Friday, December 11, 2009

Ginormous Cocktail Rings and Funny Flashbacks

Hey all! Guess what? This is my weekend of CHRISTMAS SHOPPING MADNESS! Well, actually, I will go today, and Monday. Ya know, to avoid crowds...I think...I usually do my shopping on Amazon or something so, I am sure this will be interesting.

So this year, hubby really wants to open gifts. For us that is. Like from wrapping paper, things that are surprises and things we put on lists and stuff. The kids open millions of course. We usually just buy what we need and we're all, "yeah, we like that", see? So during dinner he said, "what do you want?"

*blink blink*

Me: "Want? What does, 'want' mean? I know what I need, I need new towels, shower curtain, rug for the kitchen, winter boots, a coat rack for all the coats that don't fit in the closet, oh and a shoe rack for all those stinkin' shoes, and a vacuum filter..."

Josh: "Kim, what do you want?"

Me: "Well, what's the dollar amount?"

Josh: "Don't worry about that..."

Me: *worrying anyway* "Well then, what I want is this."

Josh: *blinks* "Really?"

Me: "Yes."

Josh: "Jewelry huh? OK..."

Let's see if he reads this post...ya know, so he remembers his, "OK"...heh heh...

But, for now, it's time for you all to enjoy...

FANTASTIC FLASHBACK FRIDAY FUNNESS!!

Awww look at Angry Kitty this week! All festive and full of Christmas spirit!

OK so, this post was a favorite last year to about 3 people. I am posting it again because 1. my kids have already started their singing, and I totally dropped the ball on doing an advent calendar with the kids, and I feel like a complete loser. I shall make up for it will copious amounts of cookie making. I hope. So here you are! Enjoy and have a great weekend ya'all!


The Holidays do weird things to me; I start to feel “creative”. I am not too talented in this department, though, Martha Stewart would certainly not approve. But, because I try to allow creative, crafty thoughts to enter my head, every so once in a while I will explode with what I think is a fantastic idea.

Now, when I try to be crafty in the summer or fall, espec
ially for homeschooling, the results are often shameful. Take for instance this past fall when I thought it would be a great idea to take the kids out and gather natural materials to make bird's nests. During our walk on that sunny afternoon we collected sticks, leaves, hay, and whatever else we thought we could use, as I talked about the different materials, where birds might build their nests, and how long it must take for a bird (uh…a FEMALE bird, the guy basically just sits around and sings) to make her home, as her beak is tiny and she can’t pick up a lot of material like we can. So nature lesson, vitamin D, and materials acquired, we walked back home to assemble cute little bird's nests. Yeah, right…

I started with the idea that we would glue the sticks and what-not to the sides of a paper bowl, just to have a base. OK, three problems right off the bat: sticks are straight, bowls are round, and my kids have an extreme aversion to glue. As the sticks fell off again and again, my kids began to freak out and focus on the glue drying on their hands. They ignored the mess on the table they had made and started frantically picking glue off their fingers. At this point, my own frustrations led me to think that the home-made play dough I made for them would be a great substitute for the bowl, and no glue would be necessary. Well, I have a lot to write here so let’s just cut to the chase ok? It looked like I took purple play dough, threw it outside, and kicked it around a bit and said, “look, kids, a bird's nest!” No, I do not have a picture of that. I normally don’t like to record my mistakes that way… Let’s just fast forward to the Holidays, OK?

My mai
n focus is setting up wonderful family traditions and peppering them with just enough crafts to make the season fun, but not so much that I pull my hair out and have to move furniture around to make space to put them all. Cookies turn out pretty well, like these here. Easy enough, I just downloaded tons of recipes from the Internet and got to work with the kids. They loved it. Stained glass, candy canes, triple chocolate chunk, log rolls, coconut thingies…all good…so good, in fact, I braved massive snowstorms to drop them off at people’s homes. Oh yeah, I went all out.

My favorite tradition/creative idea (which I actually took from my mother-in-law) is making a birthday cake for Jesus, which we have, candle included, on Christmas day. I bake a white Bundt cake and dump tons of red food coloring in (I’m sure that’s healthy) then I cover it with white frosting. We sing that song about birthdays being happy, and we eat the cake, talking about how the white represents Jesus’ purity and the red represents the blood he shed for us when he died on the cross for our sins. The kids quite often want to give Jesus gifts, so that is where I explain that when we are giving to others in need, during this season and all through the year, we are actually giving to him. As of late they have been busy picking out toys of their own to give to the gift drive coming up at our church. They are wrapping them, with tin foil, and adding ribbon. They are having a blast.

So this year, more so than other years, I have heard lots of people talking about Advent calendars. Well, that is something I haven’t implemented until now! And, again, in the spirit of saving money, an idea exploded from my head. No, not just a light bulb, a nuclear blast, right from my head!

I have a hard time throwing away Christmas cards we receive, and often just pack them away with all the decorations come January. So, I decided, I would make an Advent calendar using the cards from last year! Oh, I was so proud of myself! No one could possibly get hurt doing that, right??? Here’s what happened…

I set out all the materials, and the rules: no running with scissors, no dripping g
lue on the carpet, no stepping on any of the materials, and NO complaining! We laid all the cards out and set up our stations; Jacob cut the cards, Audrey glued them to red paper, and I cut them out with a border. Not too bad…

2 minutes in: Jacob started singing the tune, “Jingle Bells” to the last word of every sentence I said, for example, “Jacob, don’t do that! “ “THAT THAT THAT! THAT THAT THAT! THAT THAT THAT, THAT THAAAAAAAAAT!”

2 ½ minutes in: Audrey announced she is tired of gluing, that her hand hurts, and she sat on the couch to pick glue off her hands.

3 minutes in: Jacob found the card that plays all the Christmas songs. He announced this should be the last card we “open” on the calendar (good idea!) and proceeded to sit w
ith the card and sing all the songs, shirking his cutting duties.

4 minutes in: I have already said these things several times; “Audrey, keep going, and put the glue on the edges of the cards!”; “Jacob put the music card down!”; “Audrey, stop picking your fingers!”; “Jacob, PUT DOWN THE CARD!” I snatched the card away as he started singing, “CARD CARD CARD! CARD CARD CARD…”

5 minutes in: Jacob nearly head-butted my scissors several times as he bent over to pick up more cards.

6 minutes in: Audrey was back to picking glue off her fingers.

7 minutes in: Most of the
cards were glued to red paper, of which we had none left so we had to get “creative”.

8 minutes in: Jacob yelled, “I have itchy spots!” Still not really sure what he was talking about…

9 minutes in: Jacob snatched the singing card away from under my knee. I threatened that the card would be “broken” if he didn’t leave it alone until Christmas Day. Audrey had lost all interest.

10 minutes in: Audrey was dazed on the couch, complaining that her hand still hurt, Jacob was running back and forth from the garbage to the living room, throwing away useless scraps, singing, “TRASH TRASH TRASH! TRASH TRASH TRASH! TRASH TRASH TRAS
H, TRASH TRAAAAAAAAAAASH!”

20 minutes later: Kids were off somewhere as I tried to finish placing the car
ds on the green poster board and adding the border.

Here’s what we came up with . I still have to attach the bible verses under the cards, and number each card, but, you get the idea. OK so, in my mind it looked FANTASTIC! And, actually, I am sure others could do a much better job, like making pockets, or doing a mobile, or using all musical cards or whatever. But, even if this example is merely a template of what others could do, the sentiment is still what is most important to me. I have finished picking out 24 verses to put under each card and will paste them under each card. I am excited to explore a verse a day with them, verses that cover everything from praising God, to loving/helping others, and becoming more Christ-like.

So there ya go! No one was hurt, I barely lost my mind, I recycled Christmas cards, we will get some bible time in each day, and now the kids won’t have to ask, “when is it gonna be Christmas?” every two minutes.

6 comments:

Kearsie said...

MINUTES MINUTES MINUTES,
MINUTES MINUTES MINUTES,
MINUTES MINUTES MINUTES MINUTES MINUTES MINUUUUTTTEESSSSS.

Dude, Jacob is so onto something.

SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING,
SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING...

Stephanie said...

Love it! I am so not creative...I did my own wreaths on the front door this year by picking the wreaths and then deciding what color bow should go on the front, the nice lady at the store put it together for me:)

StudiusMaximus said...

Reeeeaaaal subtle.

-Josh

Lynn Kellan said...

Hubba Wha? I can't wait to learn what your husband got your for Xmas! Yippee!

And don't ask for towels, girlfriend!!

SPEAKING FROM THE CRIB said...

christmas brings out the crafter in me too. we made homemade garland - it was from archivers, so kind of homemade - and it turned out pretty good.

ScoMan said...

Thanks for stopping by.

This year is the first year I've gone online for Christmas shopping.. for the most part. One of my brothers and my niece I've gone out and got theirs, but everyone else was online. It's so much easier.

Headbutting scissors is a painful way to proove a point. Especially when nobody would really be sure what point you're making.

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