December Madness

...and what a madness it was. Sewing project after sewing project, craft after craft, baking and carolling. Here are some of the things ive (we've, but mostly me) been making...

Jammies!!! One of the easiet, quickest things to make and also the most FUN! Jammies seem to be a hit with the kids I give them to. I LOVE LOVE LOVE making them and love even more to 'custom make' them for each individual child. This lot here is really only a FEW of the jammies I made....I would say there were at least 10 more pairs made.


Little Miss Naughty



Cars and Trains



Flowers



Little Ballerina



Baby Harcore



and of course that perfect pair of paints for your sweet little
"KRANKY PANTS!"



Our Crimis Jammies.
J- Gingerbread man, N- Angel, K-Crimis Tree



I broaded my horizons this year and made some things I dont usually do..... This first one here is a Rainbow book made just from scraps out of my scrap bin. I cant wait to try and make some more of these when im not so rushed...

Baby Rainbow Book.

the book had all the colors of the rainbow and then a
black and white page on the back

 Here is one of the bags I made for some the Pre-school aged kids. I wanted to make a fun bag that they can use for preschool to carry all their books...or they can just use it to carry all their coloring stuff around in. Inside had pockets for crayons or pencil crayons, stickers, and coloring books. These were super quick and easy to make....for those that havent recieved one for their kiddies yet....you can probably expect one for their B-days :)


Shoulder bags

I would have to say that the thing I enjoyed making the most was the Doll Crib I made for Naveah. Evan spotted this old UGLY little crib at a thrift store and it was a steal at only 3$. So We brought it home and made it look a million times better. We painted it dark brown then bought a piece of foam for the mattress. I made a matching bed set with a fitted sheet, pillow and pillow case, blanket and PJs for baby doll.

Jacek supervising while we paint...



This is a baby Naveah has had for a while but has never had any clothes.
So made her a little PJ set.
 Naveah calls this baby her "Pink Baby"...I have NO idea why.

 We also baked a fair amout of cookies...which im sure most of you did too. Kael and Naveah love helping pour all the ingredients in and Kael does a really good job of mixing it all up with the beater. We also made some yummy marshmellow treat we called 'Reindeer kibble'. Kael was having a costume party at his school and we were on the list to bring something. You should try it!!! Its made with Pretzels, Cheerios, Rice Crispies, Smarties, Sesame seeds, Corn nuts and Pretzels. They were SO good.

measuring out the oats...



melting marshmellows



i asked them to press on the macaroons and smarties onto the cookies...
its a given that more of them were eaten then actually put on the cookies.

They sat and watched those cookies almost the entire time they baked.

Jacek just laid beside us on the counter and supervised again.



The goodies we made. mmmm. Lots of cookies,
Reindeer Kibble, and marble chocolate with cashews.



We got news that Auntie Tracey was coming into Calgary for a quick visit! So we packed up our stuff and headed to Calgary for the day! It was so nice to see her. The kids had so much fun with her and it was nice that she got to meet Jacek while he was still 'baby' looking.

Kaels Costume Party. It was his last day, for the season, at the Kerry Wood Nature Center. The kids were supposed to dress up like something in nature. I was having a hard time coming up with something unique. I didnt want him to go as a tree or a bear cause I figured chances are, EVERYONE will be dressed up as the same thing. It wasnt until 2 days before the party that I finally figured something out.  Elements. Kael has an Element brand hat. So I made him a shirt with the Four Elements on it to match! I loved that the party was open to parents and siblings so that Me, Naveah and Jacek could go too.

Kael talked about these the most when he came home
 from school. He would tell me about the kinds of
space ships he made.

Naveah found a bucket of dinosaurs.
She carried these things around with her almost the
entire time and shrieked whenever another kid
would even try to touch them.

Theyve become quite fond of using scissors lately.
So they spend a lot of time at the paper and scissor table.
So cute how they are helping eachother.

Kael with Teacher Joanne(L) and the Class Helper.
A Tree, Elements and a Butterfly!

Here are a few more pics from the month....

Mr Handsome pants. Weighing in just recently at 16lbs 2oz.
He is 2 days shy of  4 months old now.
What a monster. haha.

when all else fails-- give'em Broccoli?

Kael is SUCH a good big Brother to Jacek. He runs to calms him down
whenever Jacek starts crying and loves giving him toys to play with
and talking to him. Jacek returns the favor with a Big Drooly Smile!

Our Cookie Monster.

...Cant Catch Me.....

Wrestling with Daddy!!! Naveah thought using the laundry
basket was a good strategy.

"Take my Picture!!!"

Mr. Handsome Pants!

Chillin with Daddy.

Nativity

We got the best Christmas present this year. Thanks Mom.

One of my favorite things of Christmas was the Nativity Set I grew up with. I loved setting it up and staring at it and have been missing it for years. But not any more!!!

We took the kids to see the Nativity Tonight. It was fun. And luckily a warm night compaired to previous years! Kael was more interested this year which was nice. He asked me "who are those people?"

I said, "well, thats the Three Wise Men, theres Mary and Joseph, and those are some Angels."  

He then shouts "OH! Just like we have them!" then he paused to think. Then asked "Where are their hooks?"

(he was thinking of the angel that hangs on the manger, and the mini ornaments we have for our advent calender.) I love the minds of Children. 

Here Comes Santa Claus!

Turkey Dinner and Santa Claus. Who could pass that up!? We were invited to attend a Christmas Party at the church and not only was I drooling over the the mounds of stuffing that would be there, I was even more excited at the thought of not cooking dinner that night. We packed up the kids and off we went. The kids ended up eating more sugar than they did anything else so needless to say they had WAY too much fun. After dinner was cleaned up they got to see Santa Claus! They were SO excited. While waiting in line for our turn we were kept entertained with goofy Christmas songs sung VERY loudly by all the other kids. Naveah danced along. As we got closer to the front we were able to watch the other kids sit on Santas lap. Naveah was getting really excited until the girl ahead of her started freaking out and frantically tried to get off his lap. I looked down at Naveah and she was trembling and took only a few seconds for her too the start crying too. It took some reasurring that Santa is nice and that she needed to tell him what she wants for Christmas so he can bring it to her. Once she realized that she was getting something out of the whole thing she was happy. Kael was all for it. He hopped right on and told him right away he wanted a spaceship. Santa then handed him a little goody bag. It wasnt a minute later while Kael was digging through the bag he then stops and whines "Where's my spaceship!?". I guess Santa forgot to mention that it wouldnt be coming QUITE yet.

Let the Season Begin!

December 1st. What a fun day. Kael had school first thing in the morning. We were asked to bring a plain shirt to class cause they would be doing a fun art project. I was excited to see what he would come home with. After we dropped him off Naveah, Jacek and I headed to the grocery store. The whole front of the store was covered with Christmas trees and I thought....I should take one of those poor cold trees home with me. So we did! We dropped the groceries and the tree off at home and then went to get Kael. This is what they did with the shirts!

The shirt he made at school. Im assuming they used stamps
unless Kael suddenly got REALLY good at painting.
A tree, a deer track and paw prints.





The rest of the afternoon was a quiet one. I set the tree up in the stand so it could fall so that we could hopefully decorate it later that evening and the kids napped. When they woke up we made Taco Pizza for dinner. Then pulled out the decorations and let the kids have some fun before it was time for bed.

Sour Cream anyone?



decorating the tree. The tree topper we normally use
didnt fit on the top of this tree.
So we improvised and used a skull! Dont worry, its only temporary!



 Okay so the Tree got a whole new makeover when I was able to get to it. Not to say the kids didn't do a great job...and the skull was so appropriate....

Crayons

Well I dont know about you, but crayons don't last very long in this house. No matter what I say, those darn things get snapped into millions of tiny little bits and they end up everywhere! Trying to figure out something fun for the kids to do I came up with crayons! I thought maybe we would try to make some new ones. Ones the kids couldnt break! So I lined everything up and had them peel off all the paper and go snap happy! Naveah was thrilled! Kael however was a little confused on why I was encouraging him to break them up when all this time i've been telling him not too!

Everything was going pretty good until it came time to actually melt them. It says it took 15 minutes on super low....I kept turing the oven up and up and nothing was happening. Just over an hour later I gave up. For those that try this I recommend not using no name brand crayons. Apparently they dont MELT! I did manage however to squish them down but they still looked pretty funky. I havent actually wanted to test them out to see if they will stand up to their intended task in fear that they will just crumble and ill have bits of crayon everywhere. But the kids had fun MAKING them and thats all that matters....right?