Advent Book Activity: The Little Fir Tree & Pinecone tree ornaments

Over the last few days we've been working on our ornaments to go with our fourth advent book, The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown. This book is SO beautifully illustrated it's almost breath-taking. It is a really sweet story as well. I love pretty much everything written by Margaret Wise Brown and it seems that every year or so I discover something else she's written. We have owned this book for a few years. The first time I read it to my oldest son he was quite teary and touched by it. I won't spoil it by telling you why........you'll have to read it yourself. We made pinecone Christmas trees to go with this book. I was loosely basing them on something I'd seen online, but we kind of did our own thing too.



During the snowstorm on Tuesday I gathered some pinecones from one of the trees on our property. Then the boys helped me paint them green. I only had lime green paint and kind of wished they were darker, but they will show up well on a darker green tree. Below you can see my oldest son painting a pinecone.



After the paint dried we (I) glued sequins on to make little ornaments on the teeny tree. It is pretty hard to handle such tiny sequins. I ended up putting a dab of glue on the pinecone and then picking up the sequin with the glue. The boys were both excited to find some snowflake sequins (there were only 2) and we used those for the "stars" on two of the pinecone trees.




I tied some very thin gold cord around the pinecones to hang them. We made glittered pinecones last year and the hangers fell off some of them. This time I tied the cord around the pinecone and put a dab of glue on the knot. Then I used the long ends to tie another knot to make a hanging loop. I also put a dab of glue on that knot.

SNOWED IN: Day 3

We are on our third day of no school here. I didn't post yesterday, but we were snowed in all day. It snowed from Monday night until Tuesday night. Then the winds picked up and blew all the snow around all night which caused huge drifts. The road crews spent all day yesterday trying to get everyone plowed out. All in all I think we have about a foot of snow on the ground which is a lot for us. It is frigidly cold here right now. Negative temps. Which I HATE!! Luckily the boys were able to spend quite a bit of time sledding on Tuesday before the drifts got so deep and the temps got so cold. My husband took them out for a little yesterday to sled but they had to sled on a path he had scooped because the snow is drifted so deep that even DH and I have a hard time walking in it on most parts of our property. I took all these photos yesterday to show how deep the drifts are.

The picture below shows where our driveway meets the road. You can see that it was totally drifted shut. Since we don't own a four-wheel drive vehicle we were pretty much stranded at home all day yesterday. The county finally plowed our road around 7:00 p.m. last night.

I wish I could say I've been really productive on our snow days, but I haven't really been. The Christmas program at my school is tomorrow night and I've decided to go ahead and have it even though a majority of my students won't have practiced all week. So.....that's on my mind right now. I'm sure it will all be fine. And although the boys and I are having a good time at home, it will be nice to get back to our routines again tomorrow.

Party in the coop tonight!!

It's a good thing I don't have too many snow days because I might inundate the blogosphere with mundane and boring posts about my chickens. As it stands, this is my second post of the day and as soon as it's posted I'm going to post another one!! I meant to blog some more about what else we did on our snow day. Well..........we had a failure situation with the Christmas goodies we tried to make. More on that later, perhaps. The other thing the ol' DH and I did was to hook up a heat lamp in the chicken coop. It's supposed to get really cold tonight and tomorrow. Cold as in negative temps. I know you have frost growing on the walls in Montana, Anne..........but I personally do not love supercold weather. :-) Anyhow, I wanted to be sure my little chooks were warm (relatively speaking) so we hooked up the heat lamp that we had used for them when they were chicks in our bathroom this summer. We had some figgerin' to do since we couldn't fully close the door to the coop with the extension cord looped through it. DH was concerned that having light all night would upset their rhythms so to speak. I figured that would be better than freezing to death. That's why I titled this post "party in the coop" in case they are out there partying all night in the light and warmth instead of roosting like they usually do. I couldn't resist peeking through the window once it got dark to see if they were living it up. When I peeked in I saw 5 little "fuzzy-butts" (that's what my peeps on Backyard Chickens call their chickens) all in a row up on their roost, just like usual.



Below you can see a photo I took right after we hooked up the lamp. It's infrared so it casts a reddish glow on everything. Hopefully it is positioned just right to keep the water from freezing tonight.










Here's the lamp, suspended from a hook on one of the rafters.






After some figgerin' and after attaching a hook and eye to the door, the DH and I decided it would be best to just cut a notch out of the door frame to allow the cord to pass through. I felt that the hook and eye remedy was allowing too much of a gap and I didn't want my little darlings to have a cold draft blowing in on them all night. One little zzzzzzzzzzzzzzt of the reciprocating saw and the job was done. Love it!!





In other chicken news...........I wanted to share something very very cute that my youngest son has been doing lately. First of all, I've meant to blog about the fact that over the past several days my two boys have had the BEST time playing together and have done so (without too much pounding and crying) for long periods of time. I am not always sure what they're playing, but they've been having fun. In the course of their play my little boy found this stuffie that my husband got at a science-y conference. It is supposed to be a model of the Salmonella bacteria. My little boy has decided to call this stuffed bacteria his "chicken". He named it Chicken and has been carrying it around, loving on it and telling me how much he loves it, asking me to pet it, etc. For quite a while yesterday Chicken was living in his nest which happens to be the pocket of the sweatshirt I usually wear around the house. It's very cute and is one of those memories that could be easily forgotten if not documented. So..........I snapped a quick photo of Chicken to help us remember him once he becomes a forgotten playmate. He actually does kind of look like a chicken, and very much like our favorite chicken, Sarah.

Advent Book Activity: Snowmen At Night & Snowman Ornaments

This is my third post for today. I really wanted to post this now since we started another Advent book project today that I want to post tomorrow. Please keep scrolling down to catch up on what we've been doing. The other two posts I wrote are below this one. :-)

For our third advent book activity we read Snowmen at Night by Caralyn & Mark Buehner. We already owned this book and while it's not exactly a Christmas story, it seems to fit the season quite well. When I was looking up the Amazon link to embed in this post I noticed that Caralyn & Mark have written a book called Snowmen at Christmas. We may have to add that our stash next year.









Our ornaments this time were snowmen (of course) inspired by these. We didn't add stick arms, although we could go back and do that. We used stiff black felt for the hats and orange craft foam for the noses. The boys added face details with a black Sharpie marker. I think they turned out so cute. The first photo below shows the two my oldest son made and the next one shows my little boy's ornaments.

And here they are on the tree. So simple and cute!!

Sights and Sounds of a SNOW DAY!!! (Part 1)

Today the boys and I are home from our respective schools because the Midwest is having a HUGE snowstorm right now. It's been snowing here since about 10 p.m. last night and isn't supposed to stop until about that time tonight. We may very well have another snow day tomorrow. Since I am blessed with more time at home today I decided to blog about our day here at home.

Well, even though both my boys' schools were cancelled as of last night both my boys were awake by 6:30 a.m.!! I guess I forgot to mention that you are supposed to SLEEP IN on a snow day. It was still a relaxing morning and we went sledding in our front yard around 9:00 a.m. While the boys were sledding I took a bunch of pictures of them and of the snow. Our rooster, Arthur (AKA "The chicken formerly known as Dixie), was crowing his head off while we were sledding so I thought it would be cool to make a little video of that to post on the blog. Of course when I started taping on my camera he didn't crow. However, I am pleased to report that this post does include the very first video I've ever posted. Scroll down and you can view, "Snow Chickens", directed and filmed by yours truly.

Below you can see our dog, Buzz. He is not enamored with the snow. I took him out to do his thing an hour or so ago and the snow is almost up to his tummy. Here you can see him sacked out on the floor next to me while I type this.



By the end of this storm we could have about a foot of snow on the ground. It is so peaceful to be outdoors in the country when the snow is falling. There is really nothing else like it that I've ever experienced. So serene and lovely.



The chickens are not incredibly thrilled about the snow either. They spent most of yesterday and today so far "cooped up" in their coop. Here you can see the silent Arthur and Clara peeking out their chicken door.




When I approached the coop to start filming my masterpiece, Sarah, our outgoing chicken, came out to greet us. She is such a camera hog. She is basically the star of the movie and wouldn't have it any other way. She is such a little diva!! ha!




You can see from this photo that we already have several inches of snow and it's not letting up anytime soon.




And now, the moment you've all been waiting for..............may I present the premiere of "Snow Chickens". (In case you are wondering who is speaking to the chickens in a dippy voice..........it was my twin sister. OK..........it was me.) Enjoy!! (NOTE: To hear the audio and to begin the video, click on the arrow in the lower left corner. Or click on the big arrow in the center. You may also need to scroll down to the very bottom of the blog screen to temporarily turn off my playlist. Otherwise you'll be hearing music and the video at the same time which would potentially be very annoying.)

PS: I will post later about all the other stuff we're doing today. I am just really excited to see if the video works so I have to post this right now!!!

What we've been up to

I realize that I haven't posted here for a few days so I thought I'd pop in with an update. On Friday night the boys (little ones, not DH) and I went to an Ethnic Holiday Festival that we go to every year. We always look forward to seeing the booths from the different countries and my oldest son particularly loves to pick out a few new tree ornaments from other countries. Sadly, this year there really weren't any ornaments for sale that we could find. So.........my boys each got a flask (I know........I told them it was a canteen for water) from the Croatia booth. They are actually pretty cool and decorative. My oldest boy hung his on the tree when we got home. The little one has been periodically swigging water from his. :-)



On Saturday aside from my little guy having a YMCA basketball game in the morning we pretty much stayed home. I got my hair cut and colored. That afternoon DH worked outside putting up some lights and decorations. We let our chickens go out into a big dog pen we have so they could have "chicken recess". Our smallest and friendliest chicken, Sarah, is light enough that she can fly over the top (it's 6 feet high......or maybe higher). So.........when I opened the back door to get them back into the coop there was a porch chicken. Below you can see a photo of her. Also that afternoon as my husband and I had a brief moment of rest on the couch (we were just watching TV, not actually sleeping) my youngest son came into the living room and said, "Mom, Dad! Look!" He was carrying Sarah. So we had a chicken in the house for a short time. Not something we'll be doing on a regular basis, be assured. I have enough trouble cleaning up after the four 4-legged creatures who live inside without adding chickens to the menagerie.



Saturday night around 7:20 p.m. I headed to Kohl's to buy myself a new outfit for the Montessori Christmas Program I am directing on Friday. Can I just say something here? What is UP with putting bright fluorescent lighting in dressing rooms? Is there anyone in the world who would find it flattering to look at every little bump, dimple and roll under that kind of lighting? It's a wonder they sell any clothes at all. I was fairly depressed after the whole episode. Seriously. I hate shopping anyway though. I did find a fairly presentable outfit. I bought a new necklace to go with it. It's from the Simply Vera Wang collection for Kohl's. If the local paper did a write-up about my Christmas program they could say something like, "And the directress (that's what you call a Montessori teacher) wore Vera Wang." Ha!! Sounds pretty swanky, eh? Oh, sorry. There won't be a photo of me in the new outfit. Gray pants, fuschia sweater, cool new necklace and shoes. Does that help with your visual image? If not, sorry!!

The boys have enjoyed doing our two Advent calendars since December began. My oldest son is in charge of putting the Nativity figure up on the calendar shown below each day. They decided on their own to each do one instead of taking turns with the two calendars.




This year we added the Playmobil Advent calendar. I saw it at Target and couldn't pass it up. My little boy loves Playmobil. Each day he opens a door and gets out a new figure to put in a winter scene. Below you can see what is up so far.




Other than that...........we're just hanging in there, trying to enjoy this season of waiting and anticipation. We did our second Advent candle last night so there was one for each boy to blow out afterwards. I still have a TON of things to do before the 25th but I'm not getting stressed about it. It is incredibly cold here now and I have to go out a few times a day to break the ice out of the chicken's water. Makes me feel like a real farmer. Haha! We are supposed to get a ton of snow over the next 48 hours so a snow day may be in the schedule this week. We'll see.

We've done another Advent book and activity but the ornaments aren't quite finished. That will be another post. I guess I'll go for now. I'll end with this thought: Wouldn't it be awesome if I could get paid to stay home all day and just make crafts and blog about it? That's what I feel like doing right now. Unfortunately, crafting isn't on the urgent to-do list for today. Other mundane things like.............fold laundry, sweep floor, etc. await, however. So I'm off.......

Advent Book Activity: If You Take a Mouse to the Movies & Popcorn strings

Tonight we did our second advent book activity. It looks like this week and next week our schedules will only allow us to do 2 books during the work week plus 2 on the weekends. That's making me really glad I didn't try to do 25 activities this year. My little boy unwrapped the book If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff. However, he didn't sit and read it with me and his brother. And I didn't force it. I don't want to ruin the spirit of the activities by forcing them on the boys. My oldest boy and I enjoyed the book. It is charming in the spirit of all the "If you give a mouse" books.







Since the mouse in the book makes a popcorn string to put on a Christmas tree that was our activity. My little boy didn't participate (other than eating a lot of the popcorn) but my big boy was able to string several pieces onto a thread and only poked himself once with the needle. No bloodshed, thankfully. He tired of doing it after stringing about 8 inches and I added a little more. Instead of making it a long string I just tied the ends together and made it into a circle which we hung on the tree. If you're interested, go read my original post about this book. I linked to an edible popcorn wreath recipe that looks fun, although we didn't make it.




Here's our popcorn "wreath" on the tree!