Holiday Festivities, Part 3

A couple weeks ago, we made plans for another attempt at visiting the zoo for their Lights Before Christmas display. This time, we decided on a week night right after work and a quick dinner/snack. The Magnone family joined us and we had a great time!

The night before we went, I made up a chocolate-drizzled trail mix to take along for a treat. We ended up leaving it in the car and then munching all the way home. Everyone loved it! I should have taken this picture right after drizzling the chocolate instead of right after tossing it all together. It was much prettier post-drizzle. ;-)

Getting dressed to be toasty and filling bellies with a quick snack before leaving.
Kids? What kids? Craig and I were just peacefully enjoying the views...

Oh... you mean the goofball hanging off my back and arching herself backwards to looks straight up at the lights?...

Ya, I guess they were there too.

So pretty and festive!

Craig and Will in the "polar bear cave".

Will and Jagger The next night, Craig took the kids to his parents house to help Papa set up the Lionel train around the Christmas tree.

The next few evenings were spent gettin' our craft on. ;) (Will was my photographer for these first few.)

We continued burning down our Advent candle...

...and opening a book each night.

This was hysterical! Our babysitter had been reading a 12 Days of Christmas book with the kids a lot recently and they were obsessed with the song. Will asked if I would play it for them, so I found a You Tube video that just repeated screens of the number and object for each day as it counted down over and over. They sat at the table watching it on my phone over and over while I finished up making dinner. Right before I grabbed my camera to take this picture, Sophie had her arms on the table just like Will. It was so cute.

A couple crafts brought home from the sitters:

A hand print reindeer.

And a tree magnet. (I love this!)

All dressed up for the Riedeman Christmas, which was held early this year on the 18th.

I can't even take how cute Will looked in his Christmas outfit this year. And with his styled hair compliments of daddy? I just wanted to eat him up!

Such a little stud. My current favorite pic of Will. :)

At the Riedeman Christmas, Will and Sophie were actively involved in another round of what has become a popular "game" at our house: "pretend-to-sleep-in-random-places-with-pillows-and-blankets-and-take-turns-saying-'good night'-and-'time to wake up!'" It's quite entertaining for them. Anyway, Celia was just in the middle of it and probably smiling at their ridiculousness. ;-)

Another new festive cookie recipe: Weelicious Chocolate Orange Snaps!

So good! I LOVE the combination of chocolate and orange!

At the library, I found a really great book about the Nativity story that I read with the kids...

...and Nana & Papa gave the kids this book as an early Christmas gift.

So cool!! It's a voice-recorded book so my parents took turns reading on each page and now the kids can hear a story read to them by Nana & Papa forever. I love it.

After all the talk about the Nativity story, the kids created a stable scene with baby Jesus in a manger. My favorite craft, hands down, because it turned out so cool and the kids were able to work completely independently and still come out with an image exactly as I had hoped. The only assistance I gave was to help Sophie place the craft sticks for the stable and to talk them through the placement of the manger parts. I.e. "Which shape looks like it could be the manger? Jesus's head? the swaddled body?"

This was the only part Will struggled with: "building" the stable. He was looking at our Nativity scene on the buffet table for comparison.

I had them both lay out the whole thing first and then glue individual parts down after.

Sophie did this by herself! So proud of her!

A little overboard on the glue, as usual, but I just let him have at it.

Cool, huh?

Another cute project... but one that required a lot of cutting for mommy ahead of time. I traced their hands once each and cut out a whole bunch of green hands + two red ones on my lunch break at work one day. ;) Then they glued them around a paper plate with the center cut out to make a wreath. I think they turned out so neat!

Great patterning practice... which both kids are good at and love.

Goofy eyes ;)

A few extra library books we enjoyed...

(these were the favorites)

I am loving Sophie's renditions of "Jingle Bells": "Tinker Belle... Tinker Belle... Tink is on the way!" :) Haha! And Will surprised me this year by knowing the words to MANY Christmas songs that we heard on 101.5 The River. Both kids loved "Santa Baby" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" too.