2012 Advent Calendar...

It is the time to start thinking about Advent again, and I realized that I did not post about what we did for our Advent Calendar last year.  We like to do something special with the kids, it helps our whole family focus for the Christmas season.  Another activity I like to do with the kids at Christmas is make an ornament together, and in my search online for ornaments, I came across a number of references to "Truth in the Tinsel" Advent ornaments.  I looked them up and was impressed.  It was going to be perfect to do with the kids being the ages they were.  And are you kidding me?  G being able to craft everyday?  She was in heaven.  I knew there were going to be busy days too so I did purchase the printable color in ornaments too, and there were many days that we colored one of those and glued it to a plastic lid, added a ribbon and voila!  While looking up a few more things about this program, I also saw a neat way to organize the activities for the whole month - using Christmas paper and canning jars!  Both of which I had a huge abundance, so that made a nice Christmas decoration on the top of our bookcases for the month, and the kids could hardly wait to pull down the next jar and see what was in it. (I did get a lot prepped before Advent started, due to Thanksgiving being so early, but I also adjusted things as we went too, and there were a few days that we couldn't get to it and we did 2 or 3 the next day...it was very flexible and easy to keep up with!  And as I always do, if there was something I didn't think would work or if I had a better idea, we just did that instead.  In fact I subbed in some ornaments we already had too!)  

Here are the photos for each day, and check out the website or send me an email if you have more questions about it!

(Reading the last day on Christmas Eve right opening the cross with the devotions was so fitting and moving and a perfect way to focus our family Christmas celebration!  Seeing the look on the kids' faces as they "got it" was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole month)

fun friday, 6.21.13...

In planning activities for our week with M&A, we knew that IKEA was on the list, and the boys wanted to golf, and the girls wanted to go thrifting/shopping, but we needed something special for the kids too.  I listed off a number of things to them including the zoo, museums, and a local chlorinated swimming beach.  As soon as I said beach they immediately said "E would love that!"  My kids would too, definitely, so for fun friday while they were here, we headed for the beach.

This beach is really a man-made swimming hole that is chlorinated, which is really nice because as most of you know the lakes can get pretty scummy in MN on hot summers.  So you have the clean water of a pool, and the atmosphere of a beach with all the sand!  This place gets pretty busy, so we made sure we were there right away in the morning when it opened.  And since it was cloudy and had rained the night before we had the beach to ourselves for an hour before people started trickling in!

We staked out a good spot under the umbrellas and headed for the water.  H was unsure...

...so he watched while E tested it out.

The big kids were super excited that Uncle M went right into the water and played with them.

Getting thrown in was big fun!

And E and H had a lot of fun playing near the shore with the sand toys we had just gotten at IKEA.

Another fun game which was by far C's favorite, was to back up to the building and run on the sand and straight into the water making glorious splashes!

C's splashing got a little too crazy at one point though.  He splashed H right in the face and H ended up getting a big red puffy eye.  He cried and fussed and wouldn't open it - we didn't know whether some sunscreen had gotten in it or whether it was sand and going to damage his eye.  But Auntie A wins the best auntie of the year award for her heroics that day at the expense of all the people at the beach thinking of calling child services on her!  H would NOT open his eye even with me trying to pry it so we could not flush it with clean water.  So A offered to throw water from my water bottle at his face if I could distract him enough to get him to stop crying and look up.  Sounds HORRIBLE, I know, and I will never forget the look on M's face (he was NOT in on the plan), but it seriously helped so much.  H's eye was still quite red, but he at least was able to open it without fussing.  THANKS SO MUCH A! 

As a precaution, since eye stuff is scary to me, I did take him to our pediatrician's office (which was only 10 min away from the beach), and they flushed the eye again and he was back to normal by the time we got back to the beach.  M & A did kid duty and everyone had a blast at the beach.  They even got hot dogs form the concession stand which my kids thought was awesome.

 All in all, I think everyone had a great time!

Then we headed for home where it was bath time, nap time, quiet time, (more golf time for M), followed by Noodles for supper.  What a great fun friday!!!

 

visit from M&A...and a SIXTH birthday!

(LOVE!  Not planned at all, but A just posted about this trip to us too!  Thanks for being as far behind as I am...=)

My brother M and his family contacted us way back in February about coming to the cities for vacation.  YAY!  We always love visits from them.  They wanted to come up in early June so we settled on the week after the kids got out of school.  Only to find out our VBS was scheduled for that week.  They graciously agreed to wait until after VBS so we could participate and then have time to spend with them.  This was all good and fine in April/May when we were discussing this, until life hit early June.  We had a super busy end to school followed by a CRAZY busy week with VBS and I was super fried.  I was so looking forward to a visit from M&A and our dear niece E, and I wanted to make it a great week and vacation for them, but I couldn't contemplate cleaning the house, doing laundry, much less making a menu plan for cooking food for the week.  Plus S was super busy at work and could only get Tuesday-Thursday off and the kids had soccer 2 evenings and S had consistory on a different evening.  We were stressed and I was so worried that it was going to be the worst vacation that they ever had.

But I have got to remember that it isn't always about the clean house and having everything perfectly under control.  Because the house wasn't clean, M cooked more than I did while they were here (!!?!), and we had SUCH a great week together. 

They arrived at our house Sunday evening after a long day of driving, so Monday was pretty low key.  

The kids were so excited just to play together!

Our big kids had just started soccer the week before, so we had a practice that evening.  M&A decided to hit up Costco and go out to eat (we took sandwiches to soccer) and relax at our place.

Tuesday S had the day off of work so we made a day trip to IKEA!  A favorite place of all of us.  A got much better photos since she was working on a photography course, but all I have this horrible cell phone photo of adorable children that is too cute not to share:

After IKEA we headed to the MOA for a visit to A's and my favorite kids clothing store, Hanna Andersson.  Not that we bought anything at the ridiculous retail prices (we are so clearance, sale, and used shoppers!), but it was fun to drool and ooooh at the pretties.  From there our crew headed home as S had a consistory meeting, and their crew headed to eat pizza and visit with other friends.  (I warmed up leftovers or something for us at home...still no cooking yet from me. =) 

Wednesday, M and S had a boys day and they golfed 18 holes at a nice course near us.  A and I played with the kids, had grilled cheese for lunch (does that count as cooking?), and then got ready in the afternoon to go C's and G &W's soccer practice in the evening.  They scrimmage during their practices and M coaches soccer himself so we thought it would be fun to hang out there for the evening together.  We dropped everyone off and A and I were going to run to a supposedly close DQ to get supper for everyone (still no cooking!).  It was NOT close, and it did NOT serve anything but ice cream, and there was NOT anything else near it, and it was NOT that much fun.  We did eventually find a Culver's and arrive in time to get G&W a quick bite before they had practice.  It was at least nice outside so kicking the soccer ball around and lounging in the shade helped us forget about the DQ debacle. =) 

No photos from soccer, but I do have a photo of a little evening project for S in front of the hockey game in preparation for a special day...

Thursday was W's SIXTH birthday!!!!  We had planned a birthday party in the evening with J&C and girls too and W was unbelievably pumped that ALL of his cousins were going to be there to help him celebrate.  This was A's and my last chance for a girls day though before S had to go back to work the rest of the week, so we left the kids in the capable hands of the daddas and we went thrifting and shopping (lots of ON super cash to use!!! =).  We had such a nice day and when we came back the boys were working on supper already.  While I finished up wrapping gifts, S grilled, and M made the creamettes (so I didn't cook again!).  Oh yeah, and M also made the hot milk cake with W earlier in the day for his birthday cake.

 The party guests, minus H who had a meltdown and was napping.

The birthday boy was happy with his requested meal: grilled hot dogs, creamettes (family mac'n'cheese), watermelon & baby carrots...on Lightning McQueen plates.

Then it was present time! G & C worked hard making him a Lightning McQueen kite.

 Auntie A made him an AWESOME storm troopers shirt and plaid pair of shorts (that I seriously thought were store bought until I saw just a ribbon tag in the back that night - she is that good)

Auntie C TOTALLY made C's day by including him on the present fun.  (They were super busy at C's birthday and his gift never made it at that time, which he never noticed!  Making this even more fun)

Auntie C and the girls made both boys lanyard bracelets (a craft that G got to do with the older kids in VBS and the boys were envious of) and got them really loud fun bicycle bells.  They had an extra gift for W (it was his day after all!), which was another big kid VBS craft that W didn't get to do and was jealous of - a duct tape t-shirt bag (Auntie C was in charge of crafts at VBS and they were awesome this year)!  And his was made out of a super hero t-shirt which made it all the more cool.

W also got some great outdoor toys from Mrs. Lynne and Mr. Dan, a Bird Bingo game from Aahma and Papa, and a new Mo Willems book from Aahma and Boppa.  We try to save the book present to the end since W can't open a book without reading it right that second.  We had a special gift to end with from Momma and Dadda this year though.  (He liked his other gifts from us too - Star Wars Hanna Jams for need, Ralph S Mouse for read, Twins shorts for wear, and...)

wait for it...

A new bike (his want gift)!!

We wrapped up the evening with hot milk cake and strawberries and ice cream, a favorite of W's, and this boy went to bed one happy 6 yr old.  We love you W!!!

My brain fails me on when and what nights they were, but after kids went to bed at night, we adults would sit down with a soda or a Mike's or beer, and sometimes a bowl of ice cream, and talk.  We also played games, our favorite being one that M & A brought along, Pandemic.  Seriously awesome game.

Friday I am going to write about in a "fun friday" post, so you will have to wait anxiously for that later. (but we had Noodles and Co for supper so I didn't cook again =)

Saturday was M & A and E's last full day with us.  Since G is the only girl in our family, and LOVES to wear matchy clothes - which is hard with 3 brothers, A and I have kept our eyes peeled for matchy clothes for E and G to wear.  G LOVES this, and so does E.  They are seriously so cute and giggly.  We planned a lot of outfits through the week (who know WHY we don't have more photos of them), and G thought that E was going to wear a similar tank top on Saturday, but she came up wearing a cute "splashy" dress instead.  Turns out M & A and E had brought one more birthday gift along...one for G!  They were pretty sure they weren't going to see us on G's birthday (even though we did end up that way!), so they brought her present a bit early.

A matching "splashy dress" and some great Auntie A-made hair clips!

happy giggly matchy cousins!

Saturday was also the day that I realized that I hadn't taken as many pictures of the kids during the week as I was planning on, so I have a bunch of VERY random pictures from our day Saturday.  

Like a walk to the park...

an official cousins photo...

the popsicles we promised for said official cousin photo...

movie time for kids...CARS!

and Uncle M's pizza shop (yep, M cooked again and I didn't!  although I did arrange for Crazy Bread to be brought home by S after work which made up for it a bit =)

Sunday M & A and E left about the same time we did for church so they could make it home at a decent time.  

The kids tried to delay it as long as possible by running around the driveway...

...and we adults might have tried a bit too with getting in some last minute family photos.

Then it was lots of hugs goodbye, and they were off.  Thank you so much M & A and E for a great week.  Thanks for coming and visiting and helping out with W's party and cooking and tolerating me apparently NOT cooking and our NOT clean house and our general craziness.  We love you guys and come back soon!  (Maybe I will try to cook for you then! =)