Tree Decorations

These are our latest idea.. made from tops from creme fraiche.

Wreath Alternative to Make at Home

Today Cora was at a friend's house so Calvin, Maia and I went to the Happy Plant garden centre. They have a fantastic Christmas display, part of which is pictured here. Santa sometimes "tells stories" too which the kids love. They also have a darkened room with all the different lights and things. We went through that 4 times today on Maia's request!

One of the things that caught my eye in this Christmas wonderland was a wreath alternative made from wood, in a tree shape, with wicker woven roughly around it. It had a bell hanging in the centre. So I picked up a roll of ribbon, and some bells. It took me a while to figure out how I could make it at home. In the end I bent a wire hanger into shape, then wrapped paper towels around each section to pad it out. I then hot glued the ribbon around it and tied on a bell. Pretty simple, took me about an hour. It may not look very professional but I love it and so does the family. :)

Beaver Scouts

Well, tonight was the 2nd week of Beaver Scouts for Cora and Calvin. They really enjoyed it. They had a trip to Morrisons, woohoo! They were actually really excited about it, bless them. They're studying healthy eating, so they were shown all the fresh food, ate some fruit, handled some fish (that was the highlight apparently), talked to by the butcher about meat... all good. Although I think some of the customers thought something weird was going on as there was a crowd of parents standing near the door looking curiously into the fruit and veg section trying to see their children! We did get some odd looks. :)

Calvin is sincerely hoping that the Beaver Scouts go camping or at least for a night away, as he has been wanting to do that for a while now. Cora has been on trips several times with Rainbows and now Brownies. He goes to Boys Brigade and they don't do trips so he has felt a bit left out.

They should have their 'promise' (I don't remember what they call it) in about 4 weeks. I don't know if it's just me but I honestly feel myself starting to tear up when I see them in a situation like that. I can usually hold the tears back but I feel that lump in my throat! Even today I was really proud of them for listening to what they were being told, as I was watching them in the group - many of the kids were trying to run away and literally being caught by one of the leaders. Watching Cora and Calvin standing nicely and interacting with the adults easily as they spoke was really nice. :)

In other news, Maia should be starting 2's group in the next week or two. We went to get the forms and it happened to be at the same time as 2's group was starting, so she played while I filled out the form. She was very upset to leave and kept asking to go back! While she's there I will be taking Cora and Calvin swimming, because at the local pool you can only take 2 under 8's at any one time. If I can get Cora swimming proficiently then she can take the swimming test, if she passes that I can take all 3 in by myself.

Tattie Holidays

Homemade Advent Calendar

So very simple... the hard part is thinking of things for the kids to do each day. We have things like, pajamas and Christmas movies, go for a winter walk, hot chocolate by candlelight and reading by fairy light (school room ceiling has fairy lights). There are also some very simple things like colour a Christmas picture.

For this project I used:

Maybe 5m/15' ribbon (at a guess)

Pegs (I used small coloured ones but you could use normal ones)

Holographic Card (very cheap at the pound shop)

Markers

And that's about it! Except I did put a small bow on the 24th instead of ribbon.

All I did was cut bits of card in half, then each half into four roughly equal strips (cutting across the shorter length). Of course I counted 24 out. Then I folded them over so that the two ends met at the back side of the 'gift'. Inside I wrote a special thing to do for the day. Then I wrapped a ribbon around it, wrote the number on it in marker, and pegged it to the line.

I think the kids are really going to love it. I can't wait to see their faces when I put it up!