Christmas countdown day 19

For their Christmas treat the girls picked gingerbread men.

As always I think Kate likes the process more than the cookie, and Sara licked the frosting off hers and didn't eat much cookie either. We also had these pine cone bird feeder kits we got from candlelight Christmas that we made today.

Also it was the first day of Christmas break today, I used to think my girls needed routine but I realise that is is actually me that needs it and so to keep some kind of order I'm a bit of a task master, I have a list of things the girls need to get done before they can play electronics or watch TV, here is Sara doing her reading lesson from this book, the witches finger is a great idea for them to use to point to each word as they read and Kate is working on some math practice. I also make them write in their journals, read, Kate has to do flash cards and Sara is learning to tie shoelaces.

Christmas countdown day 18

This one didn't turn out quite as good as I had hoped, my trees dyed the water and after hot gluing the objects down they didn't hold very well. Oh well, it was a fun little project anyway and worth trying.

Christmas countdown day 16 & 17

Too tired to blog last night, but for day 16 here was the activity:

Temple square was fun as always, Sara ended up being really tired and we didn't last all that long. Kate really wanted to see the Christus, I'm not sure what she is doing in the picture, she kind of looked like she was being called to prayer. It was fun and glad we got to share it with John and Cathy.

Day 17:

We began with the train ride and I had the genius idea of picking up some See's lollipops this afternoon, those things last for ages and at only 60 calories they aren't bad. Then we went around and hit all of the spots, here are some of the highlights.

The girls added their names to the nice list

Heard the story of St Nicolas and how the tradition of stockings were started

Wrote letters to Santa and then threw them in the fire so the smoke would send them up to Santa.

And saw the reindeer.

Christmas countdown day 15

Inspiration for today's craft came from here via pinterest. It was a little harder than I thought and less hands on for the girls as it involved the hot glue gun, still they got to pick out the buttons they wanted and I added glue and they stuck them down, Kate is a little more nervous about getting the hot glue on her than Sara who touched it a few times and said "its not that bad" anyway, I think what they came up with turned out cute, Sara's is on the left and Kate's on the right.

And here is Cathy happily crafting away, she is here for a few days en route to Reno. Cathy is my friends mum and also a 2nd mother to me, she is from England as can be witnessed as you now open my pantry to tins of British chocolate, there is no better way to ring in the holidays:)

Christmas countdown day 14

Christmas countdown day 13

Kate got the book Russell's Christmas Magic, Sara got Merry Christmas, Splat. This was a fun excuse to add Christmas books to our library.

Christmas countdown day 12

This morning we each drew a name for who in our family we would buy a present for, the girls picked each other. I'm not 100% sure how secret these presents will stay. On a side note Kate wrote a Christmas card to my dad, she wrote "Dear Grandad, we also miss you to" it seemed a little incomplete to me so I told her to add another sentence, here is what she added "I know that you really like to smoke, Love Kate" Eric and I were in stitches.