Happy Birthday

One of the things we were suppose to do yesterday that didn't get done was our Advent.ures Calendar. It is a daily devotional that I got from church for the Advent season and I have to say that before we didn't really have any Advent traditions (other than stressing out over the usual holiday things like shopping and cooking and then later on, traveling). Well they were selling these for a buck as a fundraiser AND it had stickers so I thought let's try to do something as a family. There is a cardstock wreath and candles and on the wreath there are holly berries (I assume) with numbers for which there is a sticker for each day to add to the wreath. So when I got home today after church I broke out the scissors and sat down with the kids and read today's (and yesterday's) devotion and then we cut out the wreath. As I was cutting, The Elder looks at the diagram and announces,

"It says we have to make a birthday cake."

So true...candles and all, it looks like a birthday cake (and a crown too - they each tried it on). But we tied it all in as the Royal Cake for His Birthday.

"See, we got to make holes in it."

As he opens the junk drawer and finds a hole puncher. But I pointed out that even though they look like holes in the diagram they are actually the places where we put the stickers, therefore you can't put holes in it or there wouldn't be anywhere to put the stickers. Good enough logic. (Hmmm I don't recall putting the hole puncher away. Great. Hope we don't have holes in random things...and the confetti from them either.)

We each (The Hub, The Elder, The Younger, and myself) pulled a candle through the wreath so we could say we did it together. Then we moved it to the dinner table where it got passed around on their heads and they took turns "blowing out the candles" (woo-hoo. The Great Pretenders). It's made of paper so I hope it lasts for another 23 days.

Stickies in lieu of Roads

"What happened?"

That was Eric's reaction yesterday when we went for Outside Play time (promptly at 14:00). We have been in drought in Knoxville (behind 12 inches) so the sidewalk chalk roads and pit stops and railroad tracks and parking spaces for the Little Tykes car and the Bicycle have pretty much been a permanent setup on our driveway. We even had a Chik fil A that served gluten-free chicken nuggets chalked in by the house! However, it poured on Thursday. (I could not find my umbrella because I hadn't used it in so long!! It's my favorite and it is still missing!) Our brown, crunchy grass was happy, but alas, the chalk masterpiece was gone. Back to Square One.

I cannot claim to be a master civil engineer to reconstruct the setup (that's Terry's job) so I gotta think fast.....I was walking back to the house from the mailbox going through it when...AHA! Easter Seals! (er, they were probably Christmas Seals considering the time of year.) So we did stickers.

RE: the reference to Eric's "Pattern" shoes was that he was wearing two different shoes. The Wednesday before when we went outside to play (probably at 2:07pm because we weren't on THE schedule yet), I told them to put on their shoes and he, jokingly, put on the two different shoes. Not fazed by it because at least his feet were covered, I looked at him and said "That makes a nice pattern" (because he's into patterns). So on Friday he said that he wanted to wear his Pattern Shoes which is what you see in the slideshow!

OK, stickers are running out - now what? Oh yeah! We got wooden instruments the other day from the Hot Spot in Target for a motor skill exercise. I forgot! Where did we put them? (Ring Terry) They were so excited about these instruments. Noise makers, clappers, and triangles, oh my! They played with them outside and then again inside the playroom (see clip). They even begged to play with them again this morning.



And yes, he did say "Thomas" when he was playing with the clapper. Uh......ok.

I also updated a past post that I had "Coming Soon" for a video that I was trying to figure out how to compress to be uploadable to blogger. Check out the video here.

Stickies

This is one of those activities that was sent from heaven above. They get focused, quiet, play together nicely, and work those fine motor skills all in a 30 minute time frame!

We have have had a sticker folder for who knows how long and we just keep using it each time for sticker time. Uncle Chris sends those address labels you get for free every month just for them to peel and stick on the folder!

Now they have their own way with stickers, or stickies as the Younger calls them. Eric likes to peel them off and put them all in one area on the folder leaving bald spots and Ryan will tend to place them in the bald spots.

Today was different, Eric was still putting the stickers on top of each other but he was a little more artistic today. He used larger Transformers stickers first and then used tiny Easter eggs, flowers, bunnies, chicks, etc. stickers to put on top of the transformer ones, BUT staying within the larger sticker's boundaries. I was really impressed. That is what he is doing in the pictures in the corner closest to him.

Ryan branched out today too by putting Uncle Chris's address all over the front of his T-shirt! No, we didn't ship him away...

Anyhoo, this is again a heaven-sent half hour. Not for their benefit, but for mine because I get to sit back and watch them in amazement of how wonderfully made they are and how incredibly blessed I am to have two beautiful, too smart for their own good, sweet sweet boys.

At least for a half hour anyways.