A little break

I will be taking a little break until the new year. Enjoy your holiday celebrations!

Countdown Calendar Activities

We have been keeping up pretty well with our countdown activites. We went and saw the movie Tangled, it was really cute. Boogs especially enjoyed popping popcorn and watching a Christmas movie with his daddy. One day Boogs was supposed to tell me a favorite Christmas memory that we can write down and add to each year. I was a little disappointed in his favorite memory - "My favorite memory is opening all of my presents. That is what I like best."

Here are a few other things that we have done.

Watch his cousins in a play.

Another cousin in the play.

Make snowflakes.

Make gifts for teachers & librarians.

I loved the way the snowman spoons turned out.

Homemade Bird Feeder

For our countdown activity today, we made a bird feeder by stringing dried and fresh fruit on thread. Boogs was very good with the sharp needle and only poked himself once. I had out dried fruit and Boogs decided that he wanted to do an experiment and see if the birds would like dried or fresh fruit best. After we put on the fruit, we hung our feeders outside in the backyard. We watched for birds for about 30 minutes. It was a nice and peaceful way to start the day. We did not have any birds visit the feeders. So we will have to check back later today.

Gingerbread House

We have made it a tradition to make a gingerbread house every year. Boogs has been asking for a couple of weeks to make one. So Saturday's countdown box activity was to make a gingerbread house. Boogs was so excited he was ready to start working on it at 7 a.m. We have been opening a countdown box each morning when he wakes up. This year, Boogs was more interested in eating the candy than decorating the house. He started off saying, "One candy for me and three for the house." It turned into, "One candy for the house and three for me."

Just getting started.

Such concentration!

The squeezing is hard work.

Ta-da! How long until I can eat it?

Family Hike

Last weekend we went hiking on the 360 Greenbelt trail. Boogs led the way for almost two hours of hiking. My husband kept telling Boogs we were walking on "The Trail of DOOM." It was a lot of fun.

Getting ready to hit the trail.

Boogs leading the way.

Running away from my camera.

Crossing the "bridge of doom"

Getting Ready for the Countdown

I cannot believe December 1st is tomorrow. Wow! This year has flown by so fast. I spent part of my day getting Boogs' Christmas Countdown Calendar ready. Last year, I bought this countdown tree at Walgreens.

 


I saved it to use again. I have put a small treat and a note in each box.  The notes have special activities for Boogs to do each day. The activities include: take a picture with Santa, make a Christmas card, go ice skating, make a gingerbread house, pick out a gift to give to the toy mountain for a needy child, make different crafts, feed the birds with a homemade bird feeder, make gifts for teachers and library workers, take a drive to look at the Christmas lights, get on a plane to go visit Grandmaman and Grandpapa, write a letter to Santa, help clean up our favorite park, leave milk and cookies out for Santa, and a few other activities.

We can't decorate for the holidays because we are trying to sell our house. So, I hope these activities will get Boogs into the holiday spirit.

Beautiful weather!

Just a few pics from our afternoon at Robinson Park.

You can't catch me!

Safe base!

What a great climber!

I'll keep you from making a goal.

I wonder if any snakes live under there.

Exploring the wilderness.

"Drawing" with dirt clods.

Warrior Dash

http://www.warriordash.com/register2010_central_texas.php
My husband and I ran in the Warrior Dash yesterday. It was a 3.2 mile course with obstacles. We finished in 38 minutes. We got FILTHY! The obstacles were: climbing over wrecked cars, leaping over a couple of wooden barricades, climbing up and over a huge stack of hay bales, walking on a plank across a gully, mudslide, running through tires, running down the middle of a stream, rappelling down a ravine, crawling up and across cargo nets, threading your way through two sets of tangled ropes tied between trees, forging your way through the forest (this one was pretty lame), climbing up a tall cargo net, leaping over two sets of Warrior fires, and finally crawling through a mud pit under barbed wire. My husband's legs started hurting him at the beginning of the race. He was a sport and continued on even though he had to walk quite a bit. After we finished we washed off our hands so we could handle our camera without messing it up. When we went back to finish washing up later, they were out of water. We waited for 30 minutes and then gave up. We changed clothes and tried to rub as much dirt off as possible with a couple of dry towels we had brought from home. When we were semi-clean, we found a place to sit, ate turkey legs, listened to the band, and watched other people crawling through the mud pit. One guy did the backstroke through the mud. Other people leapt in and did belly flops. It was entertaining. I am ready to do it again. I loved the challenges. Thank goodness it was such a beautiful, warm, sunny day.

 

 

 

So soon?

Quick conversation:
Boogs: Momma, I don't know if Santa really exists.
M: Why do you say that?
B: Well, if Santa really exists I don't think he is a star.
M: (my blank look of incomprehension made him explain)
B: Because he would have to be a star up in the sky to watch everyone all the time even when it is not the real Santa day before Christmas.

This conversation came out of the blue. We were playing with his toys. I love his random comments. This morning, after I gave him a kiss, he asked, "Can I just wipe off the juice and keep the kiss?"

Boogs is Proud

I was cleaning the garage when Boogs came yelling to tell me he had poured his own juice all by himself. I had him show me what he did to pour his juice. He climbed on a chair, then onto the counter to reach an old sippy cup at the top of cabinet. I took a picture so my husband could see that nothing in the house is out of reach for our growing boy. Yikes! The juice container was almost full when before he got ahold of it. He did not spill too much.  Boogs said it was the best cup of juice he had ever tasted.

 

Stamp Camp

Last night we had our last stamp camp for the year. Unfortunately, because of all the preparation for putting my house on the market, I could not find a lot of my Stampin' Up products. I had two packs of designer series paper to use in the projects that I could not find anywhere. I had to make a last minute run to Michael's to get paper. The girls were very understanding about not having only SU products in the projects. We made a mini magnetic memo board, a joy fold card, and a decoration for gift bags. I had planned on making Christmas luminaries and a small gift pouch. I had to dismantle my craft room so that it will "show" as a bedroom. Some of my things are in the house somewhere, but most everything is already in storage. The projects still turned out okay. We used these Stampin' Up sets: Jolliest Time of the Year, Teeny Tiny Wishes, and Happiness Shared.

The owl is the magnet and can be moved anywhere on the board.

The small flower holds the corner of the smaller part of the joy card closed.

Joy card opened up.

I love the Two Step Owl Punch!

K'NEX

Boogs still loves his K'nex. We made robots out of them and had a battle. Boogs even took a few pictures.

Rocking the K'nex glasses

Spraying the robot with a water shooter

Boogs took this photo

Look out robots!

Photo by Boogs