Christmas cuties

I thought this was a particularly cute picture of our cuties.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

Picture-book-a-day, Advent 2011 (week 4)

Mortimer's Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson - I bought this book on a whim because of the good reviews and the fact that I was several people back in line on the "hold" list at the library.  I'm glad I got it, it is a very sweet story.  I like it more each time I read it (which has been a lot, Gemma is quite taken with it).

Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd-Jones - "It's time! It's time!"  This book looks at Christ's coming from the perspective of all creation - the plants, animals, seas and rivers.  It's neat.  And the illustrations are in a "painted" style which adds to the uniqueness of this book.  I was on the request list for this brand new book at the library, and quite pleased that we got it before Christmas. 

The First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming - A cute story "read" to the tune of The 12 Days of Christmas.  We'll read this on the first day of winter!

Usborne's The Story of the Nativity by Anna Milbourne - A nice, traditional story of the Nativity, starting with the Annunciation and ending with the visit of the magi (to the stable, but oh well).  The illustrations are sweet, the cover is gorgeous.  I've always been impressed with Usborne's Bible-related books.  

Asleep in the Stable by Will Hillenbrand - A baby owl meets the baby Jesus for the first time.  This is a sweet story that my sister gave Gemma last year for Christmas when she was very fascinated with owls. 

Four Friends at Christmas by Tomie dePaola - Have I mentioned it is hard (if not downright impossible) to go wrong with dear Tomie dePaola?  We checked out his Four Friends in Autumn this Fall and Gemma really liked it, and without a doubt this was a hit as well.  This story is about Mister Frog, who normally hibernates through winter, but is convinced by his best friends to stay up for Christmas.  Will he make it?!

The Christmas Story by Jane Werner - This is a Little Golden Book that I owned as a child.  A sweet traditional story of the Nativity, and the illustrations are by Eloise Wilkin.  Hard to beat. 

On This Special Night by Claire Freedman - A mother cat and her kittens (which will make this book an automatic hit with both Gemma and Kolbe) living in a barn notice a special star shining in the sky one night.  They end up following the other animals who stop in on their way to the stable and meet a very special baby on a very special night.  The illustrations in this book are beautiful.  We will read it on Christmas eve.

This is the Star by Joyce Dunbar - A nice rhyming, repetitive story with very neat illustrations.  They almost look like photographs, but not quite.

Lots of stories about the Nativity this week to prepare for Christ's coming on Christmas!  Hard to believe He's coming so soon. Check out our previous weeks' selections here... Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

As I mentioned, we've taken some time off from our "letter of the week" activities to really focus on the Advent and Christmas. seasons  We have had plenty of other activities to occupy our time for sure and I am grateful I decided on a break.  For the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Gemma did this coloring/painting.  She used crayons to color the picture, and then watercolors over it.  I realized after the fact that to achieve the desired effect I should have had her use non-washable crayons.  Oh well, it still turned out pretty neat I thought.  She and I also made the little craft (to the right of the her painting) with brightly colored yarn like we read about in The Legend of the Poinsettia (which takes place in Mexico).  We also enjoyed Tomie dePaola's The Lady of Guadalupe immensely.

Ohhh Gemma...

I think I've used that title for at least one previous post.  My alternate title was "It's a boy"... but I didn't want to give anyone the wrong impression about the topic of this post. But you'll see why that was definitely a close second.  

Gemma loves to draw.  Her latest thing is making small pictures on these little card-stock cards I found at Tuesday Morning, folding them up, putting them in an envelope, writing someone's name (usually hers or Kolbe's or some relative or friend) on front and then putting them in the "mailbox" (a drawer in the living room or the top of the cedar chest in our room) and then gleefully "getting the mail" or delivering them to their intended recipient.  Usually I don't look at the pictures she draws, I just let her have at it.  I think I may start having to look over her pictures though, especially the ones she gives away.

The other night she brought me this one and very proudly said, "look mommy, it's a boy!"

Yep. It's definitely a boy.  Ooooohhhhhhhhh Gemma...  I asked her who it was for and she looked at me as if I were from Planet Idiot and said very matter-of-factly, "it's for a boy."  Of course.

Gloria in excelsis deo

We were driving in the car the other day and listening to "Angels We Have Heard on High" on a CD.  After the refrain part Gemma said, "mommy, we haven't seen our friend Chelsea for a very long time.  Why doesn't she come over to our house to visit us?"  I thought it was very random of her to think of that, and then it dawned on me that she must have heard "Gloria in ekCHELSEAs deo."  Pretty cute I thought!!  Come see us, Chelsea!!!

Picture-book-a-day, Advent 2011 (week 3)

The Lady of Guadalupe by Tomie dePaola - We read this for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I shortened it just a little for Gemma, but wow, what a wonderful, detailed yet age-appropriate story of Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe for children.  Yet again, dear Tomie dePaola did not disappoint.  I would love to own this book, but it is out of print and the cheapest copy I can find is $47, yikes!

The Night Before Christmas poem by Clement C. Moore - I have several versions of this checked out from the library, none of the illustrations do a whole lot for me though.  I would like to purchase a hardcover, beautifully illustrated version of this poem for our family.  Any recommendations?

Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett - Cute and fun.

Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo - This is a beautiful story that my mother-in-law introduced me to a number of years back.  The illustrations are just superb.  Breathtaking and beautiful.  Gemma enjoyed it so much she wanted to read it twice in a row.  We read it on the day that our Advent meditation was about helping the poor and lonely, so I thought that was very fitting indeed.

Christmas in the Big Woods based on the Laura Ingalls Wilder series - These books are cute enough.  I haven't liked all of them (due to some issues I've had with their accuracy to the original stories), but they are - for the most part - a nice introduction to the Little House series.

Cock-a-Doodle Christmas by Will Hillenbrand - I forget how I stumbled upon this, but it really is a cute story about a small farm in Bethlehem and the rooster whose once tiny voice helps announce the birth of the Christ-child.

The Little Drummer Boy by Ezra Jack Keats - Not much to say about this one.  It's a classic for sure.

Check out our previous selections here, week one and week two.

What are your favorite Christmas picture-books?  Please share in the comments.

Feast of St. Nicholas 2011

It is really neat - as the children get older - to watch various traditions develop in our family.  St. Nicholas is one of those really fun traditions.  Gemma made sure all our shoes were set out on the fireplace well before bedtime (actually, it was even before dinner I think) on the eve of the Feast of St. Nicholas.  

And as expected, St. Nicholas left some fun treats.  Candy canes and M&M's, some fancy buttons in Gemma's shoes (she loves playing with buttons), a book for each child, and a board for building with their duplo-blocks.

 

And if that wasn't enough, after examining the treats at the fireplace, they headed over to the deck door to realize there was a very light dusting of new-fallen snow!

Gemma begged and begged and begged and begged and begged to make a snowman.  Since daddy is off on Tuesday mornings, and is pretty much the best daddy in the world, he took her out to play for a bit.  No snowmen were built (imagine), but he said she had fun playing abominable snow monster with the buckets of snow he scooped up for her.  It's the little things!

"M" week

Ahhhhh, "M" week was one of those projects that totally and completely fell flat on its face.  Wow.  I was so excited about making homemade finger paints for the kids.  I knew they'd love it.  Actually, in the back of my head was a little inkling that they might hate it, but I ignored that.  Next time I need to not ignore my inklings.  I do know my children quite well, after all.  They hated it.  They wouldn't touch it.  Gemma flipped out the minute she put her fingers in it and begged for a rag to wipe her hands and then wouldn't touch it.  Kolbe just got mad.  I gave them paintbrushes, but brushes didn't work very well with the consistency of the paint and I ended up doing most of the painting while the kids whined and complained.  And cried.  And were generally obnoxious.  It was good times folks, let me tell you what.  We had read Mouse Paint before starting the project, and it was supposed to be a super-great hands-on learning experience about mixing colors.  Well, it wasn't.  It was pretty much terrible, did I mention that?  I may have even cried.  But we won't talk about that.  Luckily I was able to semi-resurrect the afternoon by printing out this mouse coloring sheet and just getting out our regular paints (with brushes of course) and we mixed colors that way.  They turned out really cute, and it was a nice learning activity, but prefaced by the nightmare of the finger paint it just kind of cast a shadow on the rest of the afternoon.  Ah, such is life.  Here are the fruits of our, um, labors.

The "finger" painting fiasco.  Notice the angry look on Gemma's face and the rag clutched in her left hand.

Mouse painting did go a bit better.

 And the end result.

Some of our favorite stories for "M" week were:

Millie in the Snow

William Wegman's Mother Goose  (we own a weimaraner, so this was particularly entertaining)

The Weight of a Mass  (Gemma's gift from St. Nicholas)

Follow the Monsters!

Tomie dePaola's Mother Goose

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

Wait Till the Moon is Full

I had several other "M" activities planned, but with Advent activities and the Holy Day and a funeral we attended last week they just weren't happening.  The way the next few weeks are looking, I think we are going to take a hiatus from "letter of the week" until after the holidays.  That will give us time to work on some Advent and Christmas activities and review our letters A thru M.  Plus the break will help us stretch things a bit further through the year, as we have hit the halfway point in the alphabet.  CHEERS, everyone!

Picture-book-a-day, Advent 2011 (week 2)

Who's Hiding? by Vickie Howie - Gemma got this last year from St. Nicholas.  It is a very cute lift-the-flap book about the Nativity.  The repetitive text makes it fun for very young children.

Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson - We love bear.  Karma Wilson is one of my favorite contemporary children's authors.  I have yet to check out a book of hers that I didn't like.

Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend by Julie Stiegmeyer -This book is beautifully illustrated, and a nice, simple take on the legend of St. Nicholas.  It was a bit above Gemma maybe, but it will be a great story for our family to grow into, and she did listen to and enjoy the whole thing.  We read it on the eve of the Feast of St. Nicholas.  Of all the St. Nicholas books out there, this one really is very beautiful.  I bought the paperback edition last year, and now really wish I had gotten it in hardcover.  Oh well.  Any other good St. Nicholas book recommendations?  We own A Special Place for Santa (so glad I got it for $.01 on Amazon when I did, it's pretty pricey now), but I may wait until next year to pull that one out.

All for the Newborn Baby by Phyllis Root - Beautifully illustrated, simple poetic text.  I liked this one probably enough to own it (most of our selections, as you've probably guessed, have been from the library).  Gemma was very taken with the illustrations.

Christmas in the Barn by Margaret Wise Brown - This is a simple, rhyming book about the Nativity.  It is strangely similar to The Big Red Barn, which I find a little odd (I really like Big Red Barn, it's just weird hearing another story so similar), but other than that it's still a nice story.  Definitely not Margaret Wise Brown in her best form, but alas still a good selection.

The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola - We love Tomie dePaola around here.  This story is on deck for the feast of St. Juan Diego.

A Charlie Brown Christmas: An Interactive Book with Sound by Charles M. Schulz - Oh how the children love this book.  They got it during Advent last year from my in-laws.  It is the only "sound" book we own, and we only get it out during Advent/Christmas.  And yet we've still already replaced the batteries twice (once last year and once this already).  But it's worth it.  This book is a classic!

Check out week one's selections by clicking here.

"L" week

"L" is for ladybug!

Gemma had fun with her ladybugs this week.  These exercises were great for practicing coloring/painting in the lines.  If a picture is too intricate she just gives up and scribbles. These were both nice and basic.  (Click here and here for links to our activities.  And an index of DLTK's ladybug activities here!)

Some of our favorite books were:

What the Ladybug Heard

The Life Cycle of a Ladybug

Dewey: There's a Cat in the Library

Usborne's Daniel and the Lions

The Grouchy Ladybug

"L" is for light!

We learned the song "This Little Light of Mine" (which Gemma thought was lots of fun) and did this light craft from my Catholic Icing Preschool Curriculum book for our religion activities.  I thought this was a very appropriate activity for Advent.  Gemma loved it, and keeps her light on the dog box (yes, you read that right, the dog sleeps in her room during winter) beside her bed.  I usually turn it off after she goes to sleep, but it's always on again when we go in to get her up in the morning.  

We've been enjoying Advent immensely.  The picture book a day activity has really been a hit with everyone.  I'll try to post this week's selections within the next couple days.  Now we are looking forward to the Feast of St. Nicholas tomorrow!!

Picture-book-a-day, Advent 2011 (week 1)

At the recommendation of my friend Kansas Mom, I decided to do a picture-book-a-day with the kids during Advent leading up to Christmas.  I didn't wrap our books like she does, but each week I will set seven books out on the fireplace and we will choose a different one to read each day after our Advent Wreath/Morning Prayers.  Here is a list of the books we have been enjoying this first week.

The Friendly Beasts by Sharon McGinley - I love the "eastern" type, colorful illustrations in this version, and this has been a favorite carol with Gemma the past few years.  We also own Tomie dePaola's version. 

The Story of the Nutcracker by Deborah Hautzig - Gemma was very intrigued by this.  She even asked me to read it to her again another day.  She was very fascinated by "the guy who lost his teeth."  It is definitely an interesting story.

Room for a Little One by Martin Waddell - I really like Martin Waddell as an author. We have enjoyed many of his books (most especially the Big Bear and Little Bear stories).  This story was a sweet and simple take on the Nativity Story and it had beautiful illustrations.

Under the Star: A Christmas Counting Story by Jane Yolen - A counting story about the crowd of various people and creatures who came to visit the manger.

Who is Coming to our House? by Joseph Slate - Very cute.  Repetitive, rhyming and simple.  Kolbe really seemed to enjoy this one.

Little Owl and the Star by Mary Murphy - Nothing special about this story, but it featured an owl which made it an automatic hit with my kids, because for whatever reason they both love owls very much.

Please take a moment to share some of your favorite Christmas picture books in the comments section!!!  I am always looking for more suggestions.  And check out more Advent and Christmas ideas over at Catholic Icing's Wishing Jesus Happy Birthday post!

Monthly update - November 2011

Gemma Grace - 3 yrs 10 months

It has been a really good month with Gemma.  Something has changed. Of course, she still has her moments, but overall things have just been good.  Thank you Jesus.  She likes playing with duplos and dressing up in her "party dress" (play-clothes).  She has a game she plays with Kolbe where she gets two laundry baskets and puts the playsilks in one and pretends it is his crib, and the toys in another and pretends it's his toy box.  He is surprisingly acquiescent to this little charade and plays along quite nicely most of the time.  She also likes to play that Kolbe is her kitten named "Biscuit," and this little game will often go on all morning or afternoon.  Again, he is quite cooperative when it comes to playing along with all this. Maybe he doesn't know any better.  She likes to play "buttons and eggs," which consists of getting the buttons out, putting one in each plastic Easter egg, building a nest with the playsilks, her blankie and/or the laundry baskets and then either putting them in the "incubator" or being the cat who hatches the eggs (I kid you not) and then oooooohing and ahhhhing over the baby chicks and making everyone else do the same once they "hatch".  She plays this multiple times a week.  It is fun watching her imagination develop.  She is also very obsessed with "tag."  She likes folding things, and will often fold a basket of towels and rags if I let it sit around where she can see it.  She is very meticulous.  She likes to do this best when she can "surprise" me, and will often say, "mommy, don't look,"  half-a-dozen times while she is folding, and then make a big deal when she is finished.  And then I have to act all surprised and excited, et al.  It's fun.  She's cute.  Still enjoying our preschool at home.  She likes the crafts and learning words in sign-language, and is really learning the letter sounds quite well.  She does pretty good drawing letters on her magnadoodle, but I really haven't forced the writing issue much.  Just letting her take the lead with her interests when it comes to that mainly.  Okay, that's all I suppose.

Kolbe James - 22 months

Have I mentioned how snuggly this kid is?  Wow, he is a snuggler.  Not a huge month for him really, he is saying more words though, and beginning to communicate more with words which is nice.  It's cute to hear him "talk."  He's yet to string two words together though (unless "ball-ball" counts, ;-D which he loves to proudly point out when he's wearing one of his numerous "ball-ball" shirts); mainly just a word here or there to convey his wants/needs.  It works.  For the little talking that he does though, I am completely amazed at what he understands.  He's kind of leveled out on the potty progress.  He did so well back in September, and then regressed a whole bunch, and now we're somewhere in the middle.  It definitely makes more sense to have him in diapers, but he uses the potty on a regular basis several times a day, sometimes at his request sometimes at mine, and pretty much exclusively poops in the toilet.  We got one of those little toilet seats that sits on top of the regular toilet and he seems to get a kick out of that.  I like the fact that I don't have to clean out the potty chair.  I'm really liking our bumGenius diapers for this stage.  Much easier on and off than a prefold and cover for sure.  He is becoming quite the playmate with his big sis, and it is cute to watch them together.  He wants to copy everything she does.  I love to see him doing so much pretend play.  Gemma just didn't get that when she was his age, she didn't have a built-in playmate (because let's face it, mommy doesn't count).  She has even taught him to fake-sneeze and it is so hilarious!  He has started watching Little Bear with her, which is funny to me because at that age Gemma wasn't watching any TV on her own.  I'm not a huge fan of him watching TV this young, but what do you do?  There are only certain times of day we turn the TV on though, so it's not too big a deal. Ahhhhh TV how I love to hate you, or hate to love you, or something...  Kolbe really enjoys playing with markers and painting and other craft-type activities, and he has gotten remarkably better at being not quite so scary-crazy with the art supplies. That has been a welcome reprieve.  And that's all, folks.  Here's to December!!!

Gemma - 3yrs 10 months; Kolbe - 22 months

Christmas CD recommendations

I'm looking for some recommendations for (children's mainly) Christmas CD's.  I have a handful of my own 'adult' favorites (Handel's Messiah and anything seasonal that NPR plays being at the top of the list, followed by some Brickman and Mannheim Steamroller) that I rarely get to listen to as it is, but I'd like to find a few more CD's for the kids.  We currently own John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together, which I have positively adored since I was a young, young child listening to it on a cassette tape, or maybe even a record!  There's something about John Denver...I get all misty and reminiscent every time I hear his voice.  His music is so soothing and meaningful.  Maybe I'm weird.  Any other John Denver fans out there?  We also have VeggieTales 25 Favorite Christmas Songs, and I really like it as well.  Lots of traditional (and some not-so-traditional) carols with a fun "Veggie" spin on them.  But that's all we have.  Lame, I know.  The kids really do enjoy both of them a lot, but I just think it would be nice to broaden our musical horizons a bit, so I'm opening the floor for recommendations.  Please share your favorite children's Christmas CD's in the comments section below!!

Turkey week

Besides our regular letter of the week activities for "K" week, we had some fun Thanksgiving activities as well.  We checked out several Thanksgiving books from the library, and Gemma had fun learning about the pilgrims and Indians.  Our favorite book by far though was Turkey Trouble.  I really liked this book.  A whole bunch.  Enough to buy our own copy, but not for $900 as it is listed on Amazon.  Really?  Why do people do this?  Is there anyone out there that would pay that for any book?!!!  I mean, I realize it may be out of print and everything, but seriously?  I have stumbled upon this more than once and I really just don't get it, but I digress.  Gemma and Kolbe both got quite a kick out of "Turkey Trouble" as well, and we read it multiple times throughout the week.  The pictures were so clever and adorable and the repetitive text was cute and fun.

We made this turkey craft and they turned out so cute!  Even Kolbe got in on the painting and I helped him make a turkey of his own.  Gemma made a turkey for herself and one for each set of Grandparents.

Gemma's Turkey

Kolbe's Turkey

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

"K" week

We started "K" week off with the Feast of Christ the King.  I found this craft (click link) in my Catholic Icing preschool book and just thought it was super-neat.  Gemma was able to do almost everything by herself on this (besides glittering the name Jesus and writing the word King).  I heart our Zots!

We also had Chicken a la King for dinner Sunday evening, and that was mighty tasty!  A bit rich - almost like a chicken stroganoff - but very tasty.

Some of our favorite books were:
Riley Flies a Kite
The Kite 
Come Along, Kitten
Counting Puppies and Kittens
Katy and the Big Snow  (This was a really great story!  Gemma and I both really enjoyed it a lot.)
Kitten's First Full Moon  (We had checked this out before and Gemma was excited to see it again.  It is a "Caldecott" award, and deservedly so.  I like it a bunch.)
Kitten Red, Yellow, Blue

Our craft activity for the week was a homemade kite.  Gemma was so excited by this.  She carried her kite around for the better part of the week, to the library, Hobby Lobby, daddy's office...  Unfortunately (for her), we were low on wind for most of the week.  At one point she even stood in the driveway and said, "Please God, can we have some wind?!"  I thought that was pretty cute.

That's about all for "K" week, which was also Thanksgiving week.  If I had been thinking more when I did my planning we would have taken a week off from our "letter of the week" and just focused on Thanksgiving, but the way I had things planned out with Advent and everything it was just easier to keep things as is.  I think we'll take the week before and the week of Christmas off though.  I'm wondering what we're going to do once we run out of letters...

Poetry update

I posted a few months back about reading poetry in our home and I wanted to update.  While we certainly don't read poetry every day or even close to every day at lunch as the "plan" is (I really need to try to be more disciplined about this, maybe blogging about it will help...) we still enjoy it, and lunchtime is definitely the favored time to pull out one of our books of poems.  We currently own Eloise Wilkin's Poems to Read to the Very Young and that has been a great place to start.  My dear friend Debi also gave us a copy of A Child's Garden of Verses which has some great classics.  About a month ago I was browsing for something online at the library (I don't even remember what) and stumbled upon The Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry.  WOW!  What a treasure.  This is a hugely comprehensive big book, organized by theme with great, colorful illustrations for every poem.  The poems are not by Bill Martin Jr., as the title may imply, but are a compilation of his favorite poems so it is very eclectic.  This book would make a great addition to any home poetry collection, and it is definitely on our wishlist!

"J" week

"J" is for jellybeans (thanks Michelle for the idea)!

We read "A Rainbow of My Own" and made jellybean rainbows.  Gemma thought this project was pretty fun.  Of course the most exciting part was probably getting to eat jellybeans!!  The finished product turned out cute, but took an inordinate amount of time to dry.  I mean, 24 hours later and it still wasn't dry.  I guess hot glue would have worked better than Elmers, but then there really wouldn't have been much for Gemma to do besides sort the colors.  Oh well...  Like I said, she had fun and that's what really matters.

"J" is for Joseph

For religion we read "Joseph and his Amazing Coat" (I really like the Usborne Bible Tales, is it just me?) and did this coloring page.  I let Gemma use my twistables colored pencils so that was something new for her that she really enjoyed (and did pretty well with too).  HERE is another cute Joseph activity I filed away for future use.

Some of our favorite books:

Jack and the Beanstalk (now Gemma runs around the house saying, "fee, fi, fo, fum...", it's pretty funny)

Jonah and the Whale (another good Usborne book)

The Giant Jam Sandwich

Bread and Jam for Frances

Jelly Beans for Sale

After talking about money in "Jelly Beans for Sale", Gemma asked to play with her "monies" on Saturday morning (tell me I'm not the only one who lets my kids do this...I do have them wash well when they're finished)!  This was the first time we talked about the names of the coins and such though.  She had fun sorting them and did a pretty good job.  She really has no concept of money thus far, other than putting some change in the collection basket each week.  I'm sure she'll learn soon enough.

Poor Kolbe was a sick little boy on Thursday night and Friday.  He caught what appeared to be a 24 hour tummy bug (very similar to the one Gemma had around Halloween) and has thankfully bounced back pretty quickly.  Even so, no fun for baby or mommy!  We got some good snuggle time in though, he hadn't ridden in the carrier for months!

I'm really looking forward to Advent now.  I have a lot of neat things planned for the kids, and some great books on hold at the library that we're looking forward to reading.  Can't believe it's next week!!  Happy Monday, everyone.

And the winner is...

ELIZABETH!!!  As determined by an online number generator.  Elizabeth's comment was:

We have an Advent calendar that you build the manger scene with, and our girls get so excited to get a new piece out each day, so I'd have to say that is my favorite tradition. Last year was the first year Claire got to help with it, and both girls did such a good job taking turns on opening the little doors to get out the newest piece. I really hope they maintain that great attitude this year!

Thank you everyone for entering my contest!  If you haven't read all the comments, take a moment and do so.  There are some great ones!  And I have to agree, the Advent Wreath is a family favorite at our house as well.  Thanks for all the great ideas everyone.  A blessed Advent season to one and all!

Kolbe in autumn

I loved the lighting in this picture (that I snapped on my phone).

Don't forget to enter my Advent Giveaway (click HERE for details).  Contest closes at noon tomorrow (Thursday), winner will be announced Friday morning!!!

GIVEAWAY - "Welcome Baby Jesus"

Can you believe that Advent is literally right around the corner?!  I have been spending some time lately planning our family Advent activities and recently purchased the book "Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families" by Sarah A. Reinhard (Liguori Publications) at our local Catholic bookstore (for a mere $1.99) to aid in the celebration of Advent in our home.  What a neat little book!  Each day has a "Think", "Pray" and "Act" section with meditations, prayers and Advent actions literally geared towards the whole family.  Plus, not only does it go through the Advent season, but it has meditations, prayers and actions for the Octave of Christmas and the Epiphany as well.  One of the things that has me most excited about this book is the fact that the meditations are written at a level that I think even Gemma (almost 4) will mostly understand and benefit from.  But they definitely seem appropriate for grade-schoolers or even high-schoolers as well I'd think.  Mom and dad, too!!  It really is written for the whole family. 

I was so excited about this book - and about its great price - that I decided to purchase an extra one to give away here on the blog!!  SO, please leave a comment telling me about your favorite Advent activity or tradition, and this Thursday (after 12 noon) I will randomly select a winner to be announced here on the blog first thing Friday morning!!

I'll start by sharing a tradition we enjoyed last year and are looking forward to again this year and that is our paper chain to count down to Christmas.  The colors coordinate with the candles on the Advent Wreath (purple for weeks 1, 2 and 4, rose for week 3 and white for Christmas day), and each link has something special for Gemma/our family to do for the day.  This year I intend to mainly use the "Act" section from Welcome Baby Jesus on our links.

Now it's your turn!!!  Leave me a comment sharing a favorite Advent tradition in your home, and enter to win your own copy of Welcome Baby Jesus!!!

I received nothing in return for this review.  I wrote it because I thought it was a good book, and purchased my copy and the extra copy to give away myself.

"I" week

"I" was for ICE CREAM during "I" week at our house!!

Gemma had lots of fun making this Ice Cream Man.  She was very proud of him.  She even spent several minutes pretending to eat him before hanging him up on the cabinet.  Silly girl. 

I thought this ice cream cone dot-to-dot was pretty cool. This was Gemma's first time to do a dot-to-dot.  I'm sure there will be many more in our future!!

I had some coupons for a free ice cream at a local restaurant, so one afternoon we headed out for ice cream together.  That was a fun (and cheap, er, free) little date with the kids...all three of us had a very nice time!  And we still have two coupons left that we need to use by the end of the year!

Some of our favorite "I" books were:

I Love You Because You're You

I am Invited to a Party (oh how we love Piggie and Gerald at our house)

My "I" Book (I think these books are a little odd, and very dated - at least the ones at our library - but Gemma loves them and chooses them to read almost every day, so I keep checking them out.)

From Cow to Ice Cream (very informative)

Isaac the Ice Cream Truck

1, 2, I Love You

We also did this craft from Catholic Icing, but called it "I" is for Infant Jesus instead of "E" is for Emmanuel.  I modified it a bit so we could use items we had on hand.  I was really excited with how this turned out, I just thought it was super cute...and it was a good opportunity to remind Gemma of Jesus' living conditions when he was born.

Here are Gemma and Kolbe playing our "find-the-letter" game. They really like this.  We usually do it on Thursday mornings.  I have two sets of those cheap magnetic letters, and they are in a coffee tub with a slit cut in the lid.  Gemma finds the letter of the week, and then she often likes to line them all up in alpha order, or ask Kolbe what letter something is.  Since he's going to answer her, you know.  Kolbe just likes putting the letters back in the slot.  Or throwing them.  ;-D  At any rate, it seems to be good, educational entertainment for both of them.

That's all for "I" week.  Be sure to check back first thing Monday morning for a special Advent give-away!!