We started off the month with a combined birthday party for the girls. I have never combined their party and never will again, it was crazy! The reason I did combine was because due to our busy July this summer and then August flew by as well, I just never got around to throwing a party for Bree, even though I had a super fun balloon/water one planned. When Kaylee's birthday came around 4 months later and she asked for a party, I decided to combine. A friend of mine had dressed her family up as Angry Birds for Halloween, so that's where my idea started. Here's some of the snacks - they got to build their own Angry Bird Sandwich using bread cut using a circle cookie cutter, lunch meat, different cheeses for the eyes and beak, and olives. I found the idea HERE thanks to a friend who shared it on facebook.
The kids also decorated their own Angry Birds cupcakes - once again I won't share pics of the kids and their creations for privacy but I loved what they all came up with! I provided lots of different colored frosting, black licorice ropes, gummy orange slices (that we cut down for beaks), marshmallows, sprinkles, and various other toppings. We did homemade personal pan pizzas - so yummy! I didn't get any pics of just my kids, so I won't share them here. Here is the pinata that the girls helped me make - he's the bomb!
I ordered some slingshots and ping pong balls and we planned this fun game. Here is Kaylee trying it out a couple weeks before the party. If you can't tell from the pics, we drew some pig and bird faces on the ping pong balls. This pic is before we colored the balls - I ended up using spray paint to get different colored balls for all of the different characters. The kids divided into teams - one would be the pig team and build up a fortress from foam blocks and the other team would be the birds and try to knock it down with their slingshots. It was a lot of fun.
The next day Bree had a party to go to so she helped me make this quick fleece hat and scarf as a gift for her friend - she had to model it and make sure it would fit!
Here's Brailee and I hanging out at the girls' school Christmas Program. I think it's great that we live in a community where the public elementary school can still have a Christmas program!
Brailee is in a performance group called Sunshine Generation and December was their performance month. She loves it - it's totally her thing as she loves to sing and dance - constantly! Anyway, they had five performances and she got to sing the solo for 'Teddy Bear for Christmas' a few times - I'm so proud of her! Here she is in her costume - I'm not a fan of it but she loves it and still looks adorable ;-)
She got to drop off everybody's letter at the mailbox since she was the only one who wanted to come into town with me!
One morning while the older girls were still in school, we had a tea party in Brailee's room, in our jammies with only the light of her Christmas tree - so fun. I'm so lucky to get to stay home with my kiddos!
Dracula joined us...
...along with his little sister, Suzy!
Here we are picking up the girls from Activity Days - they had a fun Holiday party and Brailee played with the leftovers. It was some reindeer antler relay game with panty hose and balloons, she looks too funny! It was quite entertaining to watch.
Trysten used them as reins and giddy-upped around the room ;-)
I FINALLY got a stocking made for Trysten - he has been using a 'spare' for the past couple of years. I planned on finally finishing it last year and had all the stuff out but the pajama project consumed me and then I got sick so it never got done. I am wanting to do something new for our family stockings hopefully by next year, but at least he has one now! Last year I didn't have anywhere to hang our stockings since we no longer had a mantel, so this year I came up with this.
I covered clothespins with fun paper scraps from all of those German Stars I am always making, they fit perfectly! Then I used the clothespins to clip the stockings to a string.
This year since all of the kids finally have their own room they got to put up their trees in their room - I loved not having them all out in the living room like they have been for the last few years. Here is Trysten decorating his while Kaylee watches. I only got pics of the two younger ones with their trees - next year I will get the other two ;-) Trysten's is a black tree with red ornaments. I need to find (or make - if only I had more time) a tree skirt for his, but just haven't had any luck with either so far.
Brailee's tree - hers is pink with pink and silver ornaments.
We did a few crafty projects in December. Kaylee came up with this idea and luckily I had everything on hand that she needed - she hot glued together stacks of buttons and used pipe cleaners to make rings out of them for her friends. I think they turned out super cute.
Here's Trysten and Brailee with a gift for their preschool teacher - I made some of these previously, along with some other characters - you can check them out HERE and HERE. This time we used the fun button punch that my SIL gave me for my birthday a couple years ago for the eyes and mouth - I like the buttons better than the plain circles I used last time. Inside we put some warm fuzzy socks and some treats.
We did lots of sledding right in our front yard - love it!
Trysten is fearless. He goes over and over again, the only thing that slows him down is waiting for someone to help him get his sled back up to the top each time.
Brailee likes to ride down on Daddy's back. I think she's in that hat there somewhere!
We didn't make it to see Santa until the Wednesday before Christmas we finally caught him at the library. This was the first year every single one of my kids saw Santa and nobody was shy or afraid! This was a big step for Brailee this year!
My Dad and Shelly gave us this snowmobile this last summer - it just needed some work, most importantly a new rope for the pull start. So David worked on it and after some outside help we finally got it running. It's been fun to buzz around our place.
Brianna wanted to make stress balls out of balloons and flour, so that was another simple project we did. Here is Trysten with his, plus he got into his sister's lip gloss ;-)
We don't do gingerbread houses around here - we prefer graham cracker houses. Here are the kids with their creations.
We made some yummy new treats this year - Peppermint Oreo Balls (can you tell we like Oreo Balls around here?), and Peanut Butter Cups (I can find the link to the recipe I used if anybody is interested), along with some old favorites, pretzels dipped in white almond bark and sprinkled with yummy Pampered Chef toppings - Caramel and Cinnamon.
That's not all of our December happenings - I'll be back with some pics from Christmas and of a certain birthday girl!
1 comment:
I love it. All of it. I miss you. The end.
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