Little Bit of Christmas

MeRry ChRistmas everyone!

We hope you all had a wonderful time with family. We spent most of our holiday dying with the flu, but things are looking up now.

(I will definitely be getting a "flu jab" next year!)

Anyway, I was super excited this year because I FINALLY finished the Christmas Advent Calendar I intended to get done last year! I decided to make it easier for myself and opted not to make one as elaborate as the Pottery Barn version, and found one much more do-able here. I'll probably make some moderations to it for next year (since I got to see what parts held up to my boys' beatings and what didn't). It was the one thing Nate looked forward to every day, so I highly recommend one!

Here is the finished product! Nate absoultely LOVED it...so it was worth it.

Here are some of my favorite ornaments. The wreath and the baby Jesus were the most fun to make! Felt is sooo cheap and easy to work with..I love the stuff! I confess I have become addicted to all things felt after this project!

And speaking of felt, I had a talk with Santa this year and was recruited to be one of his elves! Santa was bringing our boys a kitchen play set this year, and they needed some play food, so......I got busy in the workshop.

These are much easier to make than they look. I found this site and got most of my ideas there. They even offer some free tutorials.

I used an old fish fillet box (completely cleaned out mind you) and modge podged the outside and added my own pizza labels to make it look legit.

And here are the mini-kitchen and mini-chefs on Christmas morning!

They were cooking, and baking...

and preparing meals all morning for us...(too bad it's not the real thing).

We had plates lined up for us as far as the eye could see!

And.....here is where Christmas threw-up all over our living room.

(guess who got to clean it up?)

Spence is obsessed with cars, so of course he got a car playmat! He was one happy boy!

They also got the Toy Story 3 Movie (which the above picture reminded me of) and the Chipmunk Movies (thanks Grandma and Aunt Andrea) and they have been watching them non-stop. What is it with those squeaky little voices combined with the furry fat bodies that puts my kids in a vegetative state?

There were other numerous gifts and toys that were equally loved...we feel very blessed!

After all the excitement Christmas morning, we had a low-key ham dinner at home. One fun tradition that they do in England at "Christmas lunch" is to get out the "crackers." These are so much fun I think I might even continue it after we leave here. Here is all the explanation of them! It is so fun for some reason!

Well, hope you had a great Christmas holiday too!
Happy New Year! We love and miss you all!