Advent Stockings

Since today is December 1st, I am reposting my Advent Stockings post. We have started ours today. Are any of you doing any kind of Advent activity?



A number of years ago I came across an idea somewhere (Family Fun, maybe?) of a fun way to count down the days till Christmas.

We had done the advent chains, where you start with 24 paper chains and you rip one off each day so the kids (the little ones, especially) can see how many days are left till the big day. Some people write a bible verse on each chain, or an idea of an activity to do, some just leave them blank.

We also do advent calendars, as this is something I remember from my childhood. Somehow, my kids seem to get just as much thrill out of something as simple as looking for the daily number and opening the flap as I did when I was little.

But my favorite Christmas countdown, and it seems to be my kids' favorite as well, is our advent stockings.

















I'm still planning on throwing a length of Christmas greenery along the hooks to dress it up a bit, but you get the idea.


Pretty simple to do, and the kids get soooo excited to find out what's in each stocking.

I just went out and bought 12 pairs of red and white socks from Wal-Mart, but you could do this for free just by using socks from your unmatched socks basket.

What? Doesn't everybody have a basket full of scores of unmatched socks???

Find some wallspace where you can hang this. I happen to have a long mirror with hooks on it that I use, but you can get some of those 3M hooks that come off the wall when you're done. Those things are all kinds of awesome.

Run a string through the holes of 24 clothespins, and mark the clothespins from 24 down to 1, with 24 to the left and 1 all the way at the end on the right.


















Then have some fun figuring out what to fill the stockings with. If you haven't figured it out yet, this works just like an old-fashioned advent calendar: on Dec 1st, your kids get to see what's in the stocking hung by the "24" clothespin. Dec 2nd they open the "23" stocking and so on down the line till they've opened the "1" stocking on Christmas Eve.

The beauty of this is that you can go really cheap or really elaborate, whatever floats your boat (and your budget).

A few ideas along the range of free to pricey:

*print out some Christmas activity pages, such as word-searches, crosswords, coloring pages,
*cut out strips of red and green construction paper and put those in the stocking for the kids to make a Christmas chain,
*cut out a little Christmas tree from green paper and write "Today we find (or decorate) our Christmas tree!",
*put a Christmas cookie cutter in the stocking to let them know today's the day they'll get to help make Christmas cookies,
*put a little baggie of birdseed in the stocking with a note that instructs them how to make peanut-butter-and-birdseed-pinecone-feeders for the birds,
*candy canes,
*Christmas pencils,
*gum,
*Christmassy hair accessories,
*jingle bells and some ribbon for the kids to make necklaces with,
*surprise them with breakfast out on the way to school one day (perhaps you could write it out on a star cut-out),
*cute Christmas socks.

You're only limited by your imagination.

Each day, another sock comes down, so they'll have the visual before them of how many days remain till Christmas.

If you can't trust the kids to not peek (and really, if you can, I don't like you very much), then just fill one at a time before you go on to bed each night.

The kids have been asking me for weeks when we can start the advent stockings.

Maybe I'll need to make advent stockings leading up to the advent stockings.





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Thanks!

Sweet 16. Sweet.

I threw a surprise sweet 16 party for Rosie last Friday.

She had been asking me for a surprise party since she was about 10, and had really been ramping up those requests in the last year.

I kept telling her, "I can't throw you a surprise party if you ASK me to throw you a surprise party. It kind of defeats the purpose."

Regardless, on and on she kept going about wanting one.

Little did she know I had been planning one.

And let me just tell you, in this day and age, surprising a teenager is no easy feat. What with all the tweeting and skyping and texting they do, it's hard to keep anything under wraps.

But I managed to pull it off.

We held it at the fire hall, because it ended up being pretty cheap, and no WAY was I going to have dozens of teenagers at my house eating and drinking and dancing and what not.

So friends and family helped me with...


Setting up a gift table,




Putting together dozens of pretty little candy jars




setting up the room with blue, silver, black and white decorations
(there were lots of balloons in those colors floating on the ceiling after this picture was taken)




Creating a "candy bar"




And taking lots of fun pictures.





As for Rosie?  All she had to do was have lots of fun....
















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You Had Me At Russell Crowe.

I just got word of a movie coming out called Noah.

It's about, well, Noah.

And it's starring my man Russell Crowe!

So, yeah....

Anyway, here's the word.

And a trailer.

Enjoy!!!


NOAH
Synopsis: After visions of an apocalyptic deluge, Noah, the world’s only righteous man, is chosen to undertake a divine mission to build a massive ark to save his family and all of creation before the impending rains fall and the flood waters rise.

Cast: Russell Crowe, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Trailer:


Remember, you saw it here FIRST, ladies and gents.



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Perfect Fall Day

Bella helped me in the barn with feeding, sweeping, adding bedding, cutting mats, shooing hens out of places they're not supposed to be.

The kids all marched out into the field, buckets in hand, to gather twigs from a fallen tree to add to our kindling box.

I start a fire in the wood stove, and get that sense of accomplishment that comes with watching the paper catch the kindling and the kindling catch the logs.

James is at work at the grocery store.

Rosie is at a college fair in Philly with some of her bff's, all dreaming about life after high school.

I'm making beef stew. My Mom's recipe. The smell fills the kitchen.

I look out the window at the blustery fall day, orange leaves blowing against the grey sky. I see Julie working with her horse Genevieve and Daniel working with his pony Pippin.

I stir some more.

I chop.

I watch.

I smile....

Sunrise

Sunrise over a neighboring Amish farm....

Easy DIY Fall Decor (Great Kids Project!)

A terra cotta pot.

Some black paint or a Sharpie.

Fake flowers.

Done.

It's Not You, It's Me....

It's been a while since my last post.

For all the reasons I've been giving you for why my schedule has cut back, it's now grinding to a halt.

It's not that I don't enjoy blogging.
It's not that I don't have fun putting up pictures and writing about the goings-on of my fambly.
It's not that I don't enjoy hearing from you all, and interacting with you through comments and email.

It's not you, it's me.

Work.
6 kids.
Some fluid number that I keep losing track of number of animals.
RAD.
PTSD.
Teenagers.
Cooking.
Cleaning.
Broken appliances.
Broken gates.
Runaway ponies.
Vets.
Farriers.
Doctors.
Dentists.
Orthodontists.
Medicine.
After-school activities.
And more....
      and more......
          and more.......

Sigh.

Anyway, I can't keep up with it anymore. I admit it.

I've got to let the blogging thing go, as much as I hate to.

I won't give it up completely, but I will no longer keep any kind of regular schedule.

It won't be forever. I hope to get back to blogging regularly again someday.

But today is not that day.




Thanks for always being there for me, and for all the support you've always given me! I have the best readers.

You guys really do rock.

Love ya'!