Just Add Stickers

The day is finally here! The kids had a blast and bow we are spending a quiet day at home as a family, enjoying games, fun and classic Christmas movies! Wishing everyone a very merry Craftmas!

1 more sleep! And we had no cookies for Santa, so it was baking day! We made gingerbread creations! We made people and among us guys and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future and ghosts from among us and some of Little Misses creations throw in there too.  At the end of the day Santa got cookies (a ghost and a Santa) spaghetti (Little Man's tradition from when he was actually little) a vitamin D gummy (Little Miss decided that Santa should have some vitamins) 8 peices of carrot (so the reindeer don't have to share) and a rapid Covid test (because we all need to stay safe!) Wishing you a Safe and Merry Christmas!

Today is the last day of e-learning before the Christmas holidays. Our first activity today was to make Christmas pictures out of shapes. Using foam sheets with sticky backs, I cut out the shapes. I cut out enough shapes to make a Christmas tree, decorations, snowmen and gift boxes.  This activity is great to practice, shape recognition, counting and making patterns.  Once we were done making pictures we peeled.off the backing and made a nice picture. Tomorrow is the first official day of our Christmas vacation and Christmas Eve! Only 2 more sleeps!

At the kid's school, the week before Christmas is theme week! There are theme days all week. There's a pj day, checkered shirt and wool socks day, Christmas shirt day, Christmas hat day and Christmas character day. Even though, we are learning from home this week we're still dressing up for theme days (and I love a good theme day!) For Christmas character day. Little man dresses up as a Snowman going in vacation. A snowman in sunglasses and shorts. I glued a felt carrot onto an old pair of sunglasses.  Little Miss was a Christmas princess, her costume was all dollar store finds and I was Rudolph, mostly to make Little Miss laugh. It was a fun little activity in the week leading up to Christmas. Only 3 more sleeps!

Well, we got the news that there was a positive Covid case in Little Man's class so we are back to e-learning until the Christmas break.   Little Man has his Google Classroom but I am taking care of Little Misses activities for the week.  In honor of winter solstice we started by making snowflakes. Each snowflake had 6 arms with 5 beads on each. It was a great counting exercise, Little Miss was able to make piles if 5 beads.  what you need: • Pipe cleaner • Blue, purple and white beads (we added some pink in there) • Wool or twine to hang the stars What to do 1. Cut each pipecleaner in half. For each snowflake you will need three peices.  2. Attach the three pipecleaner halves by twisting them together in the middle. There will be a middle knot with 6 pipe cleaner branches 3. Add 5 beads per pipecleaner branch. Twist the end of the pipecleaner and inserting it in the last bead 4. Thread the wool through one branch of the snowf...

I love my Happy Planner! My sister got me started a few years ago and now we both ask for Happy Planners for Christmas.  I use it for more than planning, I use it for journaling and a little bit of art journaling as well.  This is a little doodle I did for Christmas. I love using a combination of stickers (no surprise there) with finetip markers and water colour markers.

I watch a lot of movies during the holidays, most are classics and some are my guilty pleasures, Hallmark Christmas movies.  Mixing genres, watching Die Hard with my Hallmark Movie Watching cup! My go to movies include: Little Woman (1994 version) The Grinch (all versions and the boom and the aidiobook) Romeo and Juliet (1997 version, I realize it's not an actual Christmas movie but I got the soundtrack for Christmas one year and I got the movie VHS thenext year so it always reminds me of Christmas) A Christmas Carol (1954 or the muppets but the real version only on Christmas Eve) Happy movie watching!

Today was baking day! I always make an old family favorite cookie recipe, a new deasert recipe and a recipe I borrowed from my mother-in-law. All I need now is a blue dessert recipe!  This year's treats are candy cane cookies (which are sugar cookies shaped liked candy canes, no actual candy cane flavour) a new recipe for Christmas Crack and chocolate cherry squares.  We're ready to eat some, gift some and hopefully save some for Santa. 

Little Miss is at the age where she's all about the Letter to Santa. This year, she drew Santa a picture, wrote her own name on the bottom and had me write her list out for her. She even taped a piece of her favorite wrapping paper, the Peppa Pug Christmas paper of course. She created this little masterpiece for Santa, it was so sweet.  When we were little we always wrote our letters in the basement in front of the fireplace. We would write our letters using the Wish Book, we would cut out the pictures or write the page numbers. When we were done we would throw them in the fireplace and the peices would fly up to the North Pole. I have no idea who came up with that tradition but it's what we did.

Well, I'm done my school semester! I have 2 days before the kids are on Christmas vacation. Oh so much to do! But It's my favorite time of the year! I guess it's officially the 16th but it’s early in the morning so I'm going to count this as Day 15.

This is another one of our family traditions. Every year I make a family Christmas card, yes I am one of those people. I keep them all and place them on the mantelpiece. I love seeing the reminders of Christmases past. I love seeing their toothless baby smiles, and chubby little toddler cheeks.  It reminds me of Christmas Eves and unwrapping Christmas presents. It feels like a little time-line of our family history.

  This is my birthday and Christmas tradition I like to do with the kids. Since my birthday is during the holiday season and I love Christmas decorations, I combined the two years ago and we've been doing it ever since. I love taking out their creations year after year. 2013 Our first time painting ceramics for my birthday. Little man was 3. He painted a  tree ornament and then went to play with a basket of toys they kept to keep little hands away from the ceramics.  This was the Litte Man's 1st masterpiece. I love it, he looks at it every year and says "what was I trying to paint?"  2016 We moved to a new town and found a new place to paint ceramics. They had a great selection of ceramics. Little man was older and spent more time on his creations.  I'm not sure what year this was from, I should really write the years on the back. It's another one that we always hang on the tree. 2021 With Covid restrictions...

Well, we're halfway through Blogmas, halfway to Christmas! So far on the Blog I have shared my decorating traditions, new traditions, crafts and gift ideas.  Today we started a new tradition. I gave the kids $5.00 each brought them to a second-hand store and had them buy present for each other.  The second-hand store we went to is a community run store. All the money goes back to the community to fund school breakfast programs and the local food bank. I like the idea of supporting local and having the money go back into the community. I told the kids that my sister and I exchange presents on Christmas Eve. Little Miss insisted that they should exchange presents right away. So, we had our first gift exchange of the season. Who knows, we might have a new tradition.

Tonight was a blustery day which turned into a blustery night as Winnie the Pooh would say. Our electricity was on and off sometimes for a long time and sometimes the whole block flickering like someone was turning the switch on and off.  Luckily for us, the kids and I visited an independent book store and picked out a new Christmas book for our collection today.  We read by candle light, listening to the wind howl outside, which made it very cozy! 

During the summer I posted about the book me sister and I wrote. It is now officially available on Amazon! This book was a labour of love for my sister and I, we wrote the fairy stories that our grandmother told us when we were little.  I am so fortunate to be able to share this adventure with my sister. If you are looking for a family friendly Christmas present this year, give the gift of a great story! 

  To me snowglobes are a Christmas craft. I made one with my Grandmother one Christmas when I was little. I remeber using an old jam jar and we glued a sumrf figurine in the lid. it felt like a very magical craft at the time. When I saw these snowglobes at the Dollarstore I was flooded with memories of crafting with my Grandmother and wanted to share that with my kids. We could have used little figurine, we definitely have enough of them in the toy box but we also have a large amount to Lego. The kids both got Lego advent calendars for a special present this year and we are in a Lego phase right now.  What you need:  •Empty snowglobe or jar •Lego to make a Christmas creation •Glitter •Glue gun  What you do: 1. Use your Lego to make a Christmas creation.  While you're making your creation make sure that it fits in the opening of the snowglobe (speaking from experience!) Little man made a funky snowman and Little Miss made a Christmas tree for their sn...

Our Family Christmas Tree Tradition I don't know when Little Man grew so tall, he's almost as tall as our tree. This was the  first tree that we bought when we moved in together. We might get a new one next year but I love this little tree. Over the years the kids have made so many decorations and we have so many decorations that are a part of our family Christmas tradition. I used to want a perfectly coordinated tree with nice ornaments. But I love our family tree with the homemade ornaments and gold garland. I love telling them the story of each ornaments as we unpack them every year. Now I couldn't imagine wanting a perfectly coordinated tree, I love our little collection of memories.

One thing that I like about Blogmas is that I get the chance to post things that I started but didn't get around to finishing. I made these Lego display cases to put in Little Man's room (and get some of the Lego figurines off of the floor!) Lego display cases start at  $15.00 in stores but I made these cute ones from Dollar Store finds for under $5.00. These display cases along with some mini-figures would make a great Christmas present for any Lego lover. Wood Mini Figures Display Case  What you need: Wood displace case from a craft store (I found my at the Dollar Store.)  Brick Tape Paint Strong Glue (Tacky Glue) What to do: Paint the case any colour you like, Little Man chose black. the display case that I bought has a slide-in plastic cover, take off the cover to paint the inside of the case. Give the display case at least two coats. Let dry over night.  Cut the brick tape to the size of the display sections. Glue the brick tape into place, let dry before using....

  Today I wanted to share a fun DIY t-shirt present idea. Little Miss and I made this t-shirt for Hubby. We are all big fans of Mario Bros. so we made this Mario Kart inspired playtime t-shirt. On the front of the shirt we drew the character logos. on the back of the shirt we drew a race track in the shape of Yoshi. The fun of this shirt is that  The back: race course What you need: A plain t-shirt Fabric markers Fabric puffy markers Cars (we used Super Mario character cars) The front: Mario Bros logos What to do: Front: Using a black marker draw 6 circles approximately 2" in diameter. Inside each circle draw the logo of Super Mario characters, M in red, L in green, Princess Peach's crown, Toad's face, Toadette's face and a yellow and green flower. Back:  Draw outline of your course. We made our course in the shape of Yoshi. Draw a smaller version of the same shape within the bigger shape. Using the yellow fabric marker draw the traffic lines. Decorate: Add a checkered...