Christmas was...

...focusing
...baking

...resting

...gifting

...boarding

...crafting

...skiing

...driving

...knitting

...bundling

And so much more!

Crafts and Experiments

We spent the afternoon doing a couple of crafts. None of which were my original idea, but they did come together very nicely. Sometimes you find craft ideas, but they turn out to be flops. I don't think either idea was a flop. They can be linked her for the fabric covered styrofoam balls, and the recycled Christmas cards.

They are now hanging nicely from the curtain rod in front of our sliding doors in the living room.

I think they look very elegant.

Completely unrelated, but happening on the same day, is the following surface tension experiment performed by Eric. We went to the Walter Wick exhibit at the Walter's Art Museum in Baltimore last week, and there were some photos of things like below. Eric wanted to try this one out and was pleasantly surprised with the results.

Cool, huh!

Key to Christmas

Dear boy, don't you know that all the best things are invisible? Sometimes you have to believe in order to see.

-Auntie Claus and the Key to Christmas

Advent

I have seen many posts lately about Advent...my good friend Sarah has a link on her blog to some wonderful Advent ideas, many of which we will use this year. For our family, we have traditionally used Advent as a time to keep our focus on Christ during the Christmas season. It is so easy to get caught up in busyness and activities, so the daily Bible reading centered around the Christmas story, and some activity that encourages us to think beyond ourselves really helps us to celebrate Christmas in a meaningful way.

We started one new advent activity this year, and I wasn't really sure how it would go over with the kids. Though it has only been 2 days, I am quite impressed. The idea is called "Stocking Stuffers". The rules are this: Each person has to write one note each day, and you have to rotate to whom you write. Write a note that is encouraging to one of the members of our family, fold it and put it in their stocking. The note can be short or long, and can say anything you want, as long as it is encouraging. Christmas morning, when stockings are opened, each person will have a handful of notes to read from each other.

The reason we decided to do this activity this year was because our children struggle (and oftentimes we do as parents) with finding positive things about each other. It is so easy to focus on the negative. Instead, they will be looking for those little things about each other which they love and will be writing them down.

So, as I said, I wasn't sure how it would go over. This morning, without any prompting, after breakfast, each of the kids got out their little slip of paper from the basket and wrote their note, and slipped the notes into the stockings on the mantle.

Laundry Room Clean-up One of these days I will remember to take a before picture! Either way, I can tell you that the laundry room was cramped and poorly organized. Before Christmas and all it's busyness arrived, it was my goal to get this room in better order. The first order of business was to take out the large and cumbersome old refrigerator. That alone made a huge difference.In its place I put the hutch that Dennis made many years ago. It was recently kicked out of it's home by a new hutch. This hutch looks so much better in the laundry room and provides me with tons of storage! I was also able to hang up my accordian clothes drying rack on some newly found wall space, so now it will actually get used.

I decluttered the corner around the deep sink, and Dennis moved the shelves that were on that wall to another wall, and made me some corner shelves and a long shelf to go above the sink. Everything is so much more functional and I actually have empty shelf space...which I know will not last for long!
The only adjustment is going from two refrigerators down to just one. I guess that means I will just have to keep my kitchen fridge cleaned out!