I took a few "mental health days" through the middle of this week thanks to a deep depressive downswing in my lovely bipolar cycling, but I hit the upswing again last night, so we played catch-up for the past few days of our Advent activities. On the 4th day, the Advent activity read: "4. Decorate all the doors in the house with wrapping paper!" The kids couldn't WAIT to do that. Here's Chloë helping wrap her door...
... and standing front of her finished door. (As an aside, I cannot wait until her hair grows back in more!!)
We worked on Jack's door next. They each got to choose their own paper from Mom's stash, and this is what he liked best.
They each were allowed to pick their own ribbons from my stash as well, and as you can see, he was quite enthralled with the results of his door!
Southpaw Sophie's door was last. (We may do the rest of the doors in the house... or we may not. I haven't decided. Time's flying this month, so we'll see!) See those purple-handled scissors of mine in her hand? She's FOREVER stealing them from me, because they're the only ones that work well for Her Lefty-ness. I really ought to buy a nice pair of lefty scissors for the poor girl...
It was no surprise to me when she picked the Hello Kitty holiday paper. My girls LOVE HK, but lately Sophia is all about it. They absolutely loved their doors, so that activity was a win!
The 5th day's Advent activity read: "5. Make glittery snowflakes to hang around the house!"
I got this craft from the Daily Spoonful (formerly Disney's Family Fun website), specifically here. I chose that instead of the glittery ones I'd originally planned on doing, because, I'll be honest, I didn't feel like dealing with glitter all over the house, and I thought these would be fast, fun, and easy. Surprisingly, though, the younger the child, the more difficulty they had making these. It's definitely a parental-help project, with more input from me than I expected. You never know!
In the end, the four of us only ended up making eight snowflakes (two per), before the kids decided they'd rather move on to the next craft and maybe make some more snowflakes at a later date. Fine by moi. (P.S. Fiskars cheapy shaped scissors don't work so well with these snowflakes; we broke two pairs, dangit!)
The kids LOVED the effect of their hung snowflakes and declared it a "winter wonderland!"
I love the look on Jack's face in both pictures, and the girls' in the latter, which is why I'm including both! You can't quite get the feel for the final effect, but you get the idea. So fun. Another WIN for this project!
(By the by, please don't look at the background in any of my indoor photos. We have never fully moved into this house, and we have unpacked boxes and general disarray all over the place. It's driving me cray-cray, which albeit is a short trip, but I'm counting down the weeks now until our move outta here! Back to Advent...)
The 6th day's Advent activity reads: "6. Make Toilet Paper roll candlesticks craft!" which I got from the Daily Spoonful site here. (Their photo is above. Parents and grandparents: I highly recommend this site for kid-friendly crafts, recipes, and s'more good stuff, if you haven't had a chance to peruse it yet.)
Anyway, our glue is still drying on our tubes, which, rather than being toilet paper and paper towel tubes, ended up being one long cut up wrapping paper tube. Someone got rid of my stash of tubes that I'd been saving for this stash, and when I went to get it last night, 'tweren't there. Hello, chagrin, thy name is Smellyann. So I unrolled the emptiest wrapping paper tube and chopped that up into different lengths. Whatever works, right? I will show you that finished project on the next Advent-ure update, since we haven't been able to finish it yet.
To add to the Christmas decoratin' that's happening 'round these parts, I broke out the cats' new embroidered stockings (picked up on the super-cheap from Vistaprint) and hung - okay, more tape - them on a clear wall. The kids wanted to know, what about our stockings? Umm... yeah, they're still at the old house. Hopefully we'll get them out before Christmas Eve, because I have things to put in them, and opening them is a tradition for that night!
Stay tuned for more Advent-ures, 2012! We've got big fun planned for this weekend!
Fin.