In this season, we add Advent readings, reflections and songs to our homeschool day.   Some way we are enjoying this season of anticipation:

reflecting with an Advent prayer book from Ascension Presbyterian

reading from The Jesus Storybook Bible

celebrating with Family Hymns from Kortney at One Deep Drawer

playing with some of our Nativity sets on the nature table

creating an Advent wreath

The dolls hosted a little Christmas tea party for their sparrow, cardinal and swan friends yesterday morning.   Pretend mint tea, fruitcake, gingerbread, and bird seed were served under the Christmas tree.

The girls were inspired by my favorite childhood Christmas book – Tasha Tudor’s, A Doll’s Christmas.  If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.  It is out of print, but you may be able to find it at your local library.

Yesterday evening, we strung popcorn and cranberries and decorated our little Christmas tree.  We have quite a collection of bird ornaments, and as we hung them by candlelight (dark at 5pm!) I was reminded of  Oliver Herford’s little poem, I Heard a Bird Sing –

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

‘We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,’
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

Hope and Light to you on these dark winter nights.

The girls are reaching an age where they really enjoy being able to participate in making Christmas gifts.  So, for their cousins (ages 5 1/2 and 3 1/2), we put together little paper-crafting kits, so Aasha and Ruby can enjoy an afternoon of Christmas crafting.

This is a very frugal gift, costing us less than $1 per kit, since we used cardstock scraps and last year’s Christmas cards, as well as craft notions purchased at the thrift store.  It’s also a gift crafty kids will love – when I made my girls fall-themed kits for Thanksgiving day, they made cards, collages, and all sorts of really inventive little creations.

If your kids would like to make these thrifty gifts for their young friends and family, they will need:

Scissors and pinking shears

a hole punch

paper punches (we used cardinal and snowflake punches, which I pick up when they are deeply discounted after the season)

Christmas-print cardstock scraps (we found some 60% off right after Thanksgiving (with a coupon)  for another project and I saved the scraps) or old Christmas cards to cut up

blank cardstock (we used reds and whites approx 3″x5″ from our economical big box of trimmings and discards from a stationer’s)

small cellophane bags (thrifted), and one larger cellophane or paper bag

crafting notions, such as ric-rac, sequins, stickers, buttons, glitter, seam-binding (anything crafty you can pick up at the thrift store)

glue sticks and glitter glue

Directions:

1.  Use the pinking shears and scissors to cut out small pieces of cardstock and old Christmas cards – various sizes (2″x3″ up to 3″x5″).

2.  Puch out snowflakes and birds (this is Little Hen’s favorite part), and sort them into the small cellophane bags. (Firecracker spent a very long time glueing the glittery wings on all of the little cardinals and getting them at just the right angle.)  Punch holes and tie with thrifted ribbon or ric-rac.

3.  Fill additional small bags with craft notions and other small cut-outs from Christmas cards, and again whole-punch and tie these closed.

4.  Neatly fill the large cellophane or paper bag with the card stock, and add the bags of punches and notions in the front.  Throw in a glue stick and a tube of glitter glue.

5.  Create a pretty label for the front from additional cardstock, and decorate with glitter glue.  Whole-punch, and run a ribbon through the label and the bag to attach and close.

6.  Give the gift of open-ended Christmas crafting fun!

Tum Tum and Brenna watching squirrels in the yard this morning.

My apologies on being absent for a bit – we’re once again struggling with sick kids, especially Firecracker, who has had multiple trips to the doctor and the ER in the past few weeks because the colds are wreaking havoc on her asthma.

That, plus my first time hosting Thanksgiving for extended family, and now scrambling to prepare for our church’s Women’s Christmas Breakfast at my house this coming Saturday (ack!  that’s less than two days away!!), I have hardly been on the computer.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a string of posts about the beginning of our Advent celebration.

Blessings!

(And and extra special thanks to my dear friend, Trish, who has been tirelessly experimenting with new banners for me!)

 This is truly a Christmas to be counting our blessings, with the treacherous weather and all.  We wish our flight wasn’t grounded and we could be lounging on the beach with Grandma and Grandpa, but we’re enjoying the crazy snow as best we can, and looking forward to New Year’s in Florida! 

Merry Christmas from our snowed-in family in Portland!

Finished a pair of these for my sister-in-law for Christmas (I also plan to make a grey pair for myself, like A Friend To Knit With’s originals, after Christmas). 

They were knit from Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride in Victorian Pink.  I made a few little modifications, and am really happy with them.  Two snowy evenings of relaxing knitting (while holding a sleeping baby and watching John Adams) and they were done!

With some leftover yarn from other recent knitting, I also churned out a few coffee sleeves to go with them (my SIL is a Starbucks addict, so I thought they’d be appropriate.)  The pattern is here.

Okay, back to finishing packing and trying to get through on the jammed airline phone system to see if we can get a flight out. (The newsreporter just said some folks can’t get replacement flights until Christmas Day!  Our flight isn’t technically canceled yet, so they can’t rebook us, but ALL the other flights before our flight have already been grounded.  If ours is grounded, we’ll be the last to be looking for open seats – and we are a family of 5 – not so easy to rebook.   Doesn’t bode well…but it just goes to show how little control we really have over things… )

Wishing you all peace and comfort in the midst of a blizzard and stressful holiday travel.

Pictures from earlier in the week, when it was a little warmer and less blustery, and Firecracker thought she might like to go play out in the snow.  She quickly thought better of it, and came in to warm up on the sofa, looking at some Dr. Seuss books with her sister and enjoying the snow from the window. 

We are currently pretty much snowed-in and the latest news is that our flight out to my folks’ tomorrow may be canceled as the snowstorm turns into an icestorm.  So, since I have some time on my hands, I think may have a second post up later today. 

Hope you are keeping warm and safe in the Iowa winter that has settled over Oregon!

Our table at the Portland Homeschool Children’s Holiday Market, where our family sold homemade gift tags, peppermint bark, and marshmallows.  It was a wonderful venue for the girls to show off their projects, to raise money for various charities, and to network with other Portland homeschoolers.   

We raised $28 dollars for charity and sold nearly everything we brought (prices were kept low, so all children could participate in the buying as well as the selling –  $1 each, or 3 for $2).  We met lots of other great homeschooling/unschooling families.  The girls came home with tummies full of brownies and a bag full of homecrafted goodies they bought from the other kids at the market – fairy wands, playdoh, postcards, stationery, bean bags, chocolate lollipops. 

Many thanks to Lyla, who put on the event!!  There are future events in the works, and we will definitely attend again!