation adventures. I love to get them out and think about the places were were when we got them or the place in our lives we were when they were given to us. Some highlights this year were pulling out our "parents-to-be" ornament from 2006, and the first Christmas ornaments for each of the boys. Owen and I also fondly remembered our Seattle weekend where we OD'd on crablegs and spent a lot of time imagining that of all the cities we visited, that was one we could live in.

Sammy liked the balls the best (of course!) and Matthew had a great time proclaiming that all the Batman ornaments that Owen has collected were his. He also really liked one corner of the tree and concentrated all his hanging there. Since then, he has reconsidered and moved his ornaments around a bit.

Sammy taking a break to plant a kiss on Daddy.

Christmas Activity Day 3

The cookie - hardly even time for a picture.

Friday night we went to our local arts center for a holiday craft event. Sammy wasn't feeling well, so he stayed home with grandma and Matthew had a great date with Mom and Dad. The event was really well run and fun. We made pop up Christmas cards, painted ornaments, made a "popper" that Matthew can't wait to open on Christmas morning, and the highlight was painting cookies with frosting and eating them. Actually, I lie. The highlight was eating the cookies covered in frosting. In fact, I barely got Matthew to consent to put any frosting on it before it was in his tummy.

We followed that up with a First Friday trip to the art gallery to see Aunt Meghan's new work. All in all, a very fun and arty night!

Sunny Day (Thank Goodness!)

Oh, how lovely it was to have a sunny day where we could play outside (albeit bundled up) for a little while. Unfortunately our favorite time of day happens to be when it's most shady on our driveway, but 30 minutes of fresh air was just what Dr. Mom ordered!

Christmas Activity Day 1

We are doing a fun Christmas activity every day this month. I am hopeful that this will help us cope with the fact that Mommy is a weather weenie and has a hard time being outside when it's very cold out. So far, Matthew is digging it. I really am too.

The finished product!

Day 1 was making a paper chain. Matthew did this craft nearly all on his own. I'm so impressesed with how far his scissor work has come along in the last couple of months. Especially since it was only a couple of weeks ago when Miss Kitra at preschool told me that he was frustrated with not being able to cut on the lines and wanted to quit.

We hung it on the staircase railing and are having a great time tearing one link off each day and counting down until Christmas.