North Pole Breakfast 2011

Welcome to our first annual North Pole Breakfast!  Our elf, Max, made his first appearance and brought an assortment of goodies to share with us.  The boys knew that Max was on his way, but had no idea that he would be surprising us with breakfast all the way from the North Pole!

Connor was beyond THRILLED!  He couldn't stop looking at everything and kept wanting me to read his note from Max over and over.

Smiles and giggles filled our morning!

After breakfast, Connor noticed his first Christmas book wrapped under the tree.  Who knew a book that we have read many times before could be so fun because it was wrapped up? :)  Connor will find a wrapped book under the tree every morning until Christmas.  Thankfully from teaching I had plenty of Christmas books to choose from.

 When Carson finally woke up he joined in on the fun.  Connor couldn't wait to help him open his little present from Max.  Carson was just as excited!

 Our morning ended with the beginning of a few more December activities.  In the playroom, I set up "Santa's Beard" and a Christmas tree.  Each day the boys will add one cotton ball to Santa's beard.  They will also find one ornament that has a special activity written on the back.  Some are very simple in nature and some may be things we already had planned to do.  Our list includes: decorating the playroom Christmas tree, movie night, decorating gingerbread houses, making snowflakes, family Christmas gatherings and lots more!  I'm sure I will post more about our countdown to Christmas in the coming days.

I hope you enjoyed a little peak into our special morning!

Silhouette Frames

For Christmas the boys received some new items for their bathroom.  I found this really cute set at Pottery Barn, but I was having the hardest time finding something to hang on the wall.  Several months later my creative SIL, Amy, told me about how easy it was to make silhouettes of your kids to frame.  I thought that would be a perfect addition to the blank space I couldn't seem to fill.  Here is how it turned out:

 All I did was take a profile picture of the boys, resized it in a word document, printed, cut, painted directly to paper, and glued!  It was that easy!  My mom gave me some old wooden frames that I painted to match and used scrapbook paper for the background.  

 Thanks, Amy, for the fun idea!

Grassy Eggs

Last year I saw a post on Fly Through Our Window about a spring project.  She reposted it again this year (Get Crackin') and I thought we would give it a try.  All you need are egg shells, soil, and rye grass seeds. I threw in a few books and coloring sheets to teach Connor a little bit more about plants.  

Learning that plants need soil, water, and light.

Filling the egg shells with dirt.

Covering the top with grass seeds.

Finally, adding a little water.

We set them in the kitchen window sill so they would get plenty of light.

Such an easy project and Connor had a blast doing it.  We check on the eggs every day and water them when needed.  Hopefully by Easter our grass will be tall and green!

It was nap time for Carson, but maybe next year he can join in on the fun.