Holiday Stroll--Happy Family Times #36

Have you done something fun with your family this past week? Kelly from Happy Whimsical Hearts and I would love to hear about it. We are collecting different family activities to inspire us all to have more time with our own families. Please share yours below and visit some of the others to get new ideas of things to do.

Ready to go to the stroll.

This weekend our town held its Annual Holiday Stroll. The schools and many churches have different events at them--mostly on Saturday. We went to check out three of the four elementary schools in town. The first offered a Breakfast with Santa which we caught the tail end of. Right when we walked in the door we saw Santa and Hazel got her picture taken, but we won't get it until Wednesday. She however was a big girl and sat on Santa's lap for the first time. I had to walk her over, but she did sit on his lap and had fun. 

Then we went to check out the crafts and what not. Hazel wrote a letter to Santa which she put in her magic mailbox and she heard back from him already. Then she got her face painted.

Next we went to the school Daddy had gone to as a child. There we had lunch and then Hazel made a sand art.

Then she made a felt mouse candy cane holder. They didn't give candy canes with it though.

Then we checked out the craft fair and of course Santa followed us there and was posing for pictures again. We didn't do it twice in one day though. Steve and Hazel stopped to buy a soldier some socks and send a note and then Hazel and I picked out an ornament where the money went to support the K-9 unit at the police department. Sorry for the blurry picture.

Then we went to the third school. By this time we were getting a bit tired. Santa was there as well. He just seemed to keep following us. I was hoping Hazel wouldn't ask how he could be at all three schools like she did about the malls a few weeks ago. Here she decorated a gingerbread man. Sorry I got the picture after she started snacking on him.

Then she decorated a wooden ornament. She chose a penguin frame ornament.

While she and Steve decorated these I checked out the crafts. We bought some cookies from the PTO and then went home to rest. Hazel had the best time and we decided it was a fun annual event to do. We liked supporting the underfunded schools and just getting out as a family. Maybe next year we will plan it better and actually make it to the Breakfast with Santa for breakfast.


Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Advent Calendar Round-Up

As I posted the other day, Advent is one of my favorite times. I have wonderful childhood memories of my Advent calendars as well as the Advent wreath on our dining room table. For my post on Advent wreaths visit here. However here is one that Hazel made this morning. It is made from a printable at First School.

A few years ago, my parents gave us this beautiful wooden Advent calendar for a Christmas gift. I absolutely love it and Hazel gets so excited to open a door. Last year I filled it with needle-felted nativity figures and this year we filled it with Nativity story stones.

Now when we were teenagers, my mother made my cousins an adorable quilted Advent calendar. I am hoping to make one at some point. I bought the fabric last year, but haven't gotten around to it. So sometime in the future I will make one. However there are many simple and creative ones that you can make that have been shared the past month or so on Sharing Saturday. Here are some of them.

First two I couldn't get pictures from:
From Life on the Gravelly Road has a wonderful homemade one with each card having a scripture reading and a fun activity.

From Mummy Mummy Mum! has a wonderful felt ornament tree Advent calendar.

Now for some that I could take pictures:

1) From Little Wonders' Day: Easy Door Advent Calendar
2) From Wesens-Art: Star Advent Calendar
3) From Making Boys Men: Magnetic Advent Calendar
4) From S.O.S. Mom: Advent Calendar
5) From Wesens-Art: Advent Calendar
6) From Living Montessori Now: 40+ Advent Activities Round-Up

A Few More...
Here is one from an Advent Workshop at our church last year:

For each of the 24 days before Christmas you glue on a holly leaf to make a wreath.

From Catholic Mom: 2012 Printable Advent Chain each day the chain has a kind activity for the child to do and the instructions suggest paper color to tie in the colors of Advent.

Do you have any more DYI Advent Calendar ideas? I would love for you to leave a link in the comments!! Or even better share at Sharing Saturday!

Advent Wreaths

Advent is one of my favorite times of the year. Advent in Western Christianity is the time to prepare oneself for the birth of Christ or for Christmas. It is a time I think we need to do less and spend more time with friends, family and God. However our society is one of making it all about the parties, the sales and the things that must be done and often one does not enjoy or prepare as well as we should.

In the church Advent starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas, December 25th. So Sunday is the first day of Advent. An Advent wreath is often used in churches as well as homes to help with the celebration of Advent. Each week a new candle is lit to represent different parts of the coming of Christ. The first candle is a purple one and is hope, the second also purple is peace, the third is pink and is for joy, and the fourth is purple and is for love. The candle in the middle is white and is for Christ. It is traditionally lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Typically the Advent wreath is made with evergreens. I remember my mother always having one with greens. She actually had a pottery wreath holder that held water for the greens with holes for the greens around it and the four candle holders built in. I bought the metal one pictured above and do not add the greens since we do not have a real tree. However there are many simple ones you can make as well. For example, pictured below is an Advent wreath we made at church during the Advent Workshop a few years ago. It is a Styrofoam wreath wrapped in green crepe paper and then with fake greens and berries glued on and the candles just pushed into the wreath.

The evergreens symbolize everlasting life and the circle symbolizes God's love with no beginning and no ending. (Source) Purple of Advent represents penance in the church. (Source) The pink candle represents joy. The tradition of the pink or rose colored candle for the third Sunday comes from the Catholic Church when the Pope was known to give a rose at this mass to help break the solemn mood of Advent. (Source)

There are many crafts for children having to do with Advent and Advent wreaths. Here are a few I found.

• Advent Wreath Craft in two sizes from First School (See above)
• Coloring Pages of Advent Wreaths and Bible Stories from First School
• Advent Wreath Coloring page from Catholic Mom
• Advent Paper Chain (with different activities for each day in Advent for a child to do) from Catholic Mom (See links on the bottom of Resource List)
• An adorable paper hand print Advent Wreath from The Catholic Toolbox
• Loyola Press has a great  hand-out tutorial for a wreath as well as history, readings, etc.
• Activity Village has an activity wreath where you can color or print in color and add the candles each week.

Another favorite part of Advent is the Advent Calendar. I will share more about this tomorrow. The calendar starts on December 1st. Hazel opened hers today and got a Mary story stone. I have all the Nativity story stones in hers. I try to give her something to play with as we tell the story.

Sharing Saturday #48

Once again, there were some amazing ideas shared last week. If you have not had a chance to check them out, please do so! There were many Thanksgiving crafts and ideas shared. I know I pinned them for next year. Click on the Most Clicked picture to see the post!

With December starting, I know I have Christmas and winter on my mind. Plus Sunday starts Advent this year, so I decided to feature a few of the Christmas/Advent/Winter posts shared.

1) From Wesens-Art: Advent Calendar
2) From De Gulle Aarde: Cup Cookies
3) From Making Boys Men: Using Kids Art for Christmas Cards
4) From Taming the Goblin: Snow Play (Indoors!)

A few of my other favorites as well:

1) From Hey Mommy, Chocolate Milk, Native American Salt Sticks Evaporation
2) From E Strea Chikitu: Needle Felted Star Tutorial
3) From I'm not a trophy wife: Fun Word Cloud Project (introducing another free word art site like Tagxedo)
4) From Ziezo - Crafting and Living in Kenya: Dyeing Wool with a Child

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

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Winter Pants: Yellow Ducks and Red Snowflakes

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Christmas Gifts

Since we put our tree up early, Hazel is so excited about Christmas. It is a good thing the month of December is so full of fun activities or it might be a very long month for her. She has been wanting to wrap Christmas gifts for months, so yesterday I gave in and let her do some wrapping.

Over the summer we made some of the poured paint flower pots for all of our family. (We followed the tutorial at Dily-Dali Art.)Hazel has been wanting to make paper flowers, so we decided to make some for the flower pots and then wrap them. We kept it simple with cupcake liners and pipe cleaners.

I got a bit fancy with some of the flowers and different size liners, but for the most part we kept them simple. Oh, a word of advice in poured pots--don't store them stacked. They stick!! We only broke one getting them all apart, but it was not fun.

After making the paper flowers we wrapped them in sparkly tissue paper and tied them with a pipe cleaner. (Our cats eat the ribbons and get sick so we don't use ribbons when the gifts will sit in the house for any amount of time.) Then Hazel wanted to wrap more gifts, so I pulled out all the gifts for Daddy, Mimi, Pop and Nonni that we have already bought or made. We wrapped those including Pop's birthday gift. Pop's birthday is Christmas day, so it is always a double celebration. Actually now four of my family's birthdays occur from Christmas until January 10th and then we get Steve's and his mother's in February. We basically have three months of celebrating.

Hazel still wanted to wrap, but all I had left are gifts for her (and stocking stuffers) and most of them are from Santa so she definitely cannot see them. I did leave the wrapping paper in Steve's office and when he got home they wrapped the gifts I have bought for myself so far.

Now I need to get sewing her big Christmas gift from us and her birthday gift. I'm off to sew. How is your holiday shopping going?