O Christmas Tree!

It seems like every other year, in my family at least, we have a toddler in the house. Rather than defending the Christmas tree from curious little fingers and sweeping up broken ornaments, we break out the little tree. It's perched high on an old cupboard we have, safe from the grabby hands of Baby.

Its about 3 feet tall, and I wanted to try something different this year, especially since my girls are older now. Instead of going up into the attic and bringing down the ornaments, I challenged the girls to make all the ornaments on the tree this year. They have met that challenge and I am so proud of them and the little tree is just so pretty to look at.

We never had official stockings for the kids, usually just some cheap ones from the dollar store, but they always got misplaced and lost. I decided to make some this year from fleece and instead of doing their whole names, I just cut out the first letter of their names in contrasting colors in fleece and sewed them on. I like how they turned out and the latest line of questioning is where they are going to be hanged.

Along with those button flowers we made, some of the ornaments are made from perler beads-- those plastic beads that you iron to melt together. They have made stars, trees, hearts, snowflakes, peace signs.... This is the snowflake.

Here's the heart.

When I do my sewing, the girls go through my scraps and with a little help from me, make assorted ornaments-- small pouches, houses, snowmen...

Here's a wreath made from little squares of fleece. I've seen this with felted wool scraps and I figured fleece would work just as well. Kept the kids busy for the longest time threading the squares! I was able to get some sewing done while they did this! :o)

I also broke out my fimo clay and let the kids have at it. The Husband worked with the girls on this one and they made wreaths, candy canes, ball ornaments, snowmen, lollipops... For some, I had to stick a paper clip into them for a hanging loop before baking.

I still have a few more ornament ideas to try for the kids to make, and with only a few more days to Christmas, I need to find things they can do with little guidance from me, so I can get some more baking done. I've only made fudge so far, and still have quite a bit left to make.

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How can I leave without saying anything about the big snow we got?? 21 inches total for us! Whoa! That's the most we've had since moving here almost 5 years ago. It's absolutely gorgeous up here! The photo up top was taken by the Husband and it's our secondary driveway. Isn't it lovely?

We are snowed in, no way of getting out right now, though the neighbor came and plowed part of our driveway this afternoon. His tractor couldn't make it up the hill, so he left and never came back! Maybe tomorrow he'll come back with chains on the tires and finish plowing the rest of the driveway for us. But we're snug as a bug in a rug up here. The girls are happy to play outside, we have the woodstove going to keep us warm, several days of soup meals to fill our bellies... we are quite happy.

Happy kids!

Baby's first taste of snow! :o)

Hot Chocolate with candy canes to warm up frozen kids- yum!

Stay warm!

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