Advent day 13-16

Day 13 - In the morning we had a nice time at home and when Aaron napped, Caleb and i made some Christmas cakes (which were basically just fairy cakes but we'll call them Christmas cakes for the purpose of advent blogging).

In the afternoon, Caleb's nursery class were shepherds in the whole school show. They sang a really cute song and all looked adorable. I was proud of my boy. He's on the left nearest the camera with the brown tshirt (back to me though).

Day 14 - We made our good old salt dough ornaments to hang on the tree! Flour, salt and water, easy peasey.

Day 15 - We went to the toy store 'Hamleys' in Glasgow to have brunch with Santa! We went with friends from the nursery and it was lovely. The kids all had something to eat, Santa arrived and read them a story, they coloured in some activity sheets and decorated cookies. The elves were there to help, Caleb's favourite being 'crazy' elf. They all then got to go up and speak to Santa individually and got a wonderful goody bag of  Hamleys toys. Despite all this Christmas loveliness, Caleb's favourite part of the day was the train ride up to Glasgow. I could have saved myself some money and just rode the train all day with him ;-)

Day 16 - today, we  will paint the salt dough ornaments.

Advent 8-12

This advent blogging is going well then ha ha ha

Day 8 - Caleb didnt make it to his friend's party as he wasnt feeling well. Aaron was super cranky. Saturday was a crappy day.We got the main tree up anyway and started decorating.

Day 9 - we continued decorating! Not a great picture but theres a small tree in the top left window and my hubby did a great job on the living room lights in the front right. Plus my blue and white snowflakes outside.

Day 10 - yet more decorating! I have a stitching tree this year! yay! That tree is in my kitchen and has my small collection of christmas stitching on it. I need to get a picture.
Also on day 10, Caleb had his wee friend round to make up for missing her party on day 8. He loves Isla. He told me. lol.

Day 11 - Fail. I forgot what the activity was and simply ran out of time to even look it up. After the nursery run i had to go and open up the church hall for toddlers, then rush back to pick up Caleb again. We had an hour to grab lunch at home and get sorted before heading back out for Caleb's Kinder Gym (gymnastics class). By the time we got home, after running around Largs looking for Aaron's lost shoe (which showed up eventually in the car) and dropping in at my sisters to wish her a happy birthday, it was after 4pm and my food shopping delivery arrived and i had dinner to prepare, then the kids to bath and get ready for bed. So no, i had no time to make paper snowflakes. We will, another day.

Day 12 - Do something for charity. Every year i plan to do one of those fill-a-shoe-box appeal things. Operation Christmas or whatever its called. However, every year, by the time i look it up, ive missed the deadlines which all tend to be in November. This morning however, Caleb and i had a good wee chat about Kenya. I cant even remember how the opportunity came up but it just happened and i got out my newsletter from Footsteps International (the wonderful charity some good friends of mine run) and we looked at the pictures and talked about how hard other kids have it and how Christmas is not all about 'getting toys.' Footsteps works in Kenya with street kids. Caleb was particularly drawn to a picture of a wee boy with scraps of material for shoes. Whats happened to his shoes mummy? Anyway, my little almost-4 year old agreed to donate the contents of his piggy bank (£14) to Footsteps International. Good on him. It wasn't really what i'd intended for this day, id originally planned to have them pick out some stuff we could take to a charity shop but the little chat was impromptu and felt right.

So thats my update. I work on a Wednesday and i am blissfully enjoying peace and quiet and computer time without little hands grabbing at me or trying to bash the keypad.

First week of advent activities

Well i knew i'd be bad at this advent blogging but was expecting to be this bad! I have managed not to blog at all in December yet, haha. We have been doing our advent activities though!

Day 1 - we put up the advent calendar. Easy one! I did not, however, get the wooden one out the garage. We are decorating this weekend so it will appear then, one week late ;)

Day 2 - The Jingle Bell fun run. I took Aaron to take part in his first race haha We ran 1K. Or more precisely mummy ran 1K whilst pushing a pram dressed as Santa and it was not easy!

Day 3 - If you've not heard of the Portable North Pole console, google it and do one for any kids you know!  Its amazing. Caleb and Aaron love their personalised message from Santa videos.

Day 4  - We did our 'Elf yourself' video, which Caleb loves and watches over and over. It does make me laugh.

Day  5 -  I was at work and the boys spent the day with their Canadian grandparents before they returned home to Canada. Caleb adores his Grandma and Grandpa. It was nice to get a bit of a break by having some live in babysitters for a week!

Day 6 - Letter to Santa written and posted. Royalmail have an 'address' to send letters to Santa to and he even writes back!

Dear Santa,

My name is Caleb and i am 3 years old, nearly 4. I have a brother called Aaron and he is 1 year old. We live  at.......... For Christmas, if im a good boy, i would like a didicar for playing outside, a new dvd and a new toy please. Thank-you Santa. 

Love Caleb

Day 6 - It was the nursery/p1 Christmas show 'Snowman at Sunset' and it was adorable.

We went to the Christmas carnival at the garden centre afterwards as a treat for such a good performance :-)

I had my first Christmas night out last night with my mummy friends from the nursery. It was a great night and it felt good to get all glammed up for once!

We'll be taking it easy today before i take Caleb to his friends party this afternoon. Fancy dress costume to sort out for that (boo), halloween's enough fancy dress stress for me to contend with lol

DeBloAdMo 2012

Here we are again! December Blog Advent Month. A concept designed by my friend Lori a few years ago. In fact i searched back through my blog to find Lori's original idea. Here it is:

 "Post every day in the month of December until Christmas one special idea you can do as a family, a couple or a group of friends. Of if you're really clever, post a wee thought each day about Christmas or something." 

Im doing it, for the third year. Feel free to join in! Let me know so i can follow your posts though! I can already say that im pretty sure i wont get to blog everyday but i will do my activity. I had great intentions of making our list less commercialised this year, get back to the true meaning of Christmas and all that jazz, but December has crept up on me again and im just not organised and im empty of ideas....i did throw in a few (day 12/day 19/day 23) 


Day 1 - hang up chocolate advent calendar and find the wooden advent calendar from the boxes in the garage!
Day 2 - Go to the Jingle Bell Fun Run (mummy's work) and walk 1K in Christmas clothes!
Day 3 - Message from Santa video
Day 4 - Elf ourselves
Day 5 - Have a special day with Grandpa and Grandma before they go back to Canada
Day 6 - Write and post a letter to Santa 
Day 7 - Christmas nativity concert at nursery
Day 8 - Go to Isla's birthday party
Day 9 - Get the Christmas trees up and start decorating
Day 10 -  Continue decorating!
Day 11 - Make paper snowflakes for bedroom windows
Day 12 - Do something for charity
Day 13 - Christmas whole school show
Day 14 - Make salt dough ornaments
Day 15 - Go up to Hamleys in Glasgow with friends for a special Santa brunch
Day 16 -  Paint salt dough ornaments
Day 17 - Go to Kinder Gym Christmas party
Day 18 - Make paperchains
Day 19 -  Read the nativity story
Day 20 - Nursery Christmas party and Funworld Christmas party at night with friends!
Day 21 - Have a Christmas picnic
Day 22 - Do an activity from our Usborne Christmas book
Day 23 - Sing Christmas carols and learn about baby Jesus
Day 24 - Have family round for Christmas Eve dinner, remember to put out milk and cookies for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph

Tonight we went down to the school in our village to see the lights get switched on, hear the choir sing carols and see Santa...... and its not even December yet!

Why do i look more excited than Caleb??

Ornament for son number1

Im quite proud that i've been organised enough to start early on my Christmas stitching! Ive finished Caleb's ornament this week. Of course i now have to stitch the back (i always like to stitch a message) and then make it into an ornament, so there's still a bit of work left to do but hey, the front is complete anyway! I stitch an ornament every year for the boys. Here's 2009, 2010, 2011

Its a Prairie Schooler design.

Lest we forget

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Laurence Binyon

Going Galoshans

Galoshans. There's a good ole Scottish word for ye. It means 'guising' or trick or treating to use the now popular Americanism. Galoshans is a pretty local term, this part of Inverclyde is one of the few places in Scotland that still uses it apparently. In Scotland, it's tradition not just to go round houses collecting sweets but you have to 'perform'  as well. I like that part. Where i grew up in England, trick or treating for teenagers in particular was literally 'give us a treat or we'll throw an egg at your house,'  for little ones it was just going round sweet grabbing. In Scotland, kids are expected to tell a joke or sing a song. Its fun.

Did i just say FUN? For those that know me, i am NOT a fan of Halloween, it is not an occasion that sits comfortably with me. We're Christians, we go to church and im not comfortable with the evil, sinister side of Halloween. As well as that, i just dont get it! What is it celebrating? What's the point of it? Our country never used to be into it this much! On top of all that, i quite simply don't like the colour orange :)

However, i have kids now and there is no avoiding Halloween. Calebs school is decorated, they've been hearing stories about witches and such like for the past week and had a party yesterday. I was against 'celebrating' Halloween in anyway until i seen the pure joy in Calebs face at the thought of dressing up, going out with his friends in the dark and getting sweets lol On Tuesday he even told me he felt sad we had no Halloween decorations up. So....all of a sudden i became Halloween-ised (and yes, i know that's not a word).

We carved our pumpkin (i would have done this anyway, even before kids Matthew and i had a pumpkin each)

We made paper bats, painted them and hung them on the window.

We had a Halloween dinner of  Ghosts (breaded turkey steaks cut into gingerbread man shapes), blood (tomato ketchup) and guts (baked beans)

We went out trick or treating with friends

and look at the mummy who 'hates' Halloween. Yeah, that big smile clearly shows how much i hate it lol

Caleb had a blast, came home with bags and bags of sweets and went to bed exhausted. We live in a great neighbourhood for this. The street was buzzing last night with at least 30 wee kiddies out and about with their parents. It was lovely actually. Even the houses without kids welcomed them in, had turned their living rooms into proper displays and enjoyed playing host. 

Now if Halloween's good for nothing else at least we can say it forged friendships and deepened the community spirit of the neighbourhood. So its not all bad!

Caleb's joke:

What do witches put on their hair at Halloween?

Scarespray!

Not to leave Aaron out, he had his pumpkin tshirt on for the day

So whilst you wont hear me wish anyone a 'Happy Halloween' i've come round to the idea a little bit. 'Happy Dress up Day' :-)