The things we do

- Put up the camping tent in our basement and play in it for hours.
- Mix up batches of Oatcakes and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. For Daddy, of course.
- Make the tastiest batch of ice cream ever. No joke.
- Do a lot of art and watch the sticker stash dwindle.
- Play "pillows" (This means all couch pillows go on the floor and you take a big running leap to belly flop on them.)
- Go to Wiggleworms to sing and dance and jam with a very special teacher, and then...
- Listen to audio stories on the car ride home.
- Play hard at preschool.
- Go to baby book hour. 
- Plan social time with friends. Co-workers and advisors. Kids with kids. Moms with moms. Parents and kids with parents and kids. Birthday parties galore. And the bestest, most importantest one of all: date night.
- Cook and host a Soup Swap.
- Suit up and take a walk, even if it's only 15 minutes.
- Combat the frigid cold outside with a warm kitchen inside. Granola. Soup. Oatmeal. Hot tea.
- Wear fuzzy jammies that zip from toe to chin.
- Receive envelope of seed packets and start to dream about seedlings and spring...

Role play

Christopher's independent play has become very organized and focused in the last week since Colin, Christopher, and I started attending music classes again.

With ankles adorned in jingle bells and a bag of music (printed out chord sheets and sheet music "with real notes, please, Mama") slung over his shoulder, he strums a C chord (the only chord he knows!) as loudly as he can and encourages his students to jump and sing and clap at the top of his lungs. He shouts "good job!" and "nice jumping!" to his imaginary participants and carries on the most earnest one-way conversations.

When it's time to wrap up the class, I hear him say, "okay, guys, it's time to say goodbye!" and "thank you for coming to my music class!" and he strums and sings a goodbye song. Then, he ducks out of his room to let me know that he's headed, "to the next class" and we tune up his guitar for his next stop.

I'm thinking that we need to restring his instrument to accommodate his left-handed strumming style and make it easier for him to at least learn G7 and F and few more chords beyond that. He'll be delighted when he can accompany himself. So much fun!

Advent Ideas

In my last post I mentioned that I had stuffed our Advent Calendar with a daily note of a special to-do or a tiny treat. As much as I tried to stick with the notes, there were about 5 days in there that I resorted to a dark chocolate Hershey's kiss, and believe me, there were no complaints! Still, it was fun to accomplish many of our seasonal and holiday tasks by drumming up the enthusiasm of the younger members of our household. Afterall, going to the post office and mailing a huge stack of cards is very exciting if you get to shove them in a special mail slot. And dropping coins in the caroling Salvation Army bell ringer's bucket is pretty great, too. 

I've italicized the ideas that I actually used. Also, I printed this list out in duplicate before the month started so that I could easily repeat an activity if it proved to be a hit.

Activities are organized in three categories according to effort/prep, time, and cost. Having a huge menu of choices was key to making sure we had a little something to look forward to each day - big or small.

WHOLE FAMILY/WEEKEND ACTIVITIES

Go to the Christmas market in city

Go ice skating

Have lunch at a special restaurant

Have our friends over for a special snack

Take a drive to see Christmas lights

Take Christmas card pictures

Go sledding

Watch a Christmas movie

Go to a Christmas music concert

Caroling at Cloud Gate

See the Lincoln Park Zoo Lights

Wonderland Express at the Gardens

Ride the CTA Holiday Train

SOME PLANNING INVOLVED

Make a present

Visit Daddy at work for snacktime

Make pomanders

Gift shopping for Daddy/Mama/brothers

Hang up mistletoe in the house

Make pinecone bird feeders

Make cookies & deliver to neighbors

Make pinecone elves

Make meringue snowmen

Go for an afternoon nature walk

Bring home a Christmas tree

Decorate Christmas tree

Donate to a food or toy drive

Bake gingerbread men

Take city bus to library and check out a Christmas/Winter book

SUPER EASY

Have hot cocoa and cookies

Write a letter to Santa

Make pipe cleaner ornaments

Make “woven” ornaments

Make paper snowflakes

Make gift tags

Blow ice bubbles outside

Make ice votives

Mail Christmas cards

Make a paper garland for the tree

Color in a Christmas picture

Have a Christmas Carols dance party

Drop coins in Salvation Army bell ringer’s bucket

A chocolate kiss!

Holiday Reflections

We had such fun in our home celebrating the holidays this year. I think this was largely due to our relaxed pace and our intentionally slow wind up to the big days just before Christmas.

Perhaps the most stress-relieving move we made over the holidays was the decision to stay put in our own house. Of course, we missed our families and missed our friends who live where we grew up, but we are very thankful for video conferencing in its many forms. Hurray for the internets! :) Being in our own home meant we had fun with our own new traditions and explored what the holiday season in Chicagoland has to offer. I'm positive that we barely scratched the surface. There will be plenty to look forward to in years to come.

This year I finally created a quilted pocket Advent Calendar that I've been scheming of sewing for years now. I loosely based it on this one and used fabric entirely from my stash. Stash-busting felt great! It will return to The Holiday Decoration Box (very much singular for everyone's sanity) unbound, but there's always next year for that. At least I finally embroidered our names on our stockings this year... that's only taken the better part of a decade... The pockets were filled primarily with notes and seasonally-inspired activities. I'll share my list in another post.

We also acknowledged Winter Solstice this year, which was very fun. I hope to do more of that in years to come. Christopher was especially sensitive to the early arrival of nighttime and I think that further talk about solstice - the physical/earth science part of it, the biorhythms that we notice/feel shifting, and the alignment of religious celebrations - will be interesting for us all. And a celebratory sun cake never hurts, either!

Here are a few highlights from our vacation:
Oohing and ahhing over Wonderland Express at the Chicago Botanic Gardens, riding the CTA Holiday Train, driving to see Christmas lights in Sauganash, receiving holiday cards and photos from friends and family, watching the snow fall so picturesquely on Christmas morning and sledding in it on the days following with neighborhood friends, renting a few movies, going on a date!, learning to tune and play Christopher's ukelele, donating to those less fortunate, hosting a cookie exchange party for my girlfriends, having frequent Christmas Music Dance Parties, watching Colin become a full-fledged biped and cringing as he diligently works on his speed...

Happy New Year to our friends and family near and far.

May you have an abundance of Health and Happiness in 2013.