Library Advent Follow Up

As I wrote in this post, we do a library advent calendar every night leading up to Christmas beginning with December 1st. Not being particularly knowledgeable when it comes to Children's literature, this has been a learning experience! As I mentioned, we do a mix and match of books about the Christmas season in general (winter, Santa, etc) and then we start zeroing in on Jesus as the day gets closer. The kids call these "Jesus books" and "non-Jesus books," so that's how I have referred to them below. Here are a few of my favorite titles:

Non-Jesus Books:

Santa Duck by David Pilgrim

This book was super cute and fun. I enjoyed the artwork and it was a $1 in the Scholastic Book Order, so bonus there! Brother especially loved this book.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Brett Hellquist

I actually ordered this one after we had started our advent, but it's definitely going in the rotation for next year. It's unabridged, so the language will require some explaining, but the artwork is SPECTACULAR! I took it to school and read it to my 7th graders. I may or may not have cried during the reading.

The Nutcracker from the story by E. T. A. Hoffman, illustrated by Valeria Docampo

Every year, my niece dances in the Nutcracker, and every year, I'm like, "What the heck is going on?" I don't get it, so I don't know how to explain it to my kids. So this year, we ordered this book. It was $9 something, but totally worth it because it is BEAUTIFUL. This one has been repeated already!

There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow by Lucille Colander, illustrated by Jared Lee

We loved There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves, so when we saw this one in the Scholastic Book Order ($2), I knew it was a must-have for our advent library. One thing I love about these books and the others like it is that Sister can "read" this book pretty much by herself since the book follows a pattern. As Brother reads every other book, it's nice to have one she can do herself.

Jesus Books:

The Birth of Jesus Activity Book

Sorry for the horizontal pic :)

I bought two of these for $2.99 at Hobby Lobby so each of the kids could complete their own. Inside are stickers, dot-to-dots, mazes, and much more, all revolving around the Christmas story. This was fun and a nice break from just reading.

The First Christmas Night by Keith Christopher, illustrated by Christine Kornacki

This book was also $1 in the Scholastic Book Order, but this one surprised me, because rather than simply telling the story of the first Christmas, it followed the pattern of "The Night Before Christmas" poem. So rather than:

Twas the night before Christmas/When all through the house/Not a creature was stirring/Not even a mouse

it was:

Twas the very first Christmas/When all through the town/Not a creature was stirring/There was not a sound

We had just read the other night before Christmas a few nights before and the kids made the connection. It was fun.

The Big God Story by Michelle Anthony, illustrated by Cory Godbey

I LOVED this one. I got it as part of the literature that came along with the spiritual parenting class I took at church this rotation. I hadn't read it through until we did it with the kids a few nights ago. It tells the "whole" story of scripture, beginning in the garden and ending with the promise that Jesus will return. It is fantastic, and definitely one we will pull out often.

The Tale of Three Trees retold by Angela Ewell Hunt, illustrated by Tim Jonke

I have had this book since I was young and it makes me tear up every time, especially hearing my son read it this year. It tells the story of three trees and the big dreams they had, only to be cut down to form a manger, a boat, and a cross. It was so special to listen to Brother read it and make the connections - "Hey, that's the boat Jesus was in when he calmed the storm!" "That's the manger they laid Jesus in when he was born!" It was precious. This is another one we will read all year long.

What fun this has been! I'm already looking forward to next year :)

Library Advent

Last year, I tried something I read about on Pinterest - a library Advent calendar. Each night of December leading up to Christmas, the kids open a wrapped book. The book can be anything, but I chose books that were mostly Christmas or winter-themed, with a few of our favorites thrown in. This year, my selection is as follows:

This year, since I had more than a few weeks to prepare, I collected all year. I also bought a few new books from the Scholastic book order that came home with Brother. We are not Santa people, but we do treat Santa like other fictional characters in our household, so we do have a few Santa books. However, most of our Christmas books focus on the actual story of Christmas - Jesus. The books in the pile above are arranged so that the books in the front will be first and the books in the back will be last. The last week's worth of books are all about Jesus.

Last weekend, I got them all wrapped, and tomorrow night we will open our first book!

We also have another special Christmas count-down tradition at our house. Last year, I saw this picture on Pinterest and asked my mom if she could make something like it:

Challenge accepted...and guess what? Her's is WAY better than the Pinterest version!

So every night, we move the marker closer and closer to Bethlehem, until, on Christmas morning, it finally arrives. We bring out Baby Jesus and stick him in the manger. And then we read our last Christmas book, which is all about that day!

Charlie Brown Christmas

My son likes Charlie Brown. He's also almost five. So when I heard that our local theater was putting on a production of:

I told my mom about it. And being the lover of theatre that she is (not to mention the awesome grandma she is), she offered to take us both. And Charlie came prepared.

I was the slightest bit nervous about how he would do, only because this was his first time at a stage production. I wasn't really sure what to expect either, as I had never been to this smaller kids theatre. But I used to go to high school with the director, and I knew the show was going to be great. As the music started and the adults dressed as kids came onto the stage, it was clear that Charlie was going to have no problems paying attention.

It was quite short (wise, I believe as the audience was probably 50% fidgety kids and 50% nervous adults) and at the end, the actors came back onto the stage and lead the audience in a Christmas carol sing-along. They waved at the kids, and Charlie waved back, swinging his stuffe Charlie Brown in the air so they could see it. They smiled and waved at him enthusiastically, which put an even bigger grin on his face. Afterword, the actors came out to meet the kids.

Of course he had to meet Charlie Brown, show him his Charlie Brown, and tell him he had a sister at home named Lucy. And then of course, we had to get a picture with Lucy.

It was a great, unique way to celebrate Christmas and introduce Charlie to theatre! Thanks, Gigi!

Thanksgiving as a Foreigner

I have mentioned our involvement with international students before. This year we have been partnered with Yukie, a super sweet girl from China. We have eaten Chinese food, gone to church, cooked out, done dinner at a restaurant, taken her for ice cream on her birthday:

And all around really enjoyed getting to know her this semester. Charlie especially. He talks about Yukie all the time. He calls her "tiny," which is actually a very appropriate name!

Tonight, we went to the Thanksgiving banquet at our church. As Thanksgiving is an American holiday, this was new for her. As we drove to the church, she asked many questions.

Yukie: What sort of food do you eat?
Me: Well, the traditional meat is turkey. Do you eat turkey?
Yukie: No. Where do turkeys live? On farms?
Me: Turkeys live in the wild. I see them on the way to school a lot. But I'm sure there are turkey farmers too. (right?)
Yukie: Ah.
Me: We also eat mashed potatoes. Have you ever had those?
Yukie: No. What's that?
Me: It's where you peel and boil potatoes and then you mash them. Most people add butter and milk and then pour gravy on top.
Yukie: What's gravy?
Me: Um...(because how do you describe gravy?) it's sort of like a sauce that you pour on top. I don't like it myself, but most people do. Some people will do sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving. They are orange.
Yukie: Who cooks in the family?
Me: Well, in my family, it's my mom and Rick's mom. Whoever the woman whose house we are gathering in is the woman to make the bulk of the meal.
Yukie: (getting excited) That is how it is at home! My grandmother always makes all the food.
Me: What kinds of food does she make?
Yukie: Rice and noodles.
Me: Any meat?
Yukie: Mmm...sometimes. Pork or chicken. What did you eat when you were in China?
Me: Donkey and mutton!
*laughter

These are the sorts of conversations I really enjoy. It was fun to find some common ground amidst a tradition that is very American. When we got to the church, that girl LOADED her plate and said she liked everything! We discussed the term "potluck" (though I couldn't really explain where the term came from) and talked about how, when you have big groups of people, this is often what Americans do to feed everyone. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready for dessert, all the pumpkin pie was gone. I told her she HAD to have pumpkin pie before she left to go back home next month. She is leaving later this week to go to Chicago...they will have some pumpkin pie there, right?

Halloween

I may have said this once or twice before. I HATE Halloween. I always have. Part of this is due to the fact that I didn't really celebrate it as a kid. We dressed up, but we always came home and watched The Wizard of Oz. My parents didn't want us out Trick or Treating (which I didn't understand then but I understand now), so I never really got the obsession with the holiday.

Enter me having kids and...I LOVE Halloween!

We started back in August. Charlie decided on Spiderman. I turned to my good friend Lindsey, because I know she has every superhero costume there is. Sure enough, she had one. It had a hole in it so I took it to my mom, who repaired the hole...and then took the whole thing apart so she could reinforce all the seems.  That's my mom.

Lucy's costume was more difficult. I had purchased a used ladybug set right after she was born (it was SO cute and a good deal), but it needed a shirt. A leotard would have been perfect, but the only place I could find one was Amazon, which I really didn't want to do, but ended up having to do anyway. So Lucy was a ladybug.

Our neighborhood does a super cute little Halloween parade and the cousins come over, so we always try to get some pictures:

We also celebrated by visiting the pumpkin patch in Lawrence with Grandma and Uncle Steven:

My children were particularly fascinated by the chickens

Carving and painting pumpkins:

Having a party and parade at school:

The night before...read about these bad boys here!

Morning of...they were SO excited!

AWWWWWWWWWWW!

And visiting Grandparents on Halloween night.

It was a fun time! Now Charlie is talking nonstop about Christmas :)

The Quest for a Cheap, Easy, and Sugary Halloween Snack

I love Charlie's preschool for so many reasons, but one is that when they have parties, they have parents sign up to bring healthy treats or unhealthy treats.

Since I am such a fun, super hip mom, I go with the unhealthy every time.

Twice a year (for their birthdays), I hire a girl from church to make cupcakes however the kids want. (Side note: holler if you want her contact info - she is super talented and affordable!) Last year Charlie wanted pirates:

 And this year we did ladybugs for Miss Lucy:

And as much as I wanted to call and order custom cupcakes again, I really felt like I should be able to do this on my own. So I scoured Pinterest and found this. It looked easy enough. All I needed to do was get donuts, vampire teeth and chocolate chips. How hard could it be? Well, it turns out that two days before Halloween, Michaels, Party America, Walgreens, and Target had NO vampire teeth. I finally found some at Dillon's (I was giving up after Dillon's, btw), so tonight after Lucy went to bed, Charlie and I got to work:

 I bought the day-old donuts and saved $5!

I love the way they turned out, but more importantly, so did Charlie!

The 4th

I love the 4th of July.  For me, it's Christmas, and then the 4th of July.  I LOVE it.  And when we moved to this neighborhood, the morning of the 4th got a whole lot more fun because they do a parade.  A BIG one - so big, it was featured on national news as one of the top ten "small town" (even though our neighborhood isn't really a town) parades in the nation.  It's pretty fun, if I do say so!

We have people over for breakfast and then we sit and watch the parade from our front lawn.  Last year, I made a bunch of different things for breakfast.  This year, I decided to make pancakes and CRAFTS.

I am not a craft person, and there's a reason for that.  I like the way they look, but I hate the time they take and I hate actually doing them.  But last year I made this wreath:

And I figured this was the year for some crafty stuff since it's summer and I have plenty of time!  So I started looking around on Pinterest (which I generally don't like) and found a few cheap ideas.  One was this:

It's a wind blower thing made out of strips cut from plastic table cloths.  It was fun and I got enough materials to be able to make with the kids.  The second undertaking was:

Being someone who hates to craft and hates to use fine motor skills, I immediately went to my mom for help on these.  So she gets credit for, like, 90% of this.  I did paint a few and did the stars on a few.  But Charlie gets credit for the "fireworks" that went inside:

You paint a coffee filter, cut slits all around it, poke a pipe cleaner through it, secure, and voila! Cheap, cute, decorations!

I called that good.  I decided to make only pancakes this year...until my dad brought over some old bananas and I found raspberries and blackberries in the freezer.  So I made pancakes and "Star Spangled Banana Bread."

We had a lovely array of food, including Patriotic Puppy Chow, Old Glory Cinnamon Rolls, and Red, White, and Blue cake.  It was fun. :)

And then, there was the parade!

This is the view from our lawn in both directions down the street.  I've got to say, I'm sure glad I live on the park and don't have to worry about parking and getting to it.

And can we have a moment for this woman playing in the band with her baby strapped to her chest?  That's dedication.

Lucy and I had a great time on the lawn watching the parade.  I managed to catch these two pictures nearly back to back before the parade started:

Funny girl.  And isn't that the cutest dress ever?  Love it.

The parade is always full of military vehicles, kids on bikes and in wagons, and emergency vehicles like fire trucks, and politicians.  One liberal politician stopped to give a sucker to Lucy.  My uber-conservative father-in-law had a thing or two to say about that. :)  But my FAVORITE display was this one:

That's my niece pulling my son and nephew.  They ran out of candy so they just waved a lot.  It was adorable.

As always, it was a great time! Thanks to all who came!