Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 12

This is our first year in the Charlotte, NC area for Christmas. To the west of Charlotte is a small town called McAdenville which calls itself "Christmas Town U.S.A." Every year they go all out to decorate their town with tons of lights. Tonight was the night we went to view these beautiful lights!

There were so many lights and also a lot of traffic. I'm glad we decided to go on a weekday instead of the weekend because I'm sure the traffic would have been much worse.

It was a nice drive, the lights were beautiful. It wasn't anything spectacular, just a whole town decorated with lights, but they really were pretty to look at and the perfect place to go "drive through the neighborhood to see lights" if you like to do that with your family. I know the girls really enjoyed the lights and the best part is it's free!

Wondering what the joke was for today?

What Christmas carol is a favorite of parents?

Silent night

(tee hee, of course the girls don't get it...)

Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 11

Today the girls were supposed to write letters to Santa. They put the letters under the tree and the elf takes them to Santa. Getting Charlotte to write when she doesn't want to is like pulling teeth. I don't normally force it on her so I just asked her periodically throughout the day what she wanted to write to Santa. Finally, she told me what to write so she could copy it herself. I left her alone to write her letter and soon she came out with her letter all folded up in a tiny square and placed it under the tree.
After she was asleep we peeked at the letter and found that instead of writing the letter herself she just folded up the letter I wrote.
That girl is a little sneaky sneak.
I found the letter she originally wrote on the kitchen table, she had ran out of room on her paper and probably got frustrated but, instead of asking me for help she decided to pass off my letter as her own.
Well, now she is going to have to write Santa an apology. Age five is going to make me lose my mind.

I will update with her reaction and the new letter when she does it.

Today's hi-larious joke

What does a cat on a beach have in common with Christmas?

Sandy claws!

Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 10

For day 10 we did a very simple craft. Contact paper and tissue paper chains. We make paper chains every year but this year we decided to make them using just contact paper (which is sticky clear paper that people use to line their shelves or quickly laminate items) and tissue paper.

Just lay the contact paper (sticky side up) on the table and stick tissue paper to it, once you're done cover with another sheet of contact paper.

Here is Lexi's finished collage. Neither of the girls wanted to use the Christmas-y colors I set out for them and that's alright with me, as long as they enjoyed working on their craft.

 Once you have the second sheet of contact paper on top cut the collage into strips to make links

 Then, start making links!

 Today was yucky and cloudy, I can't wait to see how the chain looks with the light shining through it!

Today's joke was:

What do elves learn in school?

The elf-abet

Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 9

Today for day 9, I made the girls Christmas themed play dough. If you haven't made play dough for your kids before you are missing out. It is so easy. Flour, water, oil, salt. Some recipes use cream of tartar, I used a recipe without. Once you have your base dough you can add whatever your heart desires!

For our Christmas themed dough I made gingerbread scented (with spices), red peppermint scented (with extract), blue with glitter, and plain green dough.

A rolling pin, cookie cutters, and various beads and buttons were set out and the girls got busy creating.

They spent quite a few hours creating, destroying, and creating again.

Alexis was so proud of her green blobby snowman

Eventually, all the play dough ended up mushed together into a big blue-green blob. The girls don't mind though. I put the leftover dough in a zipping plastic bag and it will be good to play with for a couple weeks!

We chuckled over this joke while playing with play dough

Who is the cheekiest reindeer?

Rude-olph

Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 8

Yesterday we made peppermint marshmallows so tonight we put them to good use in our cocoa. It was cocoa and movie night!

Our cocoa mix is ridiculously easy, all it is is unsweetened cocoa and sugar with a pinch of salt (if desired) we use about 1-2 tbsp with a cup of warm milk and voila! Hot cocoa without all the added junk of whatever is in prepackaged cocoa.

These are the girls' cocoa mugs, I picked them up last year at Walmart for a few bucks. I just love the Santa but he is a bit hard to drink out of.

The best thing about homemade marshmallows is how they melt. They leave a frothy sweet coating on the top of the cocoa, it is so delicious!

The girls drinking their cocoa and watching Home Alone for the first time. They didn't really get into it until the very end when all the good stuff happens, maybe in a few more years...

Now on to the joke

What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire?

Frostbite

Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 7

Day 7 is my favorite activity on the calendar every year. Homemade marshmallows. Sure I can make marshmallows every day of the week but I usually only use them in my cocoa and we usually only have cocoa when it's cold outside.
Every year the girls are more and more involved in everything we do. Soon Char will be making the marshmallows by herself and all I'll have to do is eat all of them :)

Making marshmallows is so easy, there are tons of recipes online to choose from. I love Martha Stewart's Candy-Cane Marshmallow recipe, it uses egg whites which is an extra step but there are many others that don't require egg whites.

Now that Char is older I can trust her to constantly stir the boiling sugar until the temp reaches the perfect temperature, in this case 260 degrees.

Egg whites, gelatin, and sugar mixture that's been whipping for about 15 minutes. It gets really fluffy!

The girls worked together to swirl in the red food coloring. Lexi loved swirling the color, she did a great job!

 After the marshmallows set up, cut them into desired shape and size and coat them in powdered sugar. They are extremely sticky!! Coat your knife in sugar or cooking spray too or it will stick to the marshmallows.

 Now we have a whole gallon size bag filled with peppermint marshmallows to use throughout winter! Yummmmmmm!!

 The joke of the day (for those of you wondering)

What falls but never hurts itself?

Snow!

Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 6

Today for day 6 we went to our homeschool group's Christmas party. The girls and I had a blast. I love our homeschool group and feel very fortunate to live in an area where there are tons of things to do and see and there are a lot of other homeschoolers in the area to do it with!

There were lots of things to do at the party: play games, make crafts, eat food, sing karaoke, chat and play with friends, have a present exchange, and most important the cookie exchange!

Today's joke was

What did one angel say to the other?

Halo there!

Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 5

Today is my birthday and the only thing I wanted was for my girls to take a nice picture with Santa.
Both girls received new shirts from the elf and they were so excited to tell Santa what they want for Christmas.
As soon as it was their turn, Lexi happily sat on Santa's lap and Char decided to get all five year old defiant on me and didn't sit on Santa's lap.
So I got a sweet picture of just Lexi on Santa's lap. I'll miss Charlotte in the picture but I'm definitely not going to force her to do something she doesn't want to do.
ahhhh *sigh*

Today's chuckle was

How much did Santa pay for his sleigh?

Nothing, it was on the house!

(This joke only works if your kids understand the meanings of "on the house")

Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 4

Making cookies was on the agenda for day 4. We have a Christmas party coming up and there will be a cookie exchange. We will also have another baking day closer to Christmas day so that we can set cookies out for Santa. Two cookies were on the menu, double chocolate and pumpkin cranberry oatmeal. Charlotte loves baking, Lexi does too. Doesn't it always seem the pictures are all of Charlotte? Lexi is my mover and my shaker, 98% of my photos of her are blurry. 

 The cookies came out delicious! Hope everyone at the Christmas party likes them!!

While we were baking we laughed about this joke

What do snowmen eat for breakfast?

Frosted Flakes

Christmas Countdown 2012: Day 3

Day 3 is here!

We're making a wreath out of handprints! Something so simple and we've never done it before! The girls loved doing it. They are all about getting messy so I knew it would be a hit. The only part Lexi was interested in was printing her hands, she let Char take care of the rest. Cutting, gluing, glittering, and dotting with "berries".

The finished wreath is hanging in our living room on the door. I love it! I think it looks so festive, I hope it lasts for a long time, the little hand prints are so cute.

Oh, have you heard the joke of the day?
Here it is!

What's the best thing to give your parents for Christmas?

A list of everything you want!