Santa has been

We have had a wonderful Christmas! We've been really busy since schools broke up for the holidays and fitted lots of fun things into each day.


We've been ~ baking lots, crafting,  having fun at soft-play, swimming, to the theatre, on a polar express, at a birthday party, at a bad Christmas jumper party and of course we've had a very busy Christmas Day too. The kids have been exhausted and so have we!




Polar Bears Go Wild
www.macrober.org

Theatre

 



On Sunday 23rd we went to MacRobert Arts Centre to see 'Polar Bears Go Wild' - it was brilliant! Last year we saw the first Polar Bear show and it was amazing. It is a fantastic little show for the under 5's where 2 actresses, dressed as polar bears, go off on an adventure together to different places. There is clever, yet basic, set and no dialogue ~ there is however, lots of comedy, some crowd participation, music and loads of laughter. I would go back in a flash as both kids loved it and were engrossed throughout.

 

Crafting

 

We made little Santa hats from triangles of red card and 2 cotton pads (split in half) and a huge amount of glitter!!!

 

 

Baking

Heather and I made shortbread cookies for Santa  - Daddy kept stealing the dough and eating it though! Evan has been devouring the cookies (and everything else in sight recently), I think it'safe to say he has a sweet tooth like his Mummy.

 

My first loaf of bread - I can't believe I've never made one before. It was really easy, I just used my trusty friend (the Kitchen Aid mixer) with the dough hook and let it work it's magic. The only difficult thing was leaving it to prove for 2 hours - I am far too impatient! Anyway, it worked out well so I think I'll be making more.

Polar Express

I came across a fantastic post on www.confessionsofahomeschooler where the parents surprise their children by taking them out on a trip to see the Christmas lights instead of goingto bed. I loved this idea so we copied it. We made up little golden tickets and hid them amongst the kid's pyjamas. It took Heather a little while to understand what we were about to do but by the time we were in the car she kind of understood the idea. She was soon shouting out each time she saw the brightly lit houses. Even little Evan started to understand - he began pointing at the houses and shouting too. Bless.

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Christmas Crafting

Gluing, sticking, cutting, colouring, painting...

Ever since Heather was little we have always done lots of crafting things. She loves all kinds of crafty things so I love finding new things for us to try together. Discovering Pinterest has been wonderful, it has been the source for many of our activities.

Heather's new passion for 'crafting' is face paint!!! At least once a week she says "I've got a good idea, how about we do face painting? We haven't done that for ages!" The thing is, it's not her own face she wants painted...it's Daddy and Mummy's faces she wants to decorate.

We have quickly identified her unique signature style...she always does a black nose - see below!

Most of our crafting takes place when Evan is asleep. I can't wait until he is bigger so that he can join in the fun too. At the moment, he just wants to rip everything or put it in his mouth!

In the last few weeks we have created a variety of things including a Christmas tree, cookies, snowflakes and Santa hats. The crafting bug must be catching - Daddy had loads of fun making snowflakes.

Ian found his inner kid and had lots of fun cutting out snow flakes.

 

Heather had fun for about an hour creating her own Christmas tree for the playroom. I cut out a big tree shape from green paper and then cut out little shapes for her to stick on it.

Evan was asleep!

Our lovely friends came over for lunch and we made some Christmas tree decorations out of bicarbonate of soda,  corn flour and water. They look really good, they turn out very white and have a little bit of asparkle too. 

  What a cheeky face~full of fun!