Crafting: Holiday Projects

So I found an old piece of painted trim in the basement and fell in love with the colour. Decided to turn it into an advent calendar for the kids. Just clothespins (weathered from being left outside by the previous owners! Score.) and wood glue!

We actually installed ours on the wall in a semi-permanent sort of way, but our thinking is that in the off-season we can hang teabags or herbs to dry from the pins.

The kids have been enjoying opening an envelope each night.

We also fiddled around with a Christmas chandelier of sorts, using LED Christmas lights and a hula hoop. Leveling it was... not fun. We have it kinda sorta figured out now, though.

4: Pirate Party

Captain Tightpants turned four and everyone (okay, mainly mum and dad) wanted to be pirates:

The first map led the kids around the yard to the location of the  X - the second map.

 

Going on a treasure hunt.

 

The kids were shockingly good at reading a map.

 

Booty.

 

 

 

 

 

Why yes, the sails on this did catch on fire when I added and lit the candles...

Pirate treats:

The Slacking, it burns...

Meep, it's been a while!

Christmas was pretty wonderful. It was just the younger generations this year, since we all decided to do the “move ridiculously far from home all at the same time" thing. But we had lots of peeps and lots of food, and the kids were beyond cute.

Light snow - we've had about four feet since then.

 

 A few wee projects:

Sis-in-law and her husband blew us away again with some homemade pretties:

Yes, that is a handmade Minecraft Creeper and some handmade Angry Birds, along with some gorgeous hand-painted art for the kids' room.

I made some cool stuff that I neglected to take pictures of before storing away, so we'll just forget I ever said anything and pretend that they're new next Christmas.

As for New Year's, I wasn't going to do the official Resolution thing, and then I read this Cracked article and decided to be more awesome. So we'll see how that goes. Life is good.

Three

Captain Tightpants is now Captain Underpants and is “growing up so big!" Three years old yesterday.

My take on a Very Hungry Caterpillar cake

  

His take on it...

Om nom nom

He is his mother's son

We built them a sand table out of this... table... thing that we found in Guest Cottage #1 when we moved in. It was this kind of industrial wood-grain-metal counter with an open top and a big shelf underneath (toy storage, hello!). I spray-painted it red, we made a lid for it out of some old particle board found onsite (varnished it, to keep the rain out), then filled it with Crayola play sand.

Happy Birthday, little dude.

Fallen Fruit For Sale in the Hood

Today we ran into a couple of little girls from down the street selling apples from public trees for “whatever people would like to pay for them".

*smiles giddily*

We bought two, natch.

Snow Day. Part 3.

The last snow pics of the season? Could be, could be.

Snow Day. Part 2.

Same snow, different day.