Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Advent Countdown

We have been busy with our Advent countdowns.
We delivered food to the SPCA for the cats,
wrote a thankful list,
went to a magic show, which the kids loved.
 Here the kids are getting ready for another activity.
This day we read the story of the angel visiting Mary.
The kids snuggled down in some blankets, 

we had the Christmas lights plugged in on the tree
the room was dim (I just couldn't figure out how to take the picture to show that)
and we read the story
then sang some Christmas songs
The kids loved it
and we had fun!
To update you on the bird food craft,
I used peanut butter to get the seeds to stick
I forgot to mention that step!

It took the birds a day to figure out they were hanging in the tree
I was nervous how they would stay with the rain we had
but they were fantastic
they held up well
now they are empty so I've just been spreading the seed on our trampoline
we have a number of birds now so I didn't want to disappoint them
I really enjoy watching them each day

Monday, December 19, 2011

Menu Plan Monday

Ugh, I'm still full from yesterday.
I had my immediate family Christmas
and we had a good time.
My kids are busy playing with their new toys
It's wonderful!

MONDAY
BBQ Meatballs
Rice
Salad

TUESDAY
Left over Roast
Potatoes
Salad

WEDNESDAY
The mystery meal from last week
we never go to it this last week
Salad

THURSDAY
BBQ Chicken
BBQ Potatoes
Salad

FRIDAY
Black Bean Soup from the freezer
Cut Veggies

SATURDAY
I am possibly having my husband's family for dinner
for our Christmas
Turkey
Potatoes
Salad

SUNDAY *CHRISTMAS*
My extended family christmas
I have to bring buns

Have a fantastic Christmas!
For more menu planning ideas
be sure to check out

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Advent Countdown

 We've had a some more fun things going on with our Advent countdown.  
I actually got this idea from Printerest.  
The kids loved it.
I saved some cardboard tubes.  
Filled some paper plates with bird seed.
Attached some string to the cardboard tubes so they could hang from the trees


 We rolled the tubes on the paper plates, making sure they were nice and covered with the bird seed,
then we hung them from a tree out our window so we could watch
today the birds discovered them and enjoyed.
The kids really enjoyed this craft.  
It was a mess to do.
Next time I would use a deep cake pan for the tubes instead of plates
and make sure the tubes stay in the cake pan as you transport them outside.
Even with the mess, this was really very fun to do with the kids.
 Some other things we have done,
ordered a pizza and ate dinner around the Christmas Tree
and we put up some lights on the house.
We don't normally do outdoor lights
but this little string is for the kids to enjoy
and they enjoy it they do!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Menu Plan Monday



On to a new week...

MONDAY
Baked Potato soup
Cut Veggies

TUESDAY
Chicken Tetrrezini
cut veggies

WEDNESDAY
Spaghetti
Salad

THURSDAY
Mystery Meal from the freezer
we are not sure what it is....
Salad

FRIDAY
Dad's Chili
Cut veggies

SATURDAY
Hubby's work dinner
Kids will have eggs

SUNDAY
My family Christmas

As always be sure to check out
for many more menu ideas

Friday, December 9, 2011

Fun Advent Countdown

This one was fun, the kids LOVED it.
I wasn't sure how it would go over
before we could find out what
our countdown task was today

we had a little repair work to do
from an over eager girly
who found a pair of scissors


with that done
we discovered our advent countdown task
was to dance around to Christmas music
my ketchup faced boy was excited
I discovered I didn't have any dance worthy Christmas music
so we put in some Santana and had a riot

Not only dancing
but some floor swimming

some flying lifts

 some more crazy dancing with Daddy


 and of course
no dance session is complete
without the floor sweeping part
and Daddy found a way
to sweep with two kids at once

 and here is our left leaning tree
the kids are totally enjoying the tree
and therefore I enjoy it also

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Giving Advent Countdown

One of our giving tasks for the Advent countdown was to also give a little gift to people who do things for us and are often over looked.

We wrapped up some chocolates, wrote a little note and bible verse 
.......and waited

and goofed around

and waited some more in the cold,
we didn't want to miss him,
he only comes every two weeks,
not every week like in most places

finally he arrived, our 'garbage man'
we saw the curious look on his as he rounded the corner
then a great big smile as we presented our gifts

the dog was just as excited
so the kids had to get around the dog to give their gifts
it was super fun to see his surprise and thankfulness
we are having a lot of fun with our countdown


Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Sorta Wordless Wednesday - look what I found

Someone quietly got out of bed and found someplace else to sleep, unknown to me.
I don't know how long she was here sleeping.
I can't say it looks comfy, but she was totally out.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Advent Countdown

My kids are excited each morning to cut their advent chain and see what it says for the day.  So far we did snowflakes, made cookies, put up the Christmas tree and yesterday we visited our favorite place to get groceries.


We headed out to Neufeld's, where I do most of my shopping.  A local meat and produce store just down the road from me.  I love shopping there for the quality and they support local products as much as they can, but also for the wonderful staff who always greet me with a smile and remember my name.  They always take the time to stop and see how my family is doing.  
So to say thank you for such a wonderful place to shop we stopped in and delivered some goodies.
It was so fun to see the surprise on their faces and the joy to see our kids bring them their gifts.  My kids were so cute about delivering the snacks.

Neufeld's at Christmas time also has a treat for their customers, they have cookies and hot apple cider.  My kids gladly partook in the yummy treats.

We grabbed a few groceries while were there of course.  It finished my shopping for the week.

We headed home.  It was pretty chilly out, but my kids still had fun doing some jumping on the trampoline.
Our advent countdown is turning out to be a lot of fun!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Menu Plan Monday


Last week I didn't stick to great to my menu plan,
So I've carried over some of the things from last week
MONDAY
Ham Steaks
Brown Rice
Salad

TUESDAY
Chicken Fajitas
Mexican Rice
home made Re fried Beans

WEDNESDAY (meatless)
Spaghetti Squash
Roast Veggie
Homemade Tomato Sauce (from the freezer)
Salad

THURSDAY
Roasted Potatoes
Salad

FRIDAY
Chicken Tetrizzini (from freezer)
Salad

SATURDAY
Mexican Turkey Chili
cut veggies

SUNDAY
left overs
or simple dinner

Nothing to exciting this week
for more menu planning ideas and inspiration
be sure to check out The Organizing Junkie

Friday, December 2, 2011

Christmas countdown

This year I decided to try an advent calendar for the kids.  
However, we don't celebrate santa and we don't pretend about santa. 
Christmas for us is about Christ's birth.  That is what we celebrate.  
I'm one of those mom's who does not like to give my kids candy or small toys.  So I was at a bit of a loss, I posted a plea on facebook.  My friends came thru and gave me great suggestions.
I decided to make the advent calendar easy and easily doable.  These had to be things that I could do with the kids that didn't cost to much money and did not focus on 'getting'
I made two paperchains,
 my kids, I knew would not share

My kids can't read yet, so to make it even easier for me, I just wrote the date in each chain-link.
Then I printed out my advent list and posted it between the chains

 December 1, 
each kid cut their chain-link and our special countdown task today...
cut out snowflakes and start to memorize a bible verse for the Christmas season.
I used coffee filters so that it would be easier for my little ones to cut. 
The kids still are not super fantastic with scissors, so I ended up doing most of the cutting,
letting the kids unfold them.  They thought that was just as great.




Thursday, December 1, 2011

November Things

I can hardly believe it's December today.
I'm sure you noticed that I have been absent from blog land.
With the tragic death of my brother in law that we are all still very much in grief over, we also unexpectantly lost an aunt, as well as my Grandma in the last 3 months.  
This only added to the depth of grief we are already living in.
It's been just over 3 months since the death of Darren, but it's unbelievably fresh still.  
Unreal.
This will take a very long time to not feel such pain and anguish over the loss.
Life continues and so we must keep going.  There is never a time where Darren's death is not on my mind.  It is always there, always.  Maybe not right in the fore front, but in the shadows, lurking, waiting to pounce and therefore I am always aware of it's presence.


November flew by.  And we had snow, it was as is most common in the wet west coast, gone quickly. 
It hung around just long enough for the kids to have some fun.

You can see by these pictures that it really was almost gone, 
but the kids still had fun for the short time outside.  
My man, just loves to make faces right now for the camera
And girly, she just looks cute or silly, I'm not too sure

 I have some more pictures loaded and I hope to share with you our Christmas countdown.  The kids are super excited about it.  So I will be working on some upcoming posts...stay tuned