The Final Countdown

December 15: We went to the family Christmas party. They have the kids dress up for a nativity scene while the Christmas story is read. Talon did not want to dress up as the shepherd but he eventually decided he could wear the headband to be like Kung Fu Panda.

December 16: We watched The Polar Express.

December 17: Talon wore the Christmas shirt he made. He's pretty proud of it .

December 18: We attempted to make jigglers. I don't thing I had the right amount of water because they didn't work at all. It didn't stop us from eating them though!

December 19: We made marshmallow snowmen!!! I learned that if you overheat chocolate it becomes a huge clump but if you put it in a cold bowl and mix in some cold pieces of chocolate and keep stirring, it becomes melted again. Pretty cool! Talon had fun putting the little snowmen together. My favorite is the one that has 4 or 5 arms with some coming out of its head. Don't you just love that chocolatey smile?

December 20: We wrote a letter to Santa and Talon drew a picture. He came up with what he wanted all on his own. :)

December 21: We had reindeer pancakes! Of course it needed "brows". :)

December 22: Flaming snowballs! What could be better than ice cream and fire! You just put a sugar cube soaked in lemon extract on top and light it up.

December 23: Ginger bread houses. The best part was how excited talon was when we built a house out of graham crackers. "Wow, that's cool!"

December 24:  Rice Krispie treats. Marshmallows + ANYTHING = happy boy :) 

It was so much fun to have something for this boy to look forward to every day. We would get home and Talon would always ask about his sock tree so we could see what it says. I can't wait until next year when he has a little brother to join in the excitement.

Christmas Week #2

December 8: We made sugar cookies! Talon loved cutting out cookies shaped like snowmen and "ginger men".

December 9: We read a Christmas book.

December 10: We made s'mores over the stove. We tried the fireplace but the wood was too wet. The boys still had fun lighting it though. I love this picture of the two of them.

December 11: We made popcorn. This is one of Talon's favorite things to do and asks to make it every time we go over to grandma and grandpa's. He had to shake his bowl just like grandpa does.

December 12: Talon went over to Grandma's Christmas party for the grand kids. They all come over and make treats and play games. Talon had so much fun! Thanks Grandma Peggy!

December 13: We went and saw the Christmas lights. There's a house that goes all out with Christmas lights every year. They have cut outs of hundreds of cartoon characters. The city also does lights. Talon  's eyes lit up with excitement when he first saw them. That's the best part. :)

December 14: Talon made a reindeer shirt with his handprint. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty but I think he liked it in the end.

Christmas Week #1

We had a fun first week of December! Talon loves to take the little sock off of the tree each day and unroll the paper to see what he gets to do. He'll say "Let's see what it says Mom."

So here's what we did this week.

December 1: We made Christmas candles out of toilet paper rolls and pipe cleaners.

December 2: We drank hot chocolate with marshmallows. Talon wanted cold chocolate. Anytime we eat something he says "Make it cold Mom."

December 3: We colored a Christmas picture. It's no surprise that he chose one with Mickey and Minnie.

December 4: We cut out paper snowflakes. Talon loved to unfold the paper and see a cool snowflake.

December 5: We made a Christmas star for our Christmas trees. Talon picked out the blue yarn for his star.

December 6: We bought a present for Dad and put it under the tree. Talon did a good job picking but I can't say what it is yet. It's not very easy to surprise this boy's dad.

December 7: We made play dough and made snowmen, stars and snakes. This was by far the funnest one for Talon. He sat there for at least an hour smashing the snowmen and rolling out snakes that were "too big" and "too little". That's an eternity for a 2 year old!

 

This was the smile he gave me right before saying "No more pictures Mom!"

 

Disclaimer: As the week went on, the dates really match the day we drew the paper from the sock, not necessarily the day we did the activity. I've learned that its more fun for Talon and less chance of procrastinating it if I have the things we need ready as soon as we draw the paper from the sock. We'll do better at that this week now that we're all caught up. :)

Christmas Countdown

This December, I wanted to start an advent calendar tradition. I wanted it to be super original and be a way to make fun memories with my kids during the Christmas season. So, I looked on Pinterest and saw one that used baby socks hung up like stockings with clothes pins. This one had them all in a row, but I thought that it would be fun to have them pinned to a Christmas tree. 

We have little fake pine trees decorating our family room so that part was easy. I already had the clothes pins and paper so I decorated those with a number for each day leading up to Christmas. Thanks to my mother-in-law who cut out the paper! I love how they turned out. (Sorry the pictures are kind of blurry).

The hardest part was finding baby socks! You would think that with Christmas right around the corner it would be a cinch to find Christmas baby socks, but it turned out to be impossible. I was super excited to find some online a week ago, but apparently no one makes them anymore and my order was cancelled. I finally went to the dollar store and found some little boy socks for a good price and I will keep looking for Christmas socks for next year. I'm sure I can find a use for all of these socks soon!

One thing that makes this advent calendar extra special is that in each sock is a piece of paper that says something fun we will do that day... This is the memory part of it. I have to give credit to my sister for that idea. :) 

I won't give away what's inside yet because that would kill the surprise. You'll just have to wait and see!

Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year! It was fun to have Talon this year even though he was more excited about the wrapping paper than anything. Here he is with his knew rifle chewing on one of his animals. He got his first tooth on Christmas Eve. That might explain the chewing.The toy Talon is leaning on is a dinosaur that shoots balls out of the middle. He loves to lean on it like that and try to stand up. I think it's so funny. He usually only gets up to kneeling and then falls over.

Even since my last post about Talon, he has learned so much! He can now roll over from his stomach to his back. Pretty soon he'll be rolling all over the place. He is also scooting around a bunch. Whenever he is playing on the floor, he's in new spot every time I look at him. With his new Christmas toys he has more motivation to sit up so he can now sit up for quite a while on his own!

Christmas Day

We had a nice Christmas this year. It was our first in our new house and Tito's first Christmas. I waited to put the presents under the tree until the night before because I wasn't sure what he would do to them without us looking. I can't imagine they'd stay wrapped for very long.

We wrapped his presents because we thought he'd have fun unwrapping them AKA tearing them apart. Well, he wasn't really sure what to do with it. He kept ripping off small pieces of paper and running out of the room like he was in trouble...probably because he usually is in trouble when we catch him ripping up paper.

Well, he liked his new toy bone. Here he is playing with it.

And here he is enjoying food out of his new dog bowls.

We spent the rest of the day being lazy and hanging out with family. Sorry if hearing about a dog's Christmas bored you, but he was the most excited one this year, and since we don't have a kid to spoil yet, you get to hear about Tito. ;) Christmas is a lot different being all grown up and married (I can't believe this was our 3rd Christmas married!) 3 years sounds like a long time but doesn't feel like it's been that long. That's definitely a good thing. :)

Christmas!

It definitely feels a lot more like Christmas this year than it did last year! Last year, we moved out of our apartment the day after Christmas so we didn't do anything to decorate! It didn't feel much like Christmas at all. This year is our first Christmas in our new house so it's our first chance to really make it our own. A couple weeks ago, we went up to the mountains and hiked through snow that came up to our hips to chop down our own Christmas tree! Well, I didn't have much to do with the chopping down part, but it was fun to pick out a real tree and it smelled great around all of the pines and freshly fallen snow. We were completely soaked by the end.

Here it is all lit up and decorated. They are definitely not as full as a tree you would find in a store parking lot, but we definitely got a good one here. The best part is, it only costs $10 for a tree permit! It doesn't get much better than that.

Christmas Tree!

This year we decided to go chop down our own Christmas Tree. It was way fun hiking through the snow to try and find the perfect one!

This one was too small.

This one was too big!!

...but this one was just right.

After our search for the perfect tree, we tied it to the top of our litte black car and headed out of the mountain to bring it home. Due to severe slidage on the roof of the car, we were forced to toss the tree in a ditch on the side of the road. All in all we had a great experience and look forward to doing it next year :) Happy Holidays!