6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and gymnastics show

Christmas is getting really busy around here - between not having a car, buying a new one, waiting to pick it up, getting Christmas presents ready, sewing for a gymnastics show.... and baking and, and, and - it is busy, but I love it!!!! Preparing to make a nice Christmas for the girls, making lasting memories for them.... spending time with them. I appreciate being able to do this, looking at my girls, hearing what their saying, watching their show - I love it!

 The girls had a Christmas show with their gymnastics group today - they were supposed to be characters from The Lion King - I made them lion costumes. They also wore ears, I don't have pictures of those yet. - found my phone picture - last in the post

 Going out for dinner with my parents after the show - the girls still had painted faces - I love living so close to my parents. My only brother lives far away, but it's so nice with family close by.

 A rare appearance!

 Another shot of the costume...

 I've come to day 6 of the advent calendar - Tuesday I had cut out hearts for the girls - with a zig zag pair of scissors - they sewed around it themselves with the sewing machine, leaving a little hole to put the stuffing in - then sewed it back up.

 Wednesday I wasn't home for more than half an hour - they spent time with the au pair.

Thursday they got to invite a friend home for their calendar gift.

Friday we were supposed to make Christmas presents - we did them today  - painting on t-shirts. We used fabric markers.

 For grand-daddy (he's from Trinidad and Tobago - hence the daddy part of grandpa)

 For themselves, of course!

 Their baby cousin

 I made this for my friend - she likes hunting. I used cookie cutters.

And for daddy.

For the tenth day, I gave them the latest Barbie Christmas movie - my niece is also getting that for Christmas. The Barbie movies are such a big hit in our house, coming home with that movie- makes me mommy-of-the-year. They're not very hard to please....

Today we've done a ton of things - they love being painted in the face - they looked so cute when they were first painted - then the show, then eating dinner at a restaurant, then doing the t-shirts. Then today on the calendar it said doing Christmas cards - we've done some of them - at least the ones that have to go in the mail. Tomorrow it will say go to the mail on their calendar, sending off presents for far-away family and poor children in the Philippines!!!

this is before the show - with their ears!

Only two more weeks - love this time of year!

3, 4, and 5 - and gift ideas for the females in your life

Time goes by so fast during advent - I'm really loving this season. But my advent schedule has suffered due to my car breaking down. I wasn't able to get t-shirts to paint on Saturday - and because I hvae really nice parents whom lend me their car- I now have them and we can get this activity done.

angel wings

But I had to change up Saturday, Sunday and Monday - I moved Monday's activity to Saturday - looking for old toys to give to the nieces and nephews of my au pair. My au pair really like to tidy - and she has tidied all the girls' toys - mixing all the toys, putting all the small pieces together, all the pet shops, my little pony, Barbies - into one big box, because after all their small pieces.... (can you hear the irony here?) So I started to tidy out the girls' toys Saturday, throwing away broken toys and we all found toys we could give away - we'll send them off on Monday.

home made clothing labels for the seamstress friend - tutorial found here: See Kate Sew

Then on Sunday we didn't go to visit the old aunt. She's in the hospital now, and we'll have to wait and see what happens to her. Instead we had a making-cookies swap with three of my cousins. One of cousins has a daughter the same age as my girls. We all brought one sort of dough with us, made them together and divided the cookies - so we now have for different sorts of cookies. Here in Norway the old tradition says we have to have seven different sorts - only three to go!

and why not make a binder full of free patterns for your creative friend.

Yesterday we called grandma in New York. The girls haven't seen her for four years, and they don't call her much because they don't really know her, but I know she is so happy when we call, and I thought this would be a nice way to think of someone else for their advent. And she was happy. She had just received our Christmas gift last week - a 2012 table calendar with lots of pictures of the girls.

owl banner

Today we're back at our schedule, I've cut out hearts for the girls to sew - they are so excited about using the sewing machine...

gadget charger pouch

I've taken the day off to work on a paper I have to write for my school - ten pages by tomorrow on how to improve my students ability to write papers....I started this morning... procrastination - I know your name!

bag organizer

I keep wondering what I'm going to give the females in my life for Christmas - I'm a single parent so my gift budget isn't very big and I want to be able to make some homemade gifts. The pictures in this post are some of the things I'm thinking I can make for my girl friends, cousins, s-i-l and co-workers.

cowls

Hope you'll have a nice day - and if you have any good ideas for girl friend's gifts, let me know

2

Yesterday(!) we made Ginger bread cookies - the girls were so excited and they were just all bubbly and happy - it makes me so happy we have this type of calendar, spending quality time together.

 I bought store ready ginger bread dough - so easy. All the other Christmas cookies are made from scratch, though!

 Princess' cookies

 Angel's cookies

 They were so happy I had bought them small rolling pins - one for each!

 Yummy - especially for the low-carb eating mother!

Decorating the cookies, I also bought a store ready icing, and it was really hard to get out. But they do look cute, right?

Then name of Jesus was the Lord - talking about how a Lord is almost like a king - that He decides.

Happy weekend

1

Finally December 1st! The girls were so excited this morning opening their advent calendars - yes, plural. Today in our home made calendar they found out we were making snow flakes from perlers. We ended up doing them kind of late, and Angel almost threw a fit! But everything turned out so nice - and the once the girls made are so beautiful.

 Our snow flakes are going up on the tree when we get the tree - December 23td.

 All white perlers.

 This was the easiest shape to make the nice snow flakes - easy to make something in the middle and then go out to each corner.

 My non-conformist had to have some red in there.

The name for Jesus today was: The Word - we had a nice talk about how everything He says becomes. How in John it says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

I'm going to like this years advent - family time and family sharing - with the right focus.

I'll share my schedule with you again - I might change things up a bit, my car broke down and is now being taken to the chop chop - some of the things on the list requires a car....

			1. make perler snow crystals	2. bake ginger bread people	3 paint t-shirts as gifts	4 Visit old lonely aunt
5 look for old toys to send to poor kids	6 sew hearts	7 write Christmas cards	8 invite someone for a visit	9 make napkin rings with pearls	10 bake Christmas cookies	11 ring on someones doorbell, leave candy and run away
12 Send presents to grandma and Philippines	13. sing Lucia songs for neighbor	14 make Christmas candy	15 make candles	16 watch a movie with mommy and eat ice cream	17 make erasers	18 bake
19 wrap presents and hand out to their friends	20 bake	21. go Christmas shopping for your sister	22 Go to play land	23 decorate for Christmas	24 Candy

Advent calendar days

			1. make perler snow crystals	2. bake	3 paint t-shirts as gifts	4 Visit old lonely aunt
5 look for old toys to send to poor kids	6 sew hearts	7 write Christmas cards	8 invite someone for a visit	9 make napkin rings with pearls	10 bake Christmas cookies	11 ring on someones doorbell, leave candy and run away
12 Send presents to grandma and Philippines	13. sing Lucia songs for neighbor	14 make Christmas candy	15 make candles	16 watch a movie with mommy and eat ice cream	17 make erasers	18 bake
19 wrap presents and hand out to their friends	20 bake	21. go Christmas shopping for your sister	22 Go to play land	23 decorate for Christmas	24 Candy

If you want to play along with us, this is the over view of our days for the advent calendar. You'll probably need to make an extra day for the 25th, but here in Norway we celebrate Christmas Eve as the big Christmas day.

Pinterest, via Chasing Fireflies

As you can see, there's a variety in making things, baking, spending time together and doing thing for others. There aren't too many days where we go out to others, but the making things days are also mostly for others, making Christmas gifts.

Two more weekends and advent is over us. Time goes by quickly. I'll make a card for each day where I write what we're supposed to do that day. I'll show you when I'm done.

Enjoy your weekend and let the peace settle in your home.