Crafty post #2: Hand ornaments

This one I found on Pinterest.  These are so simple and cute.  We made these on Thursday.

What I used:
small red glass ball ornaments
green paint
permanent marker
baby wipes for cleaning the paint off of their hands

How I did it:
I used the marker to write their names and "2012" on them before putting the handprints on them.  I did Meg's first because she was in a good mood (or so I thought).  I strapped her into James' booster seat and put a big bib on her.  I painted her hand with green paint and had her hold the ornament.  She is a little young for this one.  James was way easier because I could tell him to put his fingers around it and let go.  Her's are very messy, but still pretty cute.  She also cried at least half the time.  The baby wipes worked great for cleaning their hands after.  I don't think we got paint on anything we weren't supposed to.  James had so much fun.  It went pretty fast and he wanted to do more but I didn't have any more ornaments.

New pictures

In case you haven't seen, I posted a bunch of pictures from November today.  Link: https://plus.google.com/photos/112839565689445992474/albums/5816245875559189281

Our Advent Tree/Calendar (first of my crafty posts)

As I said in my last post, James was given a book of Christmas crafts and I'm planning on doing one Christmas activity per week until we leave for VA.  This week we made an Advent calendar.  I didn't follow the book exactly, but pretty close.

What I used:

12" x 18" cardboard

4 pieces scrapbook paper (2 matching blue, one brown, one green)

20 small boxes (most advent calendars have 24 but we're leaving on the 20th)

wrapping paper

scissors, glue stick, marker, tape

How I made it: 

Glue the blue scrapbook paper onto the cardboard.  Cut out the tree and trunk and glue it on.  Wrap all the boxes in wrapping paper.  This took the longest time.  The book recommends matchboxes.  I didn't have enough of those so I used whatever small boxes I could find.  Matchboxes would have been easier because you can slide them open after wrapping them.  But they are also very short which limits what you can put in them.  I took them in another room to stuff and number them so that J wouldn't see what is in them.  I stuffed them with M&Ms and little nativity ornaments.  There is a special treat on his birthday and on the last day.  J helped me tape them to the tree.  Every day in December he'll get to find the right number and get a treat and put up an ornament.  The great part about having the mini nativity ornaments in there is that we can talk about  a different part of the Christmas story each day.  

Christmas has arrived!

We've already celebrated Christmas with the Atkinson, Jrs.  My family will be going to Virginia for Christmas this year and Trey's will be with Amy's family, so we had Thanksmas this year.  Thursday we had our Thanksgiving meal and did Thanksgiving stuff.  Then Friday we put up a tree, ate our Christmas meal, read Luke 2, and opened presents.  It was super fun.  Because I knew we'd be starting Christmas early, we decorated the tree at our house before Thanksgiving.

James got to help pick out ornaments and put them on the tree.

We also wrapped presents that week, of course.  I let James help me with the last few.

I'm going to try to do something Christmasy with James every week until we leave for VA.  I have a book of Christmas crafts and activities that has some great ideas.  We've already done one this week.  I'll be posting about that one soon.  see book here: http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Crafts-Sesame-Street-Parragon/dp/1445407884/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1354201155&sr=8-6&keywords=sesame+street+christmas+crafts+book

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star by James

Twinkle, little star
How I whatchu whatchu are
Up above the sky
Twinkle, little star
How I whatchu whatchu are
Up above the whatchu are
Twinkle, little star
How I whatchu whatchu are

And The Itsy Bitsy Spider:
The itsy bitsy pider went up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed the pider out
Down came the rain and washed the pider out
Down came the rain and washed the pider out
Down came the rain and washed the pider out
Down came the rain and washed the pider out
...

Chickens have teeth!

   James loves to tell stories.  I encourage him as often as I can.  He tells stories about what he has done, seen, or heard, or just makes them up.  He just told me a story about shooting at a buck as Matt was telling an incredibly similar story to Trey over the phone.  As Matt would add details, James would feed me the same details in a very excited and convincing way.  Yesterday after his bath he was laying on the floor while I put lotion on his legs.  I was telling him that I had to put stuff on his legs because of his eczema.  I think he may have heard eggs-ema because he started talking about chickens:
James Mom
   "the chickens get me"  "they get you?"  "yes, they have teeth and they get me!"  "where was this?"  "at the FARM!"  "what farm?" "over there...in the new car...(or something like that)...and Christian's mom open the gate"  "Mrs Kelli?"  "no, Christian's mom"  "Kelli."  "no, Christian's mom!" (whose name is Kelli)  "so, Christian's mom opened the gate"  "yes, Christian's mom open the gate and the chickens get my fingers"
   It was quite a story.  It was longer than that, but it's hard remembering all the rambling and putting it into comprehensible phrases.  I had no idea where he came up with all this.  To my knowledge, he hadn't gone to see any chickens lately, especially with Kelli and Christian (his friend from camp).  I told Matt this story and he laughed the whole way through.  Afterwards, he told me that James really did go see chickens with Kelli and Christian.  That was while I was at my conference September 27th, nearly two weeks ago!
   Oh, and Megan said Mama!  It was more like Muhmuh, but I'll take it.  :)

And the little one said, "roll over!"

Our baby girl is 3 months old today.  Two days ago, she roller over for the first time...right in front of my face!  It was during tummy time and I was taking a picture of her trying to roll over when suddenly she was on her back.  If only I had been recording it.  She mostly sleeps through the night now.  She and James go to bed between 7:30 and 8.  She wakes up around 4:30-5 and James gets up about 6:30 most mornings.  Her naps during the day are less consistent.  We're working on that.  She's waking up again now so...bye!