Red & Green

How was your weekend??  Mine was fabulous!  It started off with a bang with a ladies night ornament exchange at my friend Courtney's house.  I stuffed myself with delicious food and stayed up way too late!

Then Saturday morning we ventured out to our local Festival of Trees, where the kids made some fun crafts and searched for their favorite decorated tree.

Then in the evening, we donned our full snow gear and braved the single digit temps to attend the lighted Christmas parade and fireworks over the frozen lake.  It sure was cold, but worth it.  We're making memories, no matter what the weather may be!

It started snowing over night, and continued all day Sunday, so I volunteered Daddy for playing in the snow with the kids after church.  The first time this season!  We had a nice, low-key day, and then I snuck out in the evening for a much needed haircut! 

Now, on the the "fashion" portion of this post...

Is it possible to wear red and green together and not look like a Christmas tree?  I say, YES! 

Scarf: GroopDealz / Vest & Chambray: JCPenney / Jeans: H&M / Boots: Old Navy

Red and green are complimentary colors, so they definitely look good together.  But I'm guessing most of us avoid wearing them together, because we don't want to resemble a decorated evergreen.  Or an elf.  Which is easy for me to do anyways, since I'm only 5 foot 2...  on a good day.  So yeah, how?  I think it just depends on the shades of each color, and how you wear them.  Olive is a great shade of green to wear with red.  You could also do mint!  Or darken both colors and do burgundy and olive...  Also, using an accessory of some sort for one of the colors is a good way to add that pop of color without being too overwhelming.  And pairing red and green with neutrals will definitely tone down the Christmas vibe.  Of course, I could be giving you crazy advice, I'm just making this up as I go!  Haha!

How would you wear red and green?? 

Linking up:  Greater Than Rubies - Remix Rewear Restyle

Advent Activities

Anyone out there looking for ideas for this Advent season?  Here's the list of what we did in 2012. 

1.  Festival of Trees and Christmas by the Lake (local activities)
2.  Visit Santa
3.  Hang candy canes on the Christmas tree
4.  Bake cookies
5.  Make paper snowflakes
6.  Drink hot chocolate with fun marshmallows (we had chocolate mint)
7.  Elf Yourself (app)

8.  Snow paint
9.  Make Christmas goodies (recipes to come...)
10.  Snowman pancakes for supper
11.  Make salt dough ornaments
12.  Play in the snow
13.  Make Christmas play dough (with glitter and peppermint!)
14.  Buy a toy to donate to Toys for Tots
15.  Make Christmas popcorn to share with friends
16.  Go to the library and read Christmas books

17.  Make (and eat!) ice cream cone Christmas trees
19.  Go to a Christmas party
20.   Koen's birthday party :)
21.  Make Christmas cards
22.  Make Gingerbread houses (with Grandma!)
23.  Open a present (new jammies!)
24.  Drive around looking at Christmas lights

We will be repeating many of these this year, and trying a few new things! 

Here are a bunch of ideas:

Watch a specific Christmas movie (Elf, Santa Buddies, A Christmas Story, The Polar Express etc.)
Watch TV Christmas specials (Frosty, Rudolf, Charlie Brown, etc.)
Build a snowman
Make snow angels
Go sledding
Bake a birthday cake for Jesus
Have a candlelit dinner
Sleep under the tree
Dance to Christmas music
Ring the Salvation Army Bell
Set up a Nativity
Give goodies to the neighbors
Make ornaments or other Christmas crafts

Who knows what we'll actually end up doing!  I just pick and choose as we go, whatever fits into our schedule.  I'll do my best to share along the way!

What are your favorite Advent activities??

Check out my Christmas Pinterest board for all sorts of fun ideas, crafts and recipes!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Yay!  Our Christmas tree is up and decorated!  We have quite the hodgepodge of ornaments, but it's fun!  I think the kids did a pretty good job!  :)

As you can see, I decided not to do a book a day this year, but to have our Christmas books available all month.  A certain book lover I know was pretty happy about that!

I put up our Advent calendar last night, and I did it differently this year.  And I love it!

I dug an old, big poster frame out of the closet.  I turned the poster around to create a white background, cut six lengths of this fun silver string, and taped them to the back.  My sweet hubby helped.  :)  We just eyeballed it and tried to space them somewhat evenly.  Then we were able to clip four cards to each string.  We hung it up in some empty wall space in our living area.  This will be so much easier to work with than the giant clothesline above the kitchen cupboards was last year!

We also put up our outside lights yesterday, because it was a balmy forty-some degrees.  This is our third winter here, and our first time actually putting lights on the house.  The last couple years we've just plopped our light-up deer in the yard and put a string of lights on the deck.  I was so excited to make my husband put a little more effort into it this year! 

My husband is afraid of one thing...  Any guesses?? :-D

Thankful Thursday #4 & Our Christmas Books

First of all, I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving!  We were so blessed to spend time with family, and we came home with some great bingo prizes!  Read: CANDY!  :)

Sorry for missing my Thankful Thursday post this week...  I was too busy enjoying life to post about it.  So here it is.  I'm so thankful to live in this country.  I'm thankful for my friends and family.  I'm thankful for my loving husband and my amazing children.  I'm thankful for a roof over our heads and food in our cupboards.  I'm thankful for our church and the freedom to openly worship the one true God.  I'm thankful for the freedom to homeschool and the experience of watching my children learn.  I'm thankful for Jesus and the hope that He brings.  And I'm thankful that the season of celebrating His birth is here!

Thank you, Father God.  You are so good.  Thank you for meeting all my needs.  Thank you for your abundant blessings.  Thank you for Jesus. 

And with that, I want to share with you a list of Christmas books!  Last year, as part of our Advent countdown, I brought out a new Christmas or winter book each day leading up to Christmas.  These are just books that we have collected over the years.  Many of them are from Scholastic.  I've had quite a few people ask me to share the complete list, so here they are. 

These are some great books about the real reason for the season: Jesus!

Room for a Little One
J is for Jesus
God Gave Us Christmas
What Is Christmas?
Christmas in the Manger
My Christmas Gift
Fear Not, Joseph!
The Last Straw

And these books are just fun!

Little Porcupine's Christmas
Mooseltoe
Christmas Mice
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies
Corduroy's Christmas Surprise
A Small Christmas
Froggy's Best Christmas
Froggy Gets Dressed
The Little Snowflake
Gingerbread Mouse
I've Seen Santa
The Biggest Christmas Tree Ever
The Biggest Snowman Ever
Clifford's Christmas
Jingle Bells
Christmas Wishes

In addition to the books, we hung a countdown clothesline.  I made cards out of some fun scrapbook paper and number stickers.  About as crafty as I get... 

Each morning we would open a card to find a note with something fun we were going to do that day.  To make it easy and also reusable, I would just put a sticky note inside the night before for the next day.  That way I didn't have to plan too far ahead!  I will be posting a ton of advent ideas soon!

The clothesline will go up tonight, and our first activity is putting up the Christmas tree!!!  Tomorrow!  Yay!

What are your favorite children's Christmas books??