What we've been up to...

Saying we have been busy this month would be an understatement.  I thought I would share what we have been up to in the Smart household through the eyes of my camera...

Archer got his 1st haircut ever.  I was tired of people asking me if he was a boy or a girl, so as much as I didn't want to cut off his cute curls, I did.  He went from looking like a baby to looking like a little boy in just a few minutes.  He wasn't too sure about sitting in that big chair all by himself but as soon as I handed him my car keys, he was good to go and did surprisingly great while the lady cut his hair.

Palmer's hair was getting out of control and is so hard to fix because of how fine it is.  It won't stay up in a pony tail or braid very well and when I leave it down, it just goes crazy.  She was very excited about getting her hair chopped off and it has been much easier to manage and fix.

I had no intention of Harper getting a haircut but after Archer and Palmer got theirs cut, she begged me to take her too.  So off we went.  I asked the lady to cut a little off...well she cut a LOT off but Harper was super happy with it and I liked it a lot better than I thought I would.  Her hair is VERY thick and this new cut has made it much easier to manage.  She also lost a front too about the same time as she got her haircut.  The  other front tooth is barely hanging on so I'm sure I'll have some toothless picture to post soon!

Graham Parks and Rec department put on a wonderful opportunity for the kids in the area.  For two weeks, they had a synthetic ice skating rink at the brand new Children's Museum and each night there would be a fun event.  We went on the two nights that you could skate with characters.  The girls got to skate for the very first time in their lives and meet Belle and Snow White (there was also Batman & Spiderman for the boys).  They had a blast doing it and Daddy, Archer and I had a fun time watching!

We finally had a night that we got to go pick out a tree and decorate it.  We get  a real tree every year as part of our family Christmas traditions and let the kids decorate it with all the ornaments we have.  It might not be a beautiful themed tree but I love having ornaments on there that mean something to us and watching the kids decorate is priceless.  Archer was pretty excited about his first chance to take part in this family tradition.

We got to attend our first family Christmas get together of the season at my aunt's house.  The girls were excited to get to play with their cousin.  A good time was had by both the kids and adults!

We have also been pretty busy creating, decorating, baking and crafting.  The girls love doing all these things and the fun activities help me keep them busy on the days Daddy is traveling.

What have you been up to this month?
 
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Thursday's Tip of the Day...

Thankful All Year Round

I know many of you made a Thankful Tree for the Thanksgiving season.  We had so much fun making ours and talking about what we are thankful for, I just wasn't ready to put it away when it came time to get out the Christmas decorations.  So we made our tree into a Christmas/Winter Thankful Tree.  

Our Fall tree changed into our Winter tree

Why not think about how blessed we are all year not just at Thanksgiving!?! So we are going to leave our tree up all year and change it along with the seasons.  For winter, we made paper snowflakes together as a family (as part of our 25 Days of Christmas Fun) and as we hung them up we said something we were thankful for.  When Spring rolls around, we will do the same thing with handmade paper eggs (I haven't decided what I want to make for our Summer Tree yet). Any suggestions?

What are you thankful for this Christmas season?

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New Christmas Traditions

Since our youngest smartie is a year old and we have completed our little family, I wanted to start some Christmas family traditions.  I, of course, hopped onto Pinterest to get some inspiration.  I came across some wonderful ideas from The Things I Love blog.  As soon as I read about some of the things she does with her family, I got to work getting things ready to do them with my family.

The first fun idea is reading a Christmas book every night.  I got all the Christmas books we already have (and bought a couple new ones) and each day I pick out a different book and put it a gift bag under the tree.  After bath time, the kids open the bag and get out the book for us to read as a bedtime story.  They get so excited about which book we will read that night. After we read the book, it gets put in the book basket in our living room.
The next tradition we started was the 25 Days of Christmas Fun.  I like the list on the blog I mentioned earlier so I decided to use some of those ideas but include some of our own too.  After I typed up our list and  printed it off, I framed it and have it sitting on a counter in the kitchen.  The kids like being able to check off our activity each day with a dry erase marker.

Something I like even better is her list of the 25 Days of Christmas Spirit list.  I  printed off her list and framed it too.  We have had such fun learning the reasons why we do certain things at Christmas. I am sharing what we learn each day on My little smarties Facebook page so you can learn things right along with us.

One of the things on our 25 Days of Christmas fun is to hang a family ornament on the Christmas tree.  I thought it would be fun to pick out one new ornament each year to add to our collection.  I want to get one with the year on it but this year, the girls picked out one that didn't have that on it so I wrote it on the back with paint pen.  I can just imagine how fun it will be to look back, when the kids are grown, and remember each ornament and hopefully a story or two about that Christmas.

                          
Another new tradition we have started is called the Scripture Chain (also from blog mentioned earlier).  Each night at dinner, we will read a scripture and then add it to our paper chain.  On Christmas day, we will have 25 scriptures hanging in our kitchen entryway.  Here are the scriptures so you can print them off too. They are in no particular order.

I also came across these excellent ideas for Random Acts of Kindness Advent Calendar (on Pinterest) that I definitely want to start with my kids when they get a little older.  We will be doing some of these acts this year but since my kids are still small, some of them will be a little hard for us to do.  I did challenge my oldest (who's in kindergarten) to do a little RAK for someone at school every day. 

Here is our list of 25 Days of Christmas Fun but I encourage you to make your own list of things that your family would enjoy doing! I printed off our list onto cute Christmas paper and framed it...

25 Days of Christmas Fun

1. Start our Advent Calendar and set up Nativity scene

2. Make Christmas cookies

3. Have hot chocolate & cookies while watching a Christmas movie.

4. Make paper snowflakes and hang them from our Thankful Tree

5. Hang our new family ornament on the tree (pick a new organment out to add to our tree each year)

6. Go to Candle Tea at Old Salem

7. Take canned goods to church

8. Write/email letters to Santa

9. Make icecream cone Christmas trees

10. Shop for sibling gifts

11. Go see Christmas lights around town

12. Go see the Nutcracker or other Christmas play or movie as a family

13. Go iceskating

14. Attend a family Christmas gathering

15. Watch a movie about the birth of Christ 

16. Go visit Santa at a local store

17. Random Acts of Kindness Day-each person much choose at least one RAK to do for someone

18. Sing our favorite Christmas songs together as a family

19. Wrap presents together

20. Deliver gifts to neighbors

21. Go visit Daddy's family

22. Spend the day with family we don't see often

23. Make the cookies we will leave for Santa

24. Have a nice dinner together, put out cookies for Santa and carrots for Reindeer.

25. Have a wonderful Christmas Day spent with family.

What are some Christmas traditions you do with your family?

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The 4 Gifts Idea (Read)...

1. Something we want

2. Something we need

3. Something to wear

4.  Something to read

 Thank you to Sunny with a Chance of Sprinkles and Vintage Sunshine for hosting this series and making me rethink the way we do Christmas!

Back for the final week in the 4 Gifts Series with our "something to read" list:

Of all the lists, this one is the easiest...maybe too easy because my kids love books and I love buying books for them.  I definitely couldn't stick to the 1-3 limit on this category. 

 If you are looking to not spend a fortune on books, check out the Scholastic Book Orders your child(ren) bring home from school.  The books are great prices and every time your order online, you get a $5 off your next order coupon!  You might want to ask the teacher to get the order to you and not hand it to your child to bring home (that happened to me recently...oh well they got some early Christmas presents.)  Another place I have found some really cheap, cute books is Ollie's Discount Store.  Not sure if you have one in your area but you can get hardback books for as cheap as $1.99!

For Harper and Palmer (daughters ages 6 & 4):

 These are the books that they picked out but they will be getting books I have ordered from Scholastic too.

Archer (son age 13 months): 

 Archer will also be getting some books from the Scholastic book order.

 

Me:

 I know I'm so behind on the Hunger Games books but I want to read them before I see the movie.

What is something you have been wanting to read that you could ask for, for Christmas?  I would love some more suggestions on books for me. I love to read, it's finding time to do it that's the hard part!

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The 4 Gifts Idea (Need)...

We are so blessed because it was hard to think of what things we really needed.  But after some thought this is what we came up with...

Harper and Palmer (daughters-ages 6 & 4)

#1-A new humidifier. They usually get a cold or two during the winter months and we always keep a humidifier in their room when that happens.  Unfortunately, the one we were using was recently dropped and broken into many pieces.

#2-I don't get the girls hair cut often but by Christmas time they will definitely be in need of a trim and shape up.  There is a place that caters to children's haircuts called Snip-Its. The girls love to go there but seeing as it's a little more than I want to pay for a haircut, it's not often they get to go. They would love to get a gift card to this place.

#3-Some workbooks for enrichment. They love doing these and we are in need of some new ones!

Archer (son-age 12 months)

#1-My son has been using his sister's old pink blanket on his bed. I think it's about time to get him a more boyish one.

#2-Diapers-can't have enough of those!

#3-Wipes (I love making homemade wipes but sometimes it's just easier to grab a pack and go.)


Me Ok so I decided to include myself in this one :)

 #1-I know this sounds cliche but I NEED to spend time with my family.  Last year was just plain crazy...we moved on Thanksgiving day (with a 1 month old) and Christmas was lonely. I was having a super difficult time with my newborn but didn't want my daughters to miss out on Christmas with family, so my husband and girls drove 3.5 hrs away to spend Christmas Eve with his family. So, yes this year, I need my family! And as I was looking for a family picture, I also realized we need somemore of those...this one is the only one I could find of all 5 of us!

#2-I always need a calendar for Christmas and I love this Mom's Calendar.  I write down everything, am a list maker, and just love to be organized so this is something I definitely need.

#3-Now that I have gotten into freezer cooking and making healthier recipes for my family, I have all kinds of recipes in about three different places...not ok with me. Like I said, I need to be organzied so a place to store all my recipes would be great! 

 What do you need for Christmas?  Was is as hard for you as it was for me to think of things you actually need instead of just want?

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The 4 Gifts Idea

When I first saw this idea, I thought to myself how simple yet genius! My kids always end up with waaay to many toys, most which hardly get played with after they are opened. So last weekend, I told my kids that Santa sent mommies and daddies an email and said this was his guidelines for Christmas gifts this year.  I told them the four categories.  My six year old's first comment was, "but what about toys?' I told her that would be under the "Things you want" category.  She and her sister were just fine once I explained that to them.  

So I asked the girls what it was they wanted for Christmas.  They thought for a while and then said, "I don't know." OK clear sign they have way too many toys!! I told them what my brothers and I did a few times when we were growing up...instead of asking Santa for a few smaller things, we would all ask for one big thing that we could share.  I could see the wheels turning in their little heads.  They were trying to think of something big that they and their one year old brother could all enjoy.  Then it hit them....a playhouse!  So we got on the interest and searched for something they would all like.  This was their favorite one (well favorite close to our price change. haha)...

All the playhouses we looked at were in the $300-$375 but I'd love to get it cheaper so I'm going to keep my eyes out for any internet deals, Black Friday deals, check out places like Costco (where I've seen similar playhouses for cheaper) and also keep my eyes on ebay and craigslist.  If you know of another place that might have a good deal on an outdoor playhouse, please let me know! 

Another thing we are doing, along with the 4 Gifts idea is having the children pick out at least five toys, they already have that they have outgrown or lost interest in and we are going to donate them.  This idea led to a great conversation starter with my four and six year old.  We talked about being blessed and grateful for what we had. Both of them told me what kinds of things they were thankful for (a nice house, food to eat, clothes to wear, toys to play with, family.  After they did that, I asked them how they would feel if one of those things was taken away.  Their faces immediately changed.  I then explained how there are some kids out there who are not as lucky as they are- who don't have nice clothes to wear, a house to live in, food always available, a family, etc.  My six year old said that made her sad.  We then talked about ways we can help out those in need.  That's when I told them the idea that they would go through their toys and pick out at least five things (that are still in good shape) and we would leave them in a bag for Santa to take with him when he came on Christmas Eve.  They were so excited, they ran into the playroom and started going through all their toys. 

Thank you to Pinterest for this idea and photo!

I am so glad I came across these two ideas (I love the internet!) and we have now started two new traditions in our house!  I challenge you to stick to your list this year instead of going crazy and overbuying (like I always have) and to donate some of those toys that are just sitting around, not getting attention.  Remember the true meaning of Christmas and let's instill that in our children!

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